Growth Rings as a finger print

  

I may have my dates wrong on this, but I’m close.

About 1993 they found a Viking dragon ship in the muck of the bogs of Northern England.  Archeologists excavated it and did whatever they do to clean it all up.  But then somebody had the question, where did it come from.  So they started looking and tried to figure out how to figure out where this Viking longship came from.  After floundering for months, somebody came up with the bright idea to take a core sample from the keel of the ship (because typically on a wooden ship, the keep is the singular larges piece of lumber in its construction).  So they took the core sample and started studying the growth rings.  By studying the growth rings they were able to tell the weather patterns of the years during the trees growth (flood, draught, fire, etc.).   So once they figured out the weather patterns they started looking around for another record of weather dating back 800(?) years.  What they finally came to first start comparing to, was arctic snow/ ice core samples.  Comparing the two they were able to identify the exact year which that tree was cut down in order to make the keel.   Continuing with the fascination of the idea, they decided to see if they could find the forest used to make the ship.  They went around the port, that became the bog the ship was found in and finally found a “forest” of stumps buried a few feet underground a couple of miles away.   So they started digging around and digging up stumps and wouldn’t you know it, lo and behold they actually managed to find the exact tree that became the keel.  How did they know it was the same tree?  The growth rings of course.  

So they started looking around at other trees of this forest and comparing it to other parts of this longship and were able to identify several other parts back to specific trees.  Somewhere along during this the forestry ministry of England heard about what they were doing and went and asked them how accurate they could be.  The response was, they’ve been 98% accurate in identifying parts of the shop and various other artifacts that they had found.  So the ministry came up with a great idea. 

Now see there’s a little known problem around the world – poaching – of trees.  Some will call it illegal logging, but it’s basically the definition of going into protected lands and cutting down rare and endangered species of trees in order to sell them from profit.  But now we’re back to the fingerprints.  When you cut down a tree you leave a stump.  That stump has growth rings, those growth rings are the trees fingerprint, and now we can find and track the log.  So this is just what the English forestry ministry proposed.  What they proposed was simple, take a data base of the fingerprint/ growth ring of every log harvested.  

Somehow, somebody in NATO thought this was a great idea.  So around 2003 this became standard practice for any responsible nation.   Now, can we catch the random little tribesmen in the jungle cutting down a tree?  No.  Can we tell that a tree has been illegally harvested?  Yes.  Can we track that illegally harvested tree back to its source?  Absolutely.  At least as far as the first man who bought it.  And he of course is the problem.  So now we can lock him up and the villager or tribesman can get a commission to legally harvest when and where appropriate.  Thereby protecting the natural resources. 

So I’m thinking this is going to be one huge database at some point, with all of the gazillion trees cut down worldwide every year.  But, it’s kind of a nice thought that in a 1000 years somebody will be able to find my table and track it down to the forest that it started in.  Hopefully they’ll appreciate the work I’ve done.  

Peanut butter and cheese whiz jars

For me the repurposing is as follows: I will be making an old time tool box tote, sized to hold 10 large peanut butter jars (2 rows of 5).  These will be used to hold all of my various sized dowels.  Maybe even some biscuits, if I ever decide to get that technologically advanced. 

I use aniline dyes.  In my opinion there’s nothing better, but that’s for another blog.  My problem is, that they keep changing the packaging.  Making it impossible to make one storage device to hold all of the dyes.  So my fix is Cheez Whiz jars.   I’m glad I love the stuff.  They come with a rubber gasket and are made of glass, making them both clear and air tight. 

Where do ideas like this come from?
My grandfather used to have hundreds of baby food jars nailed to the underside of 2x4s all over the garage.  They were filled with nuts, bolts, this and thats.  Why is it that our grandfolks would repurpose everything and never throw anything away.  But we seem to think that I would have to go buy special jars to hold all of these things, instead of simply using what the grocery store was kind enough to give me along with the food I paid for.  This is one of the many lessons I learned from my grandfolks.  Hopefully some of you out there are young enough to learn the lesson from me.  Yeah trash is trash, but there’ s no reason to throw away perfectly good stuff just because “it has the wrong name painted on it”.  

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How to distinguish Red Oak vs. White Oak?

#1 Way to do this: read the sign over the stack in the store

#2 Color: Red Oak is red, with some white streaks.  White Oak has a yellowish grey tinge to it, with white streaks. 

#3 White Oak is heavier

#4 Now that we have all of the “DUH” answer out of the way, here is a neat trick.

Find a smoker.  They can blow smoke into the end grain of White Oak and it will travel down the veins and arteries of the wood.  I have had it travel up to 3 feet through White Oak.  Red Oak, the veins and arteries tend to be more clogged and I’ve never had it travel more than 5 inches.  So when you find the squirrely piece that really could be a little too heavy be Red or maybe too dark to be White, find a smoker.  This is a sure fire way to tell.  

No animals were harmed in the writing of this post!

What is Liquid Hide We’ve all heard of horses going to the glue factory. But what part of the horse did they actually make into glue. Sorry folks, no it’s not the whole horse. There were actually three glues made from a horse.

Number 1: the least common, blood glue.
 This had a weak holding power and was typically used for either a stain (being washed off after application and leaving only a stain) or for very temporary holdings (the way we would use tape today).

Number 2: actually used the skin of the horse.
This was a reasonably usable glue. It was able to be made in large quantities, for obvious reasons, and it had a decent amount of holding power. But it was commonly used for jigs and fixtures and other things that you knew you’d be taking apart in a few days for weeks.

Number 3: the liquid hide we actually think of, when it’s referred to, is actually not made of the whole hide it is only made of the snout and the soft pad under the hoof of the horses foot.
This obviously meaning you don’t get to make as much from any particular horse. This is the stuff that we hear about, that held very well, started with an initial tack, would hold for decades and like all the others was reversible with nothing more than steam. All three of these glues are made in the same fashion. Basically they throw the parts into a big pot and boil it until everything turns into mush and then boil it down a little more until it gets a little bit of thickness too it. Then it’s dried out completely into flakes, broken up and sold. To use it, you put it in a pot with a little bit of water and re-boil it, returning it to its former goo. Simple stuff, simply works, really stinky to make.

Islands in motion

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Islands - Finished Jewelry Box!

A one of a kind hand-made, heart-shaped jewelry box.  This custom made, large ring box is turned from a Manzanita burl (number 5 on the wood density scale). This is the only piece I make that starts with a chain saw and ends with a high gloss.

The piece was first turned on a lathe. The natural voids have all been hollowed and then lined in pure silver. The voids were then filled with a resin colored to an off white/ pearlescent to achieve the cloud effect.



The entire piece was then hollowed by hand before finishing.



 
A custom made silver heart with 5 Garnets was then inset into the top.