Barbarism discovered!

[Seagreen]

This weekend I demolished the old shed in the garden, only to find that the previous owner of the house had supported the base of this toolshed on...

four 1.5" x 10" x 4' MAHOGANY BOARDS!!!!! The HEATHEN!!!

Mahogany, if you can get it, is £90 a cubic foot, so I have about £200 of beautiful wood - slowly rotting- used to stand a shed on. Strewth!

Brightside is they are only slightly rotted on the muddy side, and may plane down nicely into 5/8" boards for a saloon table.

Has anyone else discovered crass abuse of such material?

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[Peterduck]

I used to work with a chap who had been a member of a Sapper unit serving in New Guinea during the Second World War. They built jetties from Rosewood, if you don't mind! The Americans built buildings on Southern Longleaf Pine [a.k.a. Pitch pine] piles, because they had so much of it around! There ain't any now, of course. Right now, here in Australia, straight-grained saw logs are going into woodchip mills. Makes me weep to think of it.
Peter.

 

[pyrojames]

I stripped out an old lab I ran and saved the 30"x1" by about 30 feet worth of laminated iroko benchs. Now used for all sorts of bits and pieces. The previous lab that had been modernised, had had the technicians strip out the benchs, chip them and use them for smoking meats! No idea if the iroko was any good for it....

 

[cliffordpope]

Easter Island. They murdered each other, cut down all the trees, and didn't even think of using the last one to build a boat in which to escape.

 

[Blueboatman]

Just last week I rescued the old mahogany bartops (2@ 12ft x2ft x 1 1/4 inch) from the local pub,they were going to be used to line the sides of the skip,unbelievable waste,mine for a fiver and gawd knows what I will do with them.

 

[sailorman]

a Teak Sink
it is fantastic timber 7 m/m below the surface. it was all red-leaded together @ the joints

 

[Seagreen]

That's about £700 of mahogany! I may contact you if I run short..

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[Keith 66]

Some years ago i rescued a large quantity of teak from a BT telephone exchange, then a strip out of a Barclays bank and recently a load of iroko lab benchs from a college, i love free timber it always seems to work better.
I shudder to think how much high grade timber is still going into landfill in the name of regeneration, anyone would think it grew on trees!

 

[tobble]

Hmm, the Iroko lab benches seems to be a popular theme, my dad's a science teacher and when his labs were re-done last year we got about 40 2'x4'x3/4" of the buggers! I was contemplating laying an iroko deck, but don't think it would suit my plastic tub... Also got lots of butler sinks, of various sizes which are free to collectors in the Cirencester area!

 

[Forbsie]

Don't suppose you've got any hip-baths?

 

[KenMcCulloch]

In 1963 when we moved house my father discovered that the buyer of the house we moved out of had brought all his stuff from Honduras in mahogany packing cases. The boards varied in size but were mostly about 7/8" by 8" and about 4'. My dad took a quantity off the gentleman for a few shillings and made various bits of furniture, shelves etc. I still have a couple of those boards left and my intention is that every boat I ever own will leave my custody with a few bits of it in her. So far I have kept that up; Border Maid is mahogany on oak so I'm sure I'll find plenty of uses for Dad's old bits.

 

[Seagreen]

That's the way to do it.

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[Victorious]

Horse troughs... from Fontwell. Made about 1920 apparently
Discarded when some authority or other insisted that they have to be stainless.
12ft by 4ft by 3ft... 2 1/2 inch teak.
It was very cold day in midwinter when i was asked to dispose of em and paid to do so!
The man i dealt with said he was gonna use them for firewood but the timber was so wet it prob would not burn
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[Bajansailor]

The commercial timber fishing boats here have always been (and still are) traditionally constructed using sawn mahogany frames and massive scantlings - the shipwrights are always on the look out for a mahogany tree that has been cut down (eg in the name of 'development' - a mate of mine cut down two big trees in his garden recently, and they were eagerly snapped up).

They then just slab it, and select the right curves for their timbers.
Perhaps if it was 90 quid a cubic foot they might consider making laminated timbers instead....

And the saddest part is that these sawn mahogany timbers dont usually last very long in a very hot, damp, dark environment (under the cockpit / ice box especially) with very little ventilation.... and fresh water dripping down from the melting ice in the ice box.... so new timbers are often being cut a few years later (or much less) to replace rotten frames.