What free wood did you find today?

Smallest they took was 20" DBH, largest was ~ 33". There were only a few that were under 24". That pic was taken from the road with zoom, so a little deceiving. I didn't get any details on pricing, but several were veneer grade and the others went to a broker who was buying for a client in Germany.
 
heavy windstorm thunderstorm blew through vegas today. hundreds of downed trees across the city. a large eucalyptus (beeswing inside, blue ghost, microtheca) was laying across three lanes of traffic near my house. i got my trailer and saw, rallied the troops and went to work. 10 minutes before we loaded the last pieces, 6 city trucks and 18 guys showed up. they couldn't believe we were there for the wood and thought we might want to follow them around all night. i got what i wanted just in the nick of time

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loaded on the trailer. one of my friends brought his forklift to make the removal that much easier
butt piece in first picture is about 28 inch across and 7 foot long

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they are not all exactly the same since there is some hybridizing done with these nursery trees. but from the ripple under the bark and the zig zag in the bark i think i'm in good shape with this one
 
2feathers Creative Making said:
You ever talk to city guys about dropping certain logs at your yard? Round here they got to pay to dispose of em so if there is a drop site close.... :whatever:
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none of the government offices like to change their routine. they are as bad as the tree trimming companies. chip it or cut it into 18" to 24" long pieces that can be loaded easily. some of the bigger tree trimmers have programs where they sell it as firewood, getting north of $200 per cord.

i did one pickup job with the county before at a local park, but it wasn't easy finding the bureaucrat that could tell the employees to let me have it, the employees aren't about to make a decision like that. also landfill space is dirt cheap in nevada, so no one really cares about dumping fees.

there is lots of pine here and i couldn't possibly use all of it that they might give me. Acacia, mesquite and eucalyptus i could use though. i doo have 100 plus logs waiting to be slabbed so it's not like i need them unless it's special like the above.
 
Nice save. When you said the city guys came by later, I thought you were going to catch heck. Glad to see they were cooperative.
 
djg said:
Nice save. When you said the city guys came by later, I thought you were going to catch heck. Glad to see they were cooperative.
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as did i. so many issues of downed trees in roads that for once they were somewhat thankful for the help. when we got started the police were there directing traffic. Officer said, i don't care how it gets gone just need these lanes clear as soon as possible. He directed us where to set up our vehicles, and immediately left to deal with other issues. officer was happy that he wasn't going to need to block/direct traffic for 3 hours till the city crew could get there.

And of course we told the officer that "the apartment complex that the tree fell out of had called" us, I told the city crew that an officer friend of my brother's had "put us onto this one".

as long as you look and act like you belong, often you can slide right by.

so much so that a crew stealing wire out of light poles on the freeway, had a local police officer blocking traffic while they did it. Major F up, that made the news here about a year ago
 
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vegas urban lumber said:
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there is lots of pine here and i couldn't possibly use all of it that they might give me. Acacia, mesquite and eucalyptus i could use though. i doo have 100 plus logs waiting to be slabbed so it's not like i need them unless it's special like the above.
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I hear you on the pine. It is free here as well, I will pass on it unless I just have to take it to get something special. Glad to hear somebody else has a yard full of logs waiting. I was starting to feel like maybe it was a failure that was peculiar to me.
Of course every time I go by that downed apple tree I have an urge to stop and see if they want me to clean it up for them...
 
2feathers Creative Making said:
I hear you on the pine. It is free here as well, I will pass on it unless I just have to take it to get something special. Glad to hear somebody else has a yard full of logs waiting. I was starting to feel like maybe it was a failure that was peculiar to me.
Of course every time I go by that downed apple tree I have an urge to stop and see if they want me to clean it up for them...
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partial drying whole logs seems to be a good step for stability in my slabs here, since our humidity is so low

at least that's my excuse, since spalting isn't an option
 
Nice score and great story! best wishes for successful drying, my luck has never been that good with euc.
 
barry richardson said:
Nice score and great story! best wishes for successful drying, my luck has never been that good with euc.
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this variety is more stable than the smooth bark or stringy bark varieties. i will only get involved in the box bark species, the others aren't worth the wasted energy as they split horrendously when drying
 
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