Redwood grid for Darkroom sink.

[Vaughn]

Ah...the smell of the photojournalism darkroom...the smell of the chemical infused redwood brings back memories -- mostly remembering how I would never allowed the redwood into the Art Dept darkroom I was in charge of.

[Tin Can]

plus one

i remember redwood picnic tables

[Drew Wiley]

Doubt it. Mostly junk pine stained a stereotypical "picnic table red" color, also used for fences, which doesn't look like real redwood at all. Although redwood was abundantly used here, where it grew, it was expensive to ship east. People in the East don't know what redwood actually looks like. I had to coach big stain manufacturers how to blend the color so it looked realistic; then their products caught on big. That was important if they were to ever sell the product here, when remodelers were trying to blend old and new wood together. Getting an even more natural look required the introduction of transparent transoxide pigments. These began near here at the world's biggest optical coating lab; yup. Might sound strange, but they were made by vac deposition just like lens coatings except on massive scale, then scraped off as tiny transparent colored particles which deeply penetrate the wood and don't fade. The stock values of that coating lab shot through the roof, until they finally split the operation into optical versus industrial colorant divisions, and sold everything off to separate players. Now there are more cost effective methods for making transoxides. For my own needs, I belong to the third category - just let redwood age naturally, and after awhile it all looks the same; rarely, a true silver gray, which most requires a lot of time in salty in air. What does go true silver gray is Port Orford Cedar, which begins blonde, and is what authentic totem poles were made out of in the northwest.

[Tin Can]

The 50's was the last time I saw one

[Drew Wiley]

WalMart sells em, cheap. Cheapo Depot subcontracts analogous fence installations to fly-by-night labor, non-code stained pine put together with thin ordinary staples; they fall over in about six months. I still get true heart redwood at substantial discount at my old work place, but it's expensive even for me. But I want my fences to last my lifetime, and build them like a tank. Making a fence that lasts just 20 yrs (the average), no thanks. I don't want to have to re-do it in my 80's or 90's! The house I sold in the mtns was made of old growth redwood. My house here on the coast just has some redwood wainscotting, but it's old-growth vertical grain, something no longer available. It was leftover from a sale to the Navy. The admiral's house was particularly swank, if modest in size. That whole military village is nearing final restoration for sake of becoming a public park. Fortunately, it's been fenced off and guarded all along, so taggers never got in there. Adjacent to it was the biggest winery building in the world, which was converted to military use during WWII, and is sometimes opened to photographic tours, but is due to be permanently open. The last active whaling station of the W Coast is beside that - whales turned into Cal Can dog food! Lots of big redwood logs on the shore, all weathered and wave eroded.

[Tin Can]

No doubt

At least you have stopped telling me what I know or don't

I was worried about your psychic powers


Carry on

[Drew Wiley]

If I had psychic powers, maybe I could get the redwoods to grow again atop the hill behind me - that's where the tallest tree on earth was cut down about about 140 yrs ago. There were redwoods everywhere around here. Now not even a stump, but lots of highly flammable eucalyptus. All our neighborhood redwoods are now second-growth, ornamental replants. I had a friend who had a downfall permit and portable mill, which means he could cut and sell old growth trees which had fallen on their own next to back roads. But that was up in the narco counties of NW Cal, and he had friction with the backwoods growers, who eventually murdered him. Now his sons continue the business. The technical aspects of redwood as a material were extensively studied at the UCB Forest Products Lab along the shore here. As both a supplier and consultant to the trade, I had to learn quite a bit myself. Then all that kind of research was transferred inland to UC Davis, and for about six years my wife worked in a biotech corp which took over that same building. Now all that is becoming converted into the second campus of Lawrence Berkeley Lab, with shoreline biking and hiking trails all along it, not particularly photogenic; but those same trails are being connected to the more interesting parks further north along the shore. But as I already hinted, the past is present in the form of big gray redwood logs piled up by waves numerous places on the coast. It's awfully tempting to home an 8x10 onto the intricate wave-worn details.

[John Layton]

I built a house in 1989-1990 for my then-young family...and since then have grown to feel badly that the wood I'd used had been taken from old growth forests in the Pacific northwest. Thing is...that wood was incredibly stable - bundles of 2x4's and 2x6's could sit in the sun all day and not twist.

Wood quality/stability these days is all over the place...and now, whenever I find myself building a stud-wall for some addition/project for my current house, I usually need a Jorgensen wooden clamp as a "third hand" to hold the twisted studs straight as I secure them - a real PITA!

[domaz]

WalMart sells em, cheap. Cheapo Depot subcontracts analogous fence installations to fly-by-night labor, non-code stained pine put together with thin ordinary staples; they fall over in about six months. I still get true heart redwood at substantial discount at my old work place, but it's expensive even for me. But I want my fences to last my lifetime, and build them like a tank. Making a fence that lasts just 20 yrs (the average), no thanks. I don't want to have to re-do it in my 80's or 90's! The house I sold in the mtns was made of old growth redwood. My house here on the coast just has some redwood wainscotting, but it's old-growth vertical grain, something no longer available. It was leftover from a sale to the Navy. The admiral's house was particularly swank, if modest in size. That whole military village is nearing final restoration for sake of becoming a public park. Fortunately, it's been fenced off and guarded all along, so taggers never got in there. Adjacent to it was the biggest winery building in the world, which was converted to military use during WWII, and is sometimes opened to photographic tours, but is due to be permanently open. The last active whaling station of the W Coast is beside that - whales turned into Cal Can dog food! Lots of big redwood logs on the shore, all weathered and wave eroded.

My local lumberyard in the PNW has Clear Vertical Grain Fir available. You don't want to know the price though. My house is from the 1920s and was a poorly maintained rental before I bought it. The window sills have been missing paint for probably about 5 years and getting rained on constantly. I've recently started the process of repainting them and haven't found a hint of rot anywhere. That old wood seems indestructible.

[Tin Can]

The area I now live in was clear cut and destroyed. My 1920 home is made of all first growth hardwood covered by vinyl siding. Even interior walls are covered up hardwood. Nearby is a 1818 cabin when IL became a state and it was all trees.

I have 1 huge oak tree that must be a survivor and a couple wannabees.

Now the Feds want to cut the Shawnee Forest again!

Here's USDA history of what happened. The CCC made the whole area great again.

I expect data like this will be erased.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/s...telprdb5151363

"Morris Birkbeck's 1818 booklet, LETTERS FROM ILLINOIS ...the view of that noble expanse (the Ohio River) was like the opening of a bright day upon the gloom of the night, to us who had been so long buried in deep forests. It is a feeling of confinement, which begins to damp the spirits, from this complete exclusion of distant objects. To travel day after day, among trees of a hundred feet high, without a glimpse of the surrounding country, is oppressive to a degree which those cannot conceive who have not experienced it; and it must depress the spirits of the solitary settler to pass in this state. His visible horizon extends no farther than the tops of the trees..."