I’ve inherited four 10′ wood beams, 6″ X 6″ in section, that turn out to be red oak. (Believe it or not, they were the foundation of my dad’s chicken house. Fortunately they seem not to have absorbed – er, anything…)
I’m just jonesing to make something out of them, preferably without resawing them down too much. I’ll probably get a pair of 7/4 bed slats out of one, but the other three are up for grabs. Any ideas what I might be able to build out of these honkin’ pieces of oak?
Replies
Maybe a base for a new workbench? Or a base for a big Prarie or arts and crafts table? Geese what a nice position to be in, congrats! Guess the chickens were pretty highly thought of?
Edited 3/19/2004 10:41 am ET by Dirt Stirrer
The chickens WERE highly thought of, but these beams are nothing compared with the Stickley chairs their nests were on...
Actually my dad didn't think this way at all; I'm sure he needed beams to set his henhouse on, these were available, so there ya go. I, on the other hand, never thought to see what species of wood they were, because who would put a henhouse on huge oak beams?...
Stickley chairs, LOL, I like that! Any rosewood in the outhouse? My brothers place has an old wood framed potato celler, 300 ft. long by 50 ft. wide, all framed with huge, up to 12" by 12" pine beams. I drool over that lumber everytime I'm over there. Amazing what the oldtimers had avalible isn't it? Gotta go watch the Pres...Steve
Chad
Glue them together and you got the start of a "totem pole".
:>)
sarge..jt
Proud member of the : "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Chad, what a fantastic gift. You'll have fun with them, I'm sure. A word of caution here -- although they don't seem to "have absorbed - er, anything..." it'd be a good idea to pretend that they did. Don't have any food in the shop during the period you're building with them, and wash your hands well before eating, after you've worked the wood.
Is Jamie losing it? suffering from acute paranoia? Well, I hope not. I'll give you the story. Years and years ago I worked at the vet school at UC Davis. When I started, the horse barns were just coming out of a long, long (6-9 months?) period of being shut down due to a salmonella outbreak that had contaminated the stalls and took super-human efforts to completely eradicate.
It was absolutely amazing. If memory serves, they closed the facility down after the initial outbreak, stripped all the stalls, cleaned and cleaned with strong disinfectants, but it wasn't totally effective. When horses were introduced back into the facility, they were getting infected with the salmonella. It took an incredibly long time to rid the surfaces completely of the bacteria. It cost the school millions of dollars when all was said and done.
I don't know how long salmonella can remain viable, but 'twere I you, I'd pretend they're there unless a bacteriologist or other expert can reassure us they'd be daid, daid, daid (that's "dead" with an accent).
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
If you are suspicious of the sanitation of the wood, the wood can be sterilized with heat. Perhaps a local lumber kiln can help. Or, you can make something up yourself. I can't help with what temperature and time you'd need.
Thanks for the advice, Wayne, but this isn't my old chicken coop, so to speak. If it were, I'm not sure I'd want to mess with heating this nicely cured and stabilized lumber, and microbes are pretty creative about surviving such things.
I'm not too worried about Chad's wood being dangerous, but just wanted to throw that out for consideration.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
Aha! So "forestgirl's" secret identity is Jamie! - Jamie, thanks for the heads-up, I'll keep it in mind. I think I've decided to build a trestle-style dining table, maybe just a dight more elegant than the usual country style.
It feels good to be working again; as some may remember, I had bypass surgery in Sept. and have been most of the winter recuperating. I'm strong enough now both to chop mortises and to huck my mallet across the shop when things aren't going right (temperamental artist!) so I guess I'm on the mend...
P.S. Jamie, why are you "unknown"?
Edited 3/21/2004 9:30 pm ET by Chad
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