That first picture is so beautiful -- there is nothing like the almost hysterical greenness of spring! I just love it.
This is such interesting reading for me; your project ... and approach to it :-) I will not inherit much money, but the only thing I want to spend it on is buying land, forest, woodland. I dream of a small woodshop in the forest. I could die contented there -- a woodlander.
And you have such beautiful trees over in England! I'll have to hug the southern coast of Norway if I want to be among our deciduous friends ... not that I mind a manly pine, but the fir / spruce that covers most of our country are just sad and dark and looks like an incitement to a drunken axe murder. I'm rambling ... because I'm hungry and making dinner. I'll be back for more when I've got time!
We'll be planting some Scots pine to add a little greenery to the winter view and to provide screening from some of the more "visible" elements of our woodland. Over the course of time I want to shift the balance of the birch and oak composition in our woodland. There's a lot of birch and it out competes the oak saplings - especially considering that the deer are eating most of the natural oak regeneration.
What is birch like to work? I noted from one of your substacks that your workbench is birch. I've never worked with birch (plywood doesn't count) as a material for cabinets, doors benches and I'd love to get an idea of what I can use the stuff for other than firewood - which I'd rather not do. I'd much rather mill up the larger older birches that will need to come out and turn them into nice things for our home.
Birch is nice to work with. I think of it as similar to beech in use: Both have muted 'patterns' / 'drawings' / wood-pictures (sometimes I do not know the English word for things :-), both are fine-grained and 'dry' (not resinous), both have a homogenous structure ... I think of them as 'sisters'. Differences: beech is denser and harder, birch is kinder to work but still needs sharp tools. One thing with birch: If you plane it with a really sharp and finely set smoothing plane you get an almost shiny surface ... 'lustre' is the right word, I think ... the wood has a light in itself that is very beautiful. There is this French word 'chatoyance' that describes this effect. Even in birch-wood that is not highly figured you get this effect, but then rather randomly, so that it might look wrong or distracting on a piece of furniture -- a length of wood suddenly 'looking different' in the middle, lets say ... just because there was a branch nearby in the plank, and the grain changed directions growing around it, leaving a 'variable shine'. Does this make sense? It's not always easy bumbling along in a foreign language!
Birch is one of the few hardwoods we've got in any abundance here in Norway, but few trees grow straight and big enough to yield 'proper' planks and boards, so no broad, clear floorboards or beams, but it's been used much here for smaller stuff; furniture-sized things and 'treen'. My impression is (says the town-mouse who can only recognize a wood species when it's dead and cut into lumber) that most birch in Norway grows untended like 'forest-weed' and is used for firewood.
Many thanks for this comment and please don't stress about replying in a second language. I speak only English, terrible, terrible Greek and appalling French.
I know the shine you speak off as I have on occasion seen it on birch plywood on the occasions I've been daring enough to put my number 4 or 6 over plywood.
We have a few larger birches that are over mature and that may be in a reasonable condition, so this winter I'm going to see what I can do to get them felled and processed into slabs. My only experience of drying birch is with firewood, but it seems a quick drying wood so maybe I'll be able to dry it out over winter, spring and summer and have it workable for this time next year.
I want to build a series of cabinets in the workshop that fit into the awkward space just below the ceiling so that I can attempt to win back some space in there.
Hi again!
That first picture is so beautiful -- there is nothing like the almost hysterical greenness of spring! I just love it.
This is such interesting reading for me; your project ... and approach to it :-) I will not inherit much money, but the only thing I want to spend it on is buying land, forest, woodland. I dream of a small woodshop in the forest. I could die contented there -- a woodlander.
And you have such beautiful trees over in England! I'll have to hug the southern coast of Norway if I want to be among our deciduous friends ... not that I mind a manly pine, but the fir / spruce that covers most of our country are just sad and dark and looks like an incitement to a drunken axe murder. I'm rambling ... because I'm hungry and making dinner. I'll be back for more when I've got time!
I appreciate the comment :)
We'll be planting some Scots pine to add a little greenery to the winter view and to provide screening from some of the more "visible" elements of our woodland. Over the course of time I want to shift the balance of the birch and oak composition in our woodland. There's a lot of birch and it out competes the oak saplings - especially considering that the deer are eating most of the natural oak regeneration.
What is birch like to work? I noted from one of your substacks that your workbench is birch. I've never worked with birch (plywood doesn't count) as a material for cabinets, doors benches and I'd love to get an idea of what I can use the stuff for other than firewood - which I'd rather not do. I'd much rather mill up the larger older birches that will need to come out and turn them into nice things for our home.
Screening with evergreens -- clever!
Birch is nice to work with. I think of it as similar to beech in use: Both have muted 'patterns' / 'drawings' / wood-pictures (sometimes I do not know the English word for things :-), both are fine-grained and 'dry' (not resinous), both have a homogenous structure ... I think of them as 'sisters'. Differences: beech is denser and harder, birch is kinder to work but still needs sharp tools. One thing with birch: If you plane it with a really sharp and finely set smoothing plane you get an almost shiny surface ... 'lustre' is the right word, I think ... the wood has a light in itself that is very beautiful. There is this French word 'chatoyance' that describes this effect. Even in birch-wood that is not highly figured you get this effect, but then rather randomly, so that it might look wrong or distracting on a piece of furniture -- a length of wood suddenly 'looking different' in the middle, lets say ... just because there was a branch nearby in the plank, and the grain changed directions growing around it, leaving a 'variable shine'. Does this make sense? It's not always easy bumbling along in a foreign language!
Birch is one of the few hardwoods we've got in any abundance here in Norway, but few trees grow straight and big enough to yield 'proper' planks and boards, so no broad, clear floorboards or beams, but it's been used much here for smaller stuff; furniture-sized things and 'treen'. My impression is (says the town-mouse who can only recognize a wood species when it's dead and cut into lumber) that most birch in Norway grows untended like 'forest-weed' and is used for firewood.
But I like birch. She's the blonde girl.
Many thanks for this comment and please don't stress about replying in a second language. I speak only English, terrible, terrible Greek and appalling French.
I know the shine you speak off as I have on occasion seen it on birch plywood on the occasions I've been daring enough to put my number 4 or 6 over plywood.
We have a few larger birches that are over mature and that may be in a reasonable condition, so this winter I'm going to see what I can do to get them felled and processed into slabs. My only experience of drying birch is with firewood, but it seems a quick drying wood so maybe I'll be able to dry it out over winter, spring and summer and have it workable for this time next year.
I want to build a series of cabinets in the workshop that fit into the awkward space just below the ceiling so that I can attempt to win back some space in there.