RIISKA DESIGN BLOG

Having my breakfast this morning I happened upon a magazine called Woodworker’s Journal. In this April 2008 addition the title on the cover reads “Once in a Lifetime Woods.” It says; follow a $200,000.00 log from the jungles of Africa to an American shop proudly written by Rob Johnstone. The picture shows the owner of West Penn Hardwoods, Rocky Menhta, exuberantly holding his arms over his head as he stands in front of a cut log which is easily over 9′ in diameter. A side article explains that this is a very rare tree that can grow 130′ to 150′ feet tall. This is a tree that grows sporadically through the jungles of Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Central Africa Republic, Gabon and the Congo. Rocky Mehta is proud of his purchase of this ancient spirit that once towered above the jungle for 300 to 400 years.
I am ashamed of this kind of careless behaviour. Why should I be excited by this modern day colonialist who uses his wealth to go to Africa and exploit her for her native hardwoods that take three to five of our lifetimes to grow. This is not a renewable resource. Once you cut down this tree the adult jungle forest that this tree coexisted in with its large variety of plant and animal life that surrounded it is destroyed. The amount of oxygen this tree alone generated for our atmosphere is enough reason to not use this kind of wood. Not to mention the stupid amount of energy it took to ship this tree to Germany, dry it, mill it, and send it too the United States. Rob Johnston is clearly excited about the large variety of new hardwoods that were not available to him as a kid but are available now in the united states. What he is really excited about is the lumber companies ability to colonize adult forests throughout the world ether economically, politically and ship its pillaged riches back to the united states. When he says,”In terms of the average Joes and Josephines, there has never been a better time than right now.” He is encouraging American woodworker’s to blindly by this pillaged wood and feel good about it. Don’t think about the destruction, clear-cutting and wounding of the forest, the animal’s and villagers that are displace by this kind of forest practices. Just be excited about the unusual grain that would make a good end table. At the end of the articul is a paragraph that is title “looking towards the future.” In it Rockler’s V.P. of Marketing, Scott Ekman and CEO, Ann Rockler Jackson feel it is “important to get this product into the hands of their customers, it would also be appropriate to take some of the money earned from this sale and invest it to support the worlds forests. ” They accomplish this by investing 10% of the profit from this sale into the Adopt an Acre program. It justifies this donation by explaining that “the Adopt an Acre program is a way of significantly protecting habitat so that in 400 to 500 years, there can be a tree as impressive and special as the one that is providing once in a life time opportunities to woodworkers.” First of all, they justify the exploitation of these forests by blaming American Woodworkers. Rockler felt it was important to get this wood into the hand s of American Woodworkers. We need it? Come on it is really important that we work with this wood because it puts money in Rockler’s pockets. Then to have a side note that it is appropriate to invest the profits into the Adopt an Acre program. The question is why is this appropriate? It isn’t. You don’t save Panda’s from extinction by killing them, selling their fur and investing 10% of the profit from the fur into zoo’s for panda bears. They are comparing tree farms to naturally developed adult rain-forests. They are growing forest with money from the destruction of forests. If you really want to protect these forests don’t by this wood! I have never felt justified in using this kind of lumber. I wonder how some woodworkers feel they are worthy of working with this kind of wood. What in your soul makes it OK for you to cut down rain-forests and make a table out of it. And if you were going to do this you should at least be at the top of your game when it comes to design and construction. Not like the ugly table shown here. They put the ugly design together with dowels and beadlock joinery system. There is no real joinery or skill in this type of construction. Plus we have all seen what happened to the dowel joined furniture from the fifties through today. It falls apart. On garbage day in New York and LA I see tons of dowel joined pieces broken at the joint uselessly sitting in the garbage. It is a huge waste to import such high impact wood and use it to make ugly pieces that won’t last. As far as using ancient trees for furniture goes I have done it for 11 years. I pulled 350 year old Southern Yellow Heart Pine and White pine out of dumpsters in NYC. My shop mates and I, Jaren Harbertson and George Evagelio, scavenged 16″ X 16″ X 16′ long pieces of Heart Pine out of 169 Hudson street in NYC. This was a building that held the materials used to build the Brooklyn bridge. The bridge was built in 1867. That makes the wood at least 141year old before it was cut. On our 16″X 16″ pieces we counted 300 rings. The light and dark ring together make one year. Therefore, the tree was at least 150 years old before it was cut, but most likely it was older because we just have the center-cut of the tree. This wood most likely cut up stream from the city and floated down the Hudson. Once in the city it was use to build 169 Hudson street. There is no need to ship this wood to Germany for drying because it air dried for 141 years as a support column right here in the united states. Add the years growing plus the years it held up the building and the wood is 291 years old. The only reason they are pulling this kind of wood out of buildings is because where the wood meets the masonry it starts to rot because the bricks and mortar hold moisture. A foot away from the masonry the wood is perfect. The wood is harder than new southern yellow pine because it has aged so long and the grain is tighter together. The dark grain is actually as hard as hickory and the light grain is softer so I finish it with a hand-plane to get an even surface. The grain glows and sparkles in the light when finished this way. To me this is “once in a lifetime wood” and I can feel good about using it because if Jaren didn’t stop the construction workers form cutting the ancient tree into two foot chunks with a chainsaw to fit into their dumpster this amazing native American resource would have been lost to a garbage dump. The truth is there is plenty of beautiful American wood to use if you look for it. Coming from Connecticut where there are beautiful hardwood forests I know. My home town friends are arborists. They find beautiful specimens all the time. They find adult oaks who have lived to the end of their life time as a pampered tree in the center of a yard and is now falling down. They have to remove this beauty and no lumber companies want to buy it because it is only one tree. They can only make money on mass deforestation. Go in and take as many trees as possible as fast as possible is the only way to make money. To send one tree to the mill is just not economical for them. But it is economical for you to hire a person with a portable ban saw and bring the mill right to the yard where it is being cut and mill it right there. Or if you are a friendly person talk to your neighborhood arborist. They are usually nice people and the ones I know have stacks and stacks of drying lumber they just couldn’t turn into wood-chips but don’t have time to build with. I know my friend Steve Bristol is sitting on Oak, Gum, Walnut, Tulip and a Maple that was one of the largest Maple trees in Connecticut, over 10′ in diameter, before it was hit by lightning and had to be removed. In LA I find treasure in dumpsters filled with Douglas Fur. It is not as old as the New York wood but it is perfectly dry from holding up house in the Southern California desert for years. There is also a good company that sells recycled wood in the Los Angeles Valley called B&B lumber. Find treasures in your own back yard before using manifest destiny to justify looting other countries for treasure.

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