I thought I would share a picture of a beautiful piece of Bocote I came across. There is a furniture/cabinet shop in town and when I am in the area I sometimes go dumpster diving (well more like scrap heap salvaging)for unique pieces. This one is 5"x5"x2' and very dense and dry. Probably weighs 5 lbs. It is much smoother and tighter grained than the picture shows. I will probably resaw it to 1/2" planks....going to make something really pretty I think.

Click here to view attached image.

Yeah I am excited to work with this....The planks look awesome

Click here to view attached image.

I also appreciate the beauty of wood.

The late Floyd Thayer, and, several other UNlate 'magi-crafters", like Michael Baker, made/make exquisite props, from "bits" of wood.

There is a lumber mill here in town than carries a lot of wood species. Its like going to an art museum for me. Grin

Same here. A very nice woodshop with a great selection of domestics and exotics. There are several exotics that I can no longer work with, due to allergies, but I still enjoy window shopping every time I'm there.

When I worked as a chef, I knew that you could tell if a restaurant was making money just by looking in the garbage can. The same thing is true for woodshops. Tabby Crabb was a good friend, and he once mentioned that when he got done making big boxes, he made smaller boxes from the scraps. When he got done making smaller boxes, he made paddle tricks from the scraps. In a nutshell, the philosophy is "Don't throw away anything".

Most of my best "finds" at the woodshop are from the scrap bin.

Dannicus, that's a beautiful piece of wood!

I haven't had time for a while now but in the past I have looked through furniture thrown out from bulk pick up days. Once you get through all the flat pack stuff every once in a while you can find some beautiful solid wood. I made a really nice set of serving trays for a friend out of some nice walnut under about 4 coats of paint.

It always amazes me what gets thrown away but it really boggles me when people paint over walnut...uugh

Tabby gave me a tip to look in thrift stores for old bed rails.

That's a good idea!

Re purposed furniture is a great resource. When I moved my shop to Monett there were big drafting tables built in on every wall. Just red oak but a ton of it, and I use a bunch of it. Built several furniture pieces for the house and have not had to buy any oak since I moved.

Someone once told me that pallets that come in from overseas are often made of exotic hardwoods. I have not had any luck in my quest, but thought I'd throw it out there in case anyone wanted to take a second look at any pallets you run across.

I love the reclamation trend that is going on now and realize it is one of necessity, not fad. I just hope it continues and not just because it is getting good social media coverage...it's just good business, and good for the planet.

Here's just one of a few companies in Cleveland doing it right. I had the privilege of touring their facility and it was mind blowing. The combination of savvy businessmen collecting these "junk" inventories with expert builders leads to pure art...and expensive and in-demand art. A lot of the trendy Cleveland eateries have this company's work inside their restaurants... http://www.rustbeltreclamation.com

I could not agree more Wiz. We have several architectural reclamation companies here and I love them. Same goes for packaging....we caught a lot of flack for our simple packaging on a couple of releases. We generally use recycled paper and cardboard packaging stamped with a stamp from our laser cutter. I simply can't justify seeing trees cut down en masse needlessly for packaging that just ends up in the trash anyway. Besides I don't think people realize how much packaging drives up the costs to the end user, especially with limited run manufacturers such as we are.

Agreed Dannicus, but here is a little known fact. Paper companies, for the most part, harvest and plant. And they own the land. If they would sell the land, it may go to developers who would destroy everything in their path and replant little to replace what they would take down. So, paper companies do destroy forests, but they replant to replenish their inventory. So using paper as a renewable resource is not necessarily bad, as long as we choose our suppliers wisely. I realize we should still reduce, reuse, and recycle, but paper is a reasonably good source to manufacture with.

What makes me crazy is Styrofoam. Arghhhh.

Styrofoam is the worst. I read an article in scientific American that compared the fossil fuel energy requirements in shredding and recycling paper vs. Farming, replanting and pulping trees and paper recycling does seem to be a viable energy saving alternative to even reforestation. Of course that isn't really extensive research on my part but I do try to be as conscientious as possible for reasons outlined above. If everyone would do a bunch of little things I believe they would add up quickly.

I appreciate that you are one of those people...

Its hard to get away from those peanuts you can run but you cant hide. I never order them but almost everything I use in the shop has to be ordered and many things are packed in styrofoam. Instead of throwing them away I re use them, better than putting them in the land fill. Might start adding a note to packages and encourage people to pass them on. If the world just kept passing these packing products around in a non ending circle may be they will quit making them.

I really like the idea of the note Gimpy!!
Reminds me of the Amazon recycling of boxes to Goodwill.
everything we can do to encourage responsibility in regards to the environment is a step in the right direction.

I raise them too gimpy...I stamp everything with the recycle lofo but a note is a killer idea!

I re-use as much packing material that comes to me as I can. If I cannot use it, and it recycles, I do just that.

I never thought to include a note to encourage others to recycle, but I will often include one that states that I do.