About Wood

What would a woodworker be without wood? A wouldworker?

Wood is our raw material. Without it, what would be we? Though it is a good excuse for some of us to buy tools, wood is what makes us woodworkers.

Wood is a challenging material. Whether we work with green, dry or stablized wood - each piece comes with its own challenges. As a natural material, no piece of wood is alike. There is an endless variety of patterns, grains, hardnesses, colors - and challenges we do not find in man-made materials like plastic. (Having worked with plastic material and metals, I will not say that these are easy to work with either... They are much more uniform materials to work with, but poses other challenges). It is a great satisfaction to master techniques that can turn a block of wood to a pleasing object. But to do this successfully, we need to know about our raw material.

Giant Sequio trees

People dwarfed by a young Giant Sequoia tree. Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California.

But what is wood? Very simply put - wood is a collection of elongated cells (like hollow, short fibres) "glued" together with lignin (like an adhesive). These cells forms the trunk and branches of a tree. When the tree is alive, nutrients in liquid form (sap) flow through the cells. This is what bleeds out when we cut off a branch, or when we cut down trees.

The wood we use can be from a young or mature tree (freshly cut (green) or dried), or it can be several thousand years old - because it was preserved in a bog, or dry wood that is many hundred years old as it was reclaimed. Most mature trees we get the wood from are less than a hundred years old.

You can also find living trees that are very old like the Bristle Cone Pine (Pinus longaeva, up to 5,000 years), Foxtail Pine (Pinus balfouriana, up to 3,000 years), California Redwood (or coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, reaching 2,200 years) and the Giant Sequoia trees (Sequoiadendron giganteum, reaching 3,500 years). But be aware that some of these are protected species...

Recycled and reclaimed wood

Being aware of the environmental impact of non-sustainable logging of many tropical hard woods and the diminishing source of high quality wood abroad and home, some woodworkers have turned to another source of wood - wood that is recycled or reclaimed.

Now - what is the difference? Looking at lexical semantics (the study of word meanings and word relations), in general recycling and reclaiming have similar meanings - that is - to re-use material that has previously been used. If we look at the wood industry however, there is a much clearer distinction between how these terms are used. (Notice that the "definitions" I give are based on how I have found them being used. They are not definitions found in a dictionary.)

Recycled Wood

Recycled wood is wood that has already been used for one purpose (its "primary" purpose) and can be recycled to be used for another - e.g. wood pallets or crates taken apart. Or old furniture that has no value, except they contain good wood.

Recycling usually involves materials removed from a "waste-stream" that are re-processed and re-manufactured.

Reclaimed Wood

Reclaimed wood is wood that has been used, but is not part of a "waste-stream" The term reclaimed has come to mean wood recovered from (older) buildings and structures - often containing wood that is old growth. It is also used about old, dead-on-stump trees that are harvested - trees that would othervise just fall down, rot and return to nature.

Today there are many smaller and larger companies that specialize in re-claimed wood of many species. Some deal only in high-end architectural materials, some can offer you almost everything from smaller pieces milled to your specifications to un-milled wood with its original tool marks, and some will only sell you milled floorboards. However, most companies will only sell you wood in larger quantities (several hundred board feet), so for the small time hobby woodworker, it might be hard to get hands on reclaimed wood unless you live in the area of one of these specialty dealers.

Reclaimed wood is usually re-milled before it is being re-used. Before milling, nails and other fasteners or hardware has to be removed.

Advantages of reclaimed wood