Not to brag but I’m getting good at spotting these long-dead trunks in the woods All I do is carry a knife on me, peel back the weathered outside and peek at the grain. Here’s another one I found off the ground, behind a park where there are still dozens of stump sprouts clinging to life. I counted the rings and this tree was about 15 years old when the blight girdled it. This will add a few more boards to my chestnut stock. When I get around to building something cool I’ll post some pictures.
Alright, I’ve got a nice stack of chestnut boards milled to a consistent 15” length, mostly 2” width but a bunch of 3” and a handful of 2.5” Some of it is wormy chestnut, some is more recently killed stump sprout wood. Everything from the logs I scored yesterday is a little wet so I’ll give it time to dry. I’m going to make a rustic bench using some reclaimed poplar from an old wooden bed frame, and the bench top will have an inlay made from the chestnut. This should be interesting as I’ve never tried anything like this before.
Thats different. Nothing wrong with worm wood , adds a lot of character. Are you milling your own wood? Chainsaw or band-mill??
I cut all these on my table saw. Starting out with scrounged logs, I use the chainsaw to cut them roughly to length. Then I split them down the center with a hatchet and hammer. I rough in the width on the table saw, then set the blade as high as it’ll go (in this case 3”) then rip the boards top and bottom. Go back and finish the width last for a nice square consistent edge. It’s crude but it works for now. When I find some larger diameter logs I’ll have to commandeer someone with a bandsaw mill That’s until I get one of my own at some point.
This little scrap of flat sawn American chestnut is a deep look into the past. It made its way to me through an old retired coworker that mills logs and builds various projects as a hobby. It’s a leftover piece that came from an old barn in northwest Connecticut. You can see a little sapwood ring as well as a narrow piece of the original bark on one of the edges. Apparently this guy has some 13” wide boards for me too, the next time I head up that way.
Cool stuff Eric. I’ll take a look in the rafters of the last old building here. May be some chestnut still kicking around. You may find this interesting. The mantle on my fireplace is made from the last Chestnut telephone pole in Ct. That’s the story anyway. Some of the tightest growth rings I’ve ever seen. I’d guesstimate it once was a 16” pole. Couple of pics.
Beautiful setup Joe. Between the mantel, the derringers on the wall, the marksmanship trophies, the Bavarian cuckoo clock (I have almost the same one from Nuremberg) the snowshoes on the beams, etc you’ve got the “retired recluse bachelor living the dream” look down pat
Some years back I tried to buy an old farmhouse that had been fully restored and was just fully of wormy chestnut woodwork throughout the house...it was gorgeous...wish I had pics for y'all
Look what I found hiding in plain sight Old chestnut telegraph pole. The cross pieces with the threaded ends for the insulators are pine, but the pole itself is definitely chestnut. Too bad the center is completely hollow, otherwise I’d winch it off the hill and have it milled.
If the crosspieces were pine would they still be there? Used to be some crosspieces like that laying on the roadsides when I was a kid. And the blue insulators. Funny part is they ran into the woods on what was once a “road”. Don’t really know when civilization ceased back there. Sometime in the 1800’s at latest.
By chance have you seen the video of the genetically modified Chestnut trees? They (not sure who exactly they are) are looking to re-introduce the species and have modified them in a way to be resistant to a fungi (I believe). If you haven't and are interested, I could try and find it again.
Yeah I broke off the cross piece and took it with me. The wood inside is a reddish color that smells of some kind of conifer. It was off the ground for decades so it doesn’t surprise me it’s still sound. I have a large box of insulators kicking around at home. Bought them at a yard sale years ago with visions of an art project. Now I have the correct piece of wood to mount them on
Yes, I caught that last week. The GMO trees have a gene inserted from a wheat plant which helps the tree break down the oxalic acid that the fungus excretes, which girdles the trees. The gene will give the trees a way to fight back
The chestnuts didn't all succumb at the same time. We were still roasting chestnuts from a tree in the back yard in the early sixties. It was as tall as the white oaks around it.
I spotted some rubble in the woods from the road yesterday and pulled over to investigate. Laying in the leaf litter was this old red piece of barn wood. I picked it up and smiled. Once getting it home I took a cut on the end. Bingo, just as I suspected. I’ll probably put a coat of polyurethane on it and use it as a small shelf. It’s amazing this stuff is still out there in the world, forgotten.
Cool find. You sure thats not a BL fence post? Looks just like a couple we pulled out of the ground at a friends a few years back 25+ year old locust posts
