Up/Re Secondlifeing

[Joeboy]

That will be good for a 1/4 millennium Nowty. Great find!

[openspaceman]

My favourite place for reuse and rescue (other than a skip) is good old freecycle -

I sometimes pick up stuff in need of repair and then put it up for freecycle again.

Currently I have 4 petrol powered mowers, made with bits from one other, all running well but no takers. Most people around here have gone for battery powered ones.

[Joeboy]

Think we’ve second life’s the majority of stuff we’ve got

Quite a bit of the kitchen is Iroko lab benching from my last workplace. They were 1940’s

We bought a job lot of ‘African Teak’ that came from the stables of a minor royals stately home. Been used for decking, shelving, furniture. Any of the offcuts burn like stink.

Still got 2m3 ish left - projects already identified.

Bought bedroom furniture contemporaneous to the house (1929) - quarter sawn Walnut veneer. Beautiful. Still have the original bill of sale. Sad thing, cost less than the IKEA equivalents.

DS is a drummer - he’s into vintage percussion stuff. We used to buy and renovate - some of the drums from the 1930’s (he has several) are far better (if you get a good one) than a modern equivalent.

Some reckon it’s the old growth Maple that was used in their construction.

List goes on - I do think a lot of quality stuff from ‘before’ is still better than modern equivalents. It’s well worth considering reusing from an aesthetic and environmental perspective as well as financial.

Iroko is gorgeous, that's a top worktop! I bought a old growth maple dance floor from a local establishment many years ago. Took me a full 9 months to prep and lay it. Probably about 80 sq mtrs. £500 was the cost to buy it. It is absolutely gorgeous. I'll post up a pic of the £10 pine chest later.

As an aside story on African timbers. We used to use an African hardwood as deckboards on one of the ships I worked on. They were insanely dense and needed two men to move a single deckboard. If a small offcut was overboarded you'd never see it again. Went straight to the depths.

[Bugtownboy]

We’ve got two other (recycled/repurposed) African hardwoods in the garden -

Greenheart is normally used to line docks/build grounds/anything submerged in salt water. Our current lot came from Pompey when they redid the berth for the new aircraft carrier. Can be processed to a really nice finish and is absolutely bombproof. One of ours still had some barnacles in a couple of cracks.

Ekki - now used for such things as lock gates, wooden bridges. Ours came from the inside of a cooling tower. Again, can be processed to a super finish.

Both are incredibly dense, heavy and don’t float !

We get any recycled hardwood from a chap on Exmoor - Howard Gibbons.

https://www.howardgibbons.com/

When we moved into the house there were old fence posts in the garden (not supporting a fence). They’d rotted at ground level. Anyway, flap wheel on the angle grinder got rid of the surface rot to reveal beautiful, very hard Oak.

Found a use for some, others are still waiting in the garage for a second life !

[Joeboy]

Latest project to keep. A rustic pine chest of drawers mid 1800's. Damage to two drawers, doesn't matter as it adds to the look. Had a satisfying couple of hours doing some small repairs to stop it degrading further, then a clean & wax.

It's now in daughters old room. A tenner for this, a tenner! How? For scale it's about 4ft long and 2 ft deep. Very happy.

[richbee]

We’ve got two other (recycled/repurposed) African hardwoods in the garden -

Greenheart is normally used to line docks/build grounds/anything submerged in salt water. Our current lot came from Pompey when they redid the berth for the new aircraft carrier. Can be processed to a really nice finish and is absolutely bombproof. One of ours still had some barnacles in a couple of cracks.

Ekki - now used for such things as lock gates, wooden bridges. Ours came from the inside of a cooling tower. Again, can be processed to a super finish.

Both are incredibly dense, heavy and don’t float !

We get any recycled hardwood from a chap on Exmoor - Howard Gibbons.

https://www.howardgibbons.com/

When we moved into the house there were old fence posts in the garden (not supporting a fence). They’d rotted at ground level. Anyway, flap wheel on the angle grinder got rid of the surface rot to reveal beautiful, very hard Oak.

Found a use for some, others are still waiting in the garage for a second life !

The pond I built two houses ago was constructed from old railway sleepers - African Azobe - which was untreated and incredibly dense & hard to cut - apparently the grain was so tight the water didn't get into rot it - and that was after ~50 years use on French railways - or maybe French colonies

[Bugtownboy]

Yep, Azobe is another name for Ekki - it is wonderful wood, unless you have to cut it

We took a piece of ours to a local vintage farming show. There was a big steam driven saw ‘bench’ with a (approximately) 4’ diameter belt driven saw.

Couldn’t manage it

We’ve still got a 4 metre 4x7” (soz for mixed measurements) we’ve got to process somehow.

Recycled tropical hardwoods are well worth looking at for certain projects, particularly if water is involved.

They’re stronger, denser and potentially more durable than oak and, probably, cheaper.

Just a bugger to work with - splinters and dust are not good.

Admittedly, if you were trying to achieve something traditional, probably wouldn’t work.

[Joeboy]

They arrived this afternoon! Had a quick hook up and test. Four hours later I turned the stereo off with a huge smile on my face. WOW, 54 yrs old speakers, outstanding !







Tomorrow I'll set them up in family room and give them another whirl. Solar powered Bang & Olufsen.

[Bugtownboy]

They’re smart Joe

Thought our 30+ year old Mission were doing well.

Those speakers have really been well looked after. Look like new.

[Joeboy]

They’re smart Joe

Thought our 30+ year old Mission were doing well.

Those speakers have really been well looked after. Look like new.

Cheers BTB! I was tempted to go for Missions but I've been promising myself some B&O for multiple decades. They've been rewired with some heavy cable by the last guy. I added pads to the bottom and oiled the cabinets.

They've got that rich, silky timbre that I recall from B&O. The Onkyo is excellent but being that bit newer and mainly pushing mp3 I aimed to reduce the treble with the B&O's.

I am currently listening to Bowie & also Queen and its like having warm chocolate poured into the .

Can you tell I'm happy?

It cost comparatively little to put this together.
Onkyo reciever/amp (sans remote or any cables) £50
B&O speakers heavy duty rewired £71
Bluetooth long range dongle £13
Total £134, run the whole lot from my phone with multiple 1,000's tracks. Got classic fm and the cd's too. Happy days!

That 12 string guitar from John I'm only dancing just kicked in!