Wood Hunters Salvage Secondhand Lumber

In an age of rising green lumber prices and diminishing supply, some companies are getting into recycling. Lumber recycling.

Common sources are old wooden barns made of fine grain hardwoods due to be torched to clear the site or old wood hauled away from residential yards to be dumped, landfilled or chipped.

Using band mills and metal detectors, wood hunters can cut barn beams, yard trees and other waste woods that a regular sawmill wouldn't risk because of possible nails embedded in the wood.

Into the Woods, Petaluma Ca., was founded by David Farson, furniture maker Wyatt Renk and David Downing, owner of Domestic Hardwoods, to salvage and remill used wood.

Faison scouts California and Oregon for logs cut by utility companies or other land clearing operations, trees deteriorating in forests or wood earmarked for waste. A specialty is finding and remilling local woods as substitutes for exotic tropical species. Black locust looks, feels and lasts like teak. Acacia can double for rosewood, and black acacia for koa.

Products are also made from many local woods not normally used in woodworking, like apple, plum, olive and eucalyptus. Avocado is treasured especially if it dies of a fungus disease, which puts attractive black streaks in the wood.

"We thought at first that if the market demand was there, we might run out of wood in a hurry," Faison said. "But nothing could be further from the truth." Actually, Into the Woods could run its business just from wood it picks up from firewood suppliers or from walnut- and almond-orchard cuttings.

"There is just an incredible amount of wood being thrown away," he said. "A business like ours could support itself in every town in Northern Califomia."

Most of the wood goes into fine furniture, but lower grades and smaller scraps are used for butcher blocks and cutting boards. Some can be marketed for trimwork, cabinetry, windows, doors and flooring.

Because of its hardness and durability, eucalyptus makes good flooring, but has to be seasoned and milled properly so it doesn't crack or warp. Smaller salvage operations can take the time to mill such woods to their best advantage and accentuate the beautiful grains.

Into the Woods recently began salvaging wood from old buildings. For a client building a Japanese-style custom home, they dismantled a 70 year old mill and resawed tle 14"x14" beams of white cedar, a now rare wood prized in Japanese temples and coffins.

Jefferson Lumber Co., McCloud, Ca., was started a yeru and a half ago by Richard McFarland and Erica Carpenter to fesaw wood, usually old growth Douglas fr, from old mill timbers by special order.

To add value to their products, they did historical research and created a hand-out brochure about the strucores

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