THE NEW GEORDIE WORKSHOP
"A workshop should be organized and tidy but, as the name implies, it is a place of work therefore it should look like it is being used".
Martin Challis. B.Y.S. St. Maarten. circa 1985.
Damn...... I've cut this piece of wood three times already and it's still too bleedin' short.
I am now using Select Cypress for my folding furniture instead of
pressure treated pine. Since the lowering of the standards that govern
the industry, this lumber has become almost impossible to obtain at the
quality I need to make furniture. Unfortunately, this now makes my
products a little more expensive but the use of cypress has without a doubt made them more visually attractive.
I use very little "stock dimension" lumber which makes the production of these items far more labor intensive as each piece needs to be re-sawn to size.
Pressure treated yellow pine is still used extensively for my other outdoor items such as planters.
This wood is extremely durable and rot resistant and the manufactures claim that it is good for 30 years when in direct contact with, or buried, in the ground.
Modern PT lumber is said to be much less toxic than the products of 10 or so years ago but is unfortunately highly corrosive. To combat this, I use stainless steel or specially coated fasteners that are designed for use in this material.
I have a limited supply of "dead head" cypress that I also use for some of my products.
This lumber is becoming more and more rare as nature herself has only a limited supply.
"Dead Heads" are trees that have been submerged in creeks and lakes often for centuries. My lumber was recovered from the bottom of the Dead Lakes near Wewahitchka Florida and is possibly from trees
that were felled during the logging operations of 100 to 150 years ago.
Once dried (and this takes a long time), it is very stable and is naturally resistant to rot and insect attack.
This photo shows select "deadhead" black cypress and a piece of "pecky"
The very dark black cypress is extremely rare. Pecky cypress is from mature trees that have been attacked by a fungus, which perhaps entered through a broken limb, whilst the tree was still alive. The 'pecking' action ceases once the tree has fallen.
