PowerSwitch

Internet forums are great aren't they? Every so often a gem comes up that I feel like sharing.
I use another forum at diynot.com , the technical pages are decent enough although they are at best lukewarm when green issues , ideas or building techniques are mentioned but with thirty odd years experience in restoration I can at least offer advice. General discussion on there is becoming increasingly hostile and right wing and I'm finding myself posting less and less.
However, recently there was a thread titled " are patio heaters ethically acceptable? " . Now I'm pretty sure what the answers would be on here but over on diynot it took a really interesting angle . It seems , and this was stated as fact , that the reason behind the increase in patio heater use is all down to the smoking ban in pubs and those ultimately responsible are " non smoking greenies" . I don't smoke and voted green last time so I guess that means me so I must humbly apologise .
This is the topic in question
http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=413090
The first page is a bit disjointed because of having some posts removed and the "facts " are arrived at on page four . It tends to wander off into a smoking thread after that . On one hand the debate is amusing but on the other it's frightening that such attitudes can still exist today.

I used to visit diynot.com a while ago when I was 'in trade'. You give a good description, Lurkalot.

Would it be impolite to ask what trade you were in Biff?

Bespoke oak joinery, mostly windows for old houses.

lol - print this out and tape it above your monitor... it'll save you a lot of time, Lurkalot!



Tragically, I remember a few of those posters from the old 'electricianstalk' / screwfix forums - I'm sure most of them are lovely IRL.

In the days before the internet was the source of all knowledge, people treated anything on a computer printout or screen as absolute truth.

I once received a ridiculous gas bill based on a customer provided reading - except that I was the customer and hadn't provided the reading. I could not persuade the call centre operative that someone had obviously entered the wrong account number when recording someone else's reading .
"You must have given us the reading - it's on the computer!"

In days before computers, any typed letter had a similar effect on the general masses, and any written communication to the totally illiterate.

Biff , I've also spent most of my life as a joiner , some of it in the shop but mainly on site work and working largely in oak in as I said restoration for the national trust , EH and the redundant church commission.
Mr Fox , I do like that but as age, cynicism and general grumpiness grows I'd have to change it to " ALMOST everyone else is wrong on the internet"

Nice. I didn't do very much site work except occasionally fitting windows or doors when I couldn't find a good enough excuse to avoid it. I mostly commuted to work across the lawn, past the road bed and into my shed with the radio. And of course the opportunity to check PowerSwitch at coffee break time.

It's a great shame that there are not more joiners willing to work in oak. It is a wonderful material and I never had a day without something in the order book waiting to be done.

Are we short of oak trees then? Now's the time of year when I go and pick up acorns off the road/pavement, and chuck them surrupticiously onto promising-looking road verges, field edges and the like.

Always good to grow more oak, but no, there's plenty available for joinery and there's good stuff in eastern Europe that needs a market.

I work with Oak quite a lot, mostly American White Oak, and I don't like it at all. The stresses that build up in the wood are incredible, boards arrive cupped and bent so I lose a lot in the planer just trying to get it straight, then when I go back to it a week later it's cupped and bent again as the stresses pull it out of shape, so another trip through the planer before I can even start using it.

If I remove any significant sections from my twice-planed plank it will twist again and although the knots are spectacular they are rock hard and brittle and crack open.

All in all, not a nice wood to use for furniture, I much prefer Mahogany.

My one gripe about Oak (the wood substance, rather than the growing trees) was my first attempt to strip paint off it. I think you have to use specialist stuff, because ordinary paintstripper leaves it kind-of mottled and patchy.

Now I can't remember whether "Nitromores" is the specialist stuff, or the ordinary stuff that doesn't work with oak. Oh well.

When I was a "student and young professional" in cheap rented gaffs, I used to like salvaging and repairing old furniture.

Catweazle wrote:I work with Oak quite a lot, mostly American White Oak, and I don't like it at all. The stresses that build up in the wood are incredible, boards arrive cupped and bent so I lose a lot in the planer just trying to get it straight, then when I go back to it a week later it's cupped and bent again as the stresses pull it out of shape, so another trip through the planer before I can even start using it.

If I remove any significant sections from my twice-planed plank it will twist again and although the knots are spectacular they are rock hard and brittle and crack open.

All in all, not a nice wood to use for furniture, I much prefer Mahogany.

I'm please to say I've never used American White Oak. It is a very different creature from English (or European) oak. I never tried using it because a) it's a long way to fetch it from America, b) it's American and c) it's not in the very durable class that I require for external joinery such as window frames, where it is intended to last a few centuries.

That said, I rather wonder whether the timber you had imported was kiln-dried. Never kiln-dry oak. Let it dry outside in stick for three years and then under cover another year and if it is to be used indoors then bring it indoors for several weeks before making the the thing.

Mahogany, of course, should never be used at all as it is the home of fruit bats that are now getting their revenge.

Reclaimed mahogany was a thing a few years back, though. In London for example you used to get artists and the like rescuing it from skips. Of course, this was during the economic boom when everyone was having their offices re-furbed.

biffvernon wrote:

Catweazle wrote:I work with Oak quite a lot, mostly American White Oak, and I don't like it at all. The stresses that build up in the wood are incredible, boards arrive cupped and bent so I lose a lot in the planer just trying to get it straight, then when I go back to it a week later it's cupped and bent again as the stresses pull it out of shape, so another trip through the planer before I can even start using it.

If I remove any significant sections from my twice-planed plank it will twist again and although the knots are spectacular they are rock hard and brittle and crack open.

All in all, not a nice wood to use for furniture, I much prefer Mahogany.

I'm please to say I've never used American White Oak. It is a very different creature from English (or European) oak. I never tried using it because a) it's a long way to fetch it from America, b) it's American and c) it's not in the very durable class that I require for external joinery such as window frames, where it is intended to last a few centuries.

That said, I rather wonder whether the timber you had imported was kiln-dried. Never kiln-dry oak. Let it dry outside in stick for three years and then under cover another year and if it is to be used indoors then bring it indoors for several weeks before making the the thing.

Mahogany, of course, should never be used at all as it is the home of fruit bats that are now getting their revenge.

Kiln drying is indeed part of the problem, but air dried wood costs a fortune ( if you can find some ).

There are a few trees in the Mahogany family, one of the easiest to use is Utile, sometimes sold as Sipo Mahogany.

http://www.mcilvain.com/utile-mahogany-alternative/

This wood machines and finishes very well, and is responsibly managed. It's the wood I would choose to make my window frames from, if previous owners hadn't already wrapped the house in uPVC.

Then there's Teak......dream on.