Salvaged lumber is my favorite woodworking material source. Dead trees, pruned limbs, demolition leftovers- all are free game. Perhaps 'free' is the key word. Admittedly, I am a firm believer in 'free is always the best price', but there is something more to it than the impact of a project's cost on my pocketbook. There is simply something deeply satisfying about turning trash into treasure. I am consistently amazed at the wonderfully useful stuff that people toss into dumpsters or onto junk piles.
For example, I pulled two logs from the neighbor's brush pile. Both are the remains of 'weed' trees culled to make room for a rather shoddy housing development in the next-door lot. One is walnut, 10cm in diameter and 2 meters long; the other is red mulberry, it's three trunks twisted together and slowly fusing. I estimate that from those trees I will be able to salvage a total of twenty useable blanks. As I am selling the resulting turnings (mainly weed pots) for $10-$20 apiece, that 'worthless' brush is obviously quite the opposite. Here's a shot of the few I've turned so far. Mel and I are selling them on Ultra Art.
Granted, I don't expect construction workers to be knowledgable in the finer aspects of woodworking, but it is still frustrating to know that my fellow Americans are so stupidly wasteful and inefficient. What happened to "Yankee ingenuity"? Does no one believe in the power of dumpster diving any more? This is Iowa! Where are our practical farmers? Are people so spoiled with overflowing abundance that simple frugality and keen observation have gone completely out the window? Shop class? As for myself, I refuse to accept the programming of our modern consumer society. new != good;