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5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

blog.lostartpress.com

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#101
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually it does. Consider "bribe" versus "campaign donor." "Execution" versus "murder". Many cases exist. But that is beside the point. Laws have to be specific, and that is the issue. If you can perform a minimal treatment to the object under the law, then it can be transmuted under the law and the spirit of the regulation is sidestepped.

Laws cannot be specific for this exact reason. Reason, judgement, and consensus must be part of the process. To ban the export of unprocessed domestic wood, is it preferable to pre-define and include every possible "process" or is it better to have judges who asses whether any given would-be export is "processed"? Also, lets skip the argument of regulatory capture/neglect by just agreeing that government transparency…

I really want to agree with you; this is how law should work (and why "law is like software" analogies are so fundamentally wrong, software doesn't make judgement calls). The problem is that people are involved, which means some of the judges will show poor judgement, including possibly okay'ing something if their friends do it but not if other do, or other less obviously unfair things.

I don't see a solution; the obvious choice of trying to make the law more specific and thus less reliant on judgement gets us back to the idea you are opposing.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#102
post #52
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that better, specific to this instance?

I would venture to guess the regulation, weak as it was, still slowed the exports.

Right, but I'd argue this export was beneficial, both to NZ and China.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#103
post #18

I had never heard of bog oak before, but this material is absolutely stunning. I really wish there was more appreciation of proper heirloom-quality furniture and things in general. I think it's part of making living more ecological, and it's a form of generational wealth. Unfortunately we live in an era of cheapest possible items, and disposal of things when they go out of style. Something like this never goes out of…

I was watching that show called Antique Archeology. It’s basically two grifters from Iowa who take the good stuff from hoarders, and collectors. This one guy (Jersey John) pull out a 1886 Windsor chair, and acting like he’s doing the owner a favor by offered the guy $25. The owner shot back with, “I can get $40 at a yard sale?” Anyhoo—it just reminded me how far we have gotten away from buying beautiful handmade thin…

> it just reminded me how far we have gotten away from buying beautiful handmade things that will last forever, and going with junk make in the cheapest country.

selection bias. all the cheap junk your grandparents bought was disposed of before you were born. you never even saw it.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#104

In New Zealand, there are old swamplands filled with swamp Kauri. Around a year ago, construction workers found a 16 m (52 ft) long log which had been buried underground for 40,000 years [1] They used to dig up $200 million worth of timber a year, mostly exported to China, until the government cracked down on exports. It's illegal to export unfinished native timber, so exporters exploited a loophole by cutting the tr…

For those that aren’t aware, there was also a scandal when the main fuel line for Auckland airport was ruptured by a digger looking for swamp kauri. To make it all more complicated, the company that did it had a director married to a high ranking MP. It all got murky fast. https://thestandard.org.nz/the-strange-case-of-oravida-and-t...

That high ranking MP is currently the leader of the opposition National party.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who told you this? I can't find anything talking about 985 grams.

The people selling things in kilo bundles do not appreciate names being used. While there is no NDA in place, repurcussions are more severe than NDA's could dream. Silly questions like this are also not condoned.

If it's only a few weird drug people you met then it's not "the standard".

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who told you this? I can't find anything talking about 985 grams.

The people selling things in kilo bundles do not appreciate names being used. While there is no NDA in place, repurcussions are more severe than NDA's could dream. Silly questions like this are also not condoned.

Is this in the US?

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#107
post #39
post #33

Can someone explain how all the planks of the bog oak fit together so perfectly? The article says go to their instagram for details but I'm not really getting a whole lot when I click on individual photos.

It looks like they cut a single 43ft board from the oak, then cut that into 4 planks for the kiln and milling process. After that completed they would join them back together. You lose at least an 1/8" for the blade width plus whatever they had to trim due to cupping, but that could be very difficult to see in the final top.

No. There was only about 2/3 of the round log remaining, and they cut (a mix of quartersawn and riftsawn) ten planks out of it. All were full-length, but some were decidedly narrower or rougher than others. They chose four main planks to build the tabletop around, with a fifth full-length cut from one of the scantiest planks to wed the book-matched left and right center planks together, in the center.

https://www.thefenlandblackoakproject.co.uk/blog/quarter-saw... for diagrams of the plank cuts.

https://www.thefenlandblackoakproject.co.uk/blog/2019/11/1/s... for a description of the main plank configuration.

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#108

Lost Art Press is worth a follow in general. If you’re ever near Cincinnati, I highly recommend checking out their store front. They focus on keeping traditional woodworking books in print, but they also do a lot of woodworking (chair making especially) in their shop.

+1 Lost Art Press is an awesome company and publishes some great books, both in terms of content and quality. If anyone is looking to make a workbench, they released their workbench book creative commons: https://blog.lostartpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AWB...

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#109
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For metric system folks: 129 lbs is roughly 58.5 kg of mass per person to lift.

Metric system conversion should not be difficult, however, I recently learned it has been made convoluted. Attempting to find out the per gram price of something bought in a kilogram bundle, I simply divided the kilo price by 1000. This is where it got confusing. I was told there are only 985 grams in a kilo. Me: huh?? It's literally the definition of the word kilogram, 1000 grams. Fucked up maths: 1kilo = 2.2lbs * 1…

Sorry but I got curious: Where is a kilo treated as 985g?

Re: 5k Year Old Bog Oak Table: Digging up 4k-year-old trees for furniture

#110
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they cut a single 43ft board from the oak, then cut that into 4 planks for the kiln and milling process. After that completed they would join them back together. You lose at least an 1/8" for the blade width plus whatever they had to trim due to cupping, but that could be very difficult to see in the final top.

No. There was only about 2/3 of the round log remaining, and they cut (a mix of quartersawn and riftsawn) ten planks out of it. All were full-length, but some were decidedly narrower or rougher than others. They chose four main planks to build the tabletop around, with a fifth full-length cut from one of the scantiest planks to wed the book-matched left and right center planks together, in the center. https://www.the…

Oh that's cool, thank you for replying.

I got confused by the shot of them carrying a plank, thinking it was the rough full top.

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