using wood from old furniture

[Joe W.]

My wife has a penchant for picking up, restoring, and selling old furniture people put out on the side of the street for pickup by the city trash pickup service (or people like her). 
Some of the pieces are just too damaged for fixing up, BUT good enough to use for cutting out scroll saw patterns.
I've cut out a few patterns now using some of the wood and was pleasantly surprised to see some of the wood really nice - and best of all - FREE!  
I was wondering if anyone else out there does the same thing.

[Dan]

I did some dumpster diving once. The bin was outside a cabinet shop and there were lots of good finds of many hardwoods. I did get a short tour of their building and hauled away a trunkful of wood. 

My wife is always looking out for wood on trash day. Sometimes I get some, sometimes I don't. 

[barb.j.enders]

My husband just rolls his eyes when I suggest that.

[Charlie E]

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I slow down at every roadside pile of junk with a piece of wood sticking out.  

[Joe W.]

2 hours ago, barb.j.enders said:

My husband just rolls his eyes when I suggest that.

My wife, Jamie, said I could make more money by cutting it making patterns than she could fixing some of the finds up and reselling them.
And with the price of hardwood these days, I'm all for it.  A little sandpaper and elbow grease is less expensive.  
I'm also getting more experience in trying to identify the type of wood (maple, cherry, etc.).  

[Scrappile]

Some of the best mahogany I have came from a bed headboard someone threw out.  

Edited September 23, 2022 by Scrappile

[OCtoolguy]

2 hours ago, barb.j.enders said:

My husband just rolls his eyes when I suggest that.

He and my wife. She calls me a "hoarder".

[Eplfan2011]

I must confess I'm guilty of this too, I've been practicing out of my scrap and " reclaimed " pile 🫣

[Jim McDonald]

Just today, I destroyed an old, discarded dresser and saved a few pieces of drawer sides and 1/8" plywood from thd back.

Time will tell.

[new2woodwrk]

I do it all the time!

I'm always on the look out for old pieces, palettes etc.  being thrown away that I can either retask, or breakdown and use the good parts.

Often times I have to throw much of it away due to particle board, but a few weeks ago I picked up some really nice oak and cherry cabinets waiting for the garbage truck!

Turned them into outdoor planters for our "Inflation reduction" garden

 

[Joe W.]

Nice to know I'm in good company.
Shared your comments with Jamie and she smiled a lot.
Thanks to all for the feedback.

[Foxfold]

Me too. I have an old Mahogany dresser that was thrown out. It will keep me going with my 'special' things for many years.

[TAIrving]

I look, but the old furniture I find seems to always be veneer over low quality wood.  

[OCtoolguy]

3 hours ago, TAIrving said:

I look, but the old furniture I find seems to always be veneer over low quality wood.  

Me too. Junk! But every once in a while, a pearl surfaces.

[oldhudson]

I check CL pretty regularly under FREE and look for old (in order where I've been successful) beds, dressers, end tables and sometimes mirrors. I only take solid wood. Not only are you saving money but in all likely hood keeping something out of that landfill your county uses. I don't do nearly as much scroll work as most members here but I would think that drawer parts might be a source of wood for that?

[BadBob]

I'll grab a futon every chance I get. Mostly they are bolt together and the metal bits are easy to find.

Hitting a a metal fastener can destroy a saw blade.

[Buff pekin]

Lovely when you find a nice piece of hard wood that was going to land fill, and when you make a nice piece of scroll work from it.

[Joe W.]

On 9/25/2022 at 11:46 AM, OCtoolguy said:

I look, but the old furniture I find seems to always be veneer over low quality wood.

Dang!  that just happened to me.
Was coming home from helping out a friend and spotted a bed head board on the side of the road.
Got it home and found it is Wood veneer covering what I think is MDF.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't.
But I'll keep on looking.

[tomsteve]

On 9/23/2022 at 11:09 AM, Scrappile said:

Some of the best mahogany I have came from a bed headboard someone threw out.  

a few years ago i came across a dresser that was pretty solid. thought," run the wood through the planer to get the dark stain off and ill have some nice poplar."

i thought for sure the fronts of the drawers, sides and top of dresser were stained poplar to mimic walnut but nope- that was all walnut. drawers except fronts were poplar so i ended up with nice poplar AND walnut.

 

[Joe W.]

On 10/10/2022 at 7:13 AM, tomsteve said:

a few years ago i came across a dresser that was pretty solid. thought," run the wood through the planer to get the dark stain off and ill have some nice poplar."

I think Santa is getting me a planer this year.
Just got a few more pieces of wood from a couple old dressers and thought:  "I'll run them thru the planer when I get it.
But then I wondered if the stain/finish would be harmful to the planer blades.
I've seen differing opinions and thought I'd check in here to see results/opinions.

[scrollerpete]

Your planer will work fine, I used mine all the time to remove paint from pine board that I found around my place, they were used to cover Jack post on the front of the houses and now we replace them with PVC because they rot.

[tomsteve]

On 10/18/2022 at 7:36 AM, Joe W. said:

But then I wondered if the stain/finish would be harmful to the planer blades.
I've seen differing opinions and thought I'd check in here to see results/opinions.

no problems at all

[Tallbald]

I got started rescuing wood back in the early 90's when teaching myself to turn. That branched out into using plum, Bradford pear, cherry, Osage orange, walnut, maple, sasafras, oak and any other native hardwood I found by the side of the road. All my sculptures were made of rescued woods and that was a great selling point for years. I suspect that resawing some of the same woods I find into thinner planks will help me in my scroll sawing journey too. Glad that I'm not at all alone in dumpster diving for wood too!

Don

[OCtoolguy]

1 hour ago, Tallbald said:

I got started rescuing wood back in the early 90's when teaching myself to turn. That branched out into using plum, Bradford pear, cherry, Osage orange, walnut, maple, sasafras, oak and any other native hardwood I found by the side of the road. All my sculptures were made of rescued woods and that was a great selling point for years. I suspect that resawing some of the same woods I find into thinner planks will help me in my scroll sawing journey too. Glad that I'm not at all alone in dumpster diving for wood too!

Don

I can only envy you for your finds. There is NEVER anything like that around here. Anything of any use is gobbled up by the homeless and when the city decides to clean out their encampments, it all goes into a huge dumpster and on to a landfill. Sad!