sutton046

I recently had the pleasure of running another 4 day woodworking program for graduates of the Earth Carer's Course, funded by the Mindarie Regional Council. The MRC is one of the Waste Management Authorities responsible for waste management across 7 of the local government areas in the Perth Metropolitan area. The Earth Carer's Course produces people who are wised up about recycling and waste, and passionate about reducing our consumption and waste of resources. More info about the course here: http://www.mrc.wa.gov.au/Community/Earth-Carers.aspx Held at Earthwise in Subiaco again, we offered a range of workshops - basic woodworking for those who had not done any before, and (for the first time) workshops at an "intermediate" level, for those who were hungry to learn more skills. Once again, the focus was on recycling wood which had been previously destined for land fill, and in equipping people to do that recycling by learning basic woodworking hand skills and techni...

One of my favourite timbers to work with would have to be Blackbutt. Western Australian Blackbutt, to be precise -  Eucalyptus patens . A very hard, dense and light coloured timber, the tree grows naturally in the wetter areas of the jarrah forest in the south west of Western Australia. Around the edges of swamps and watercourses, and in low lying areas. A tiny proportion of the original forest now remains. With most of these remnant trees now locked up in National Parks and stream reserves, it is not as readily available as it used to be. Fortunately, my mate Terry at Heritage Sawmillers  http://www.wahardwoods.com.au/ can still get hold of a few logs every now and then. That is where I obtain most of my Blackbutt timber. For those who like the technical stuff, Blackbutt is a hard wood. The Air Dried Density (at 12% moisture content) for WA Blackbutt is 930kg/m3, compared with 530kg/m3 for Douglas Fir, and 700kg/m3 for European Oak. (S...

Timber is being used to freight goods all over the world every day. As packing cases, crates, dunnage, and other forms of packaging. Viewed as low value timber, some if it is just that - but some of it is absolutely beautiful stuff just waiting to be utilsed and given a higher value life. When I am teaching woodworking hand skills, one of the first projects we do is to make kitchen chopping boards, often from this material. I do a lot of work with recycled and salvaged timber. Part of what I also hope to do is to help people understand our incredible wastage as we dump so much timber into landfill. Nice wide pieces of packing crates offer wonderful opportunities to use sawing and planingskill to create beautiful and functional items. Why not?  Check out the pic of this treasure trove of timber at a Waste Management Facility. A wood dump, predoninantly comprising of packaging and dunnage. For a person who is keen on recycling timber, this pile contai...