Hobby Thread - October 11, 2025 [Lumberjack Rex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. A spin of the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) landed on lumber.

Are you thinking "I hate trees and I don't know anything about lumber, so there is nothing here for me"? No Moron could possibly say such a thing. Stick around. You might be entertained or learn something. You might enjoy hearing from others and seeing what others are hobbying.

I have faith that you can find something in the content that resonates or contribute your own hobbying interests. Dig around in the content and soak in the comments. Be curious. If you were a tree, what tree would you be? Glad you're here.

What are you hobbying?

As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. However, politics, current events and religious debates can live in threads elsewhere. Pants are optional. Puns are welcome and encouraged.

Play nice. Don't be a troll and do not feed the trolls.

This hobby thread was originally going to be a furniture theme. Research started with sourcing lumber and didn't get much further. There is a bounty of videos on YouTube. We'll do furniture in the future but we'll do wood now.

Lumber really isn't a hobby per se, but it is a building block for much hobbying. Hiking or visiting forests, building, lumberjack festivals, painting, photography, history, baseball bats, and more. Besides, the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) has spoken.

Baseball bats? Might as well start with a visit to Louisville, KY:

Felling knowledge:

Giant Sequoia stump in California -

A single giant sequoia could provide 500,000 board feet of lumber.

Giant sequoias are only found in one place - a 250-mile stretch of forest along the Western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They grow at high elevation, between 4,000 and 8,000 feet, and are clustered into roughly 70 groves.

In 1892, the Kings River Lumber Company began logging the Converse Basin, home to giant sequoias with 15- to 20-foot diameter trunks.

Loggers used the same technique to fell a giant sequoia that they used with smaller trees. First, they had to make a V-shaped "undercut." To do that, they built a platform 25-feet high so they could reach the softer part of the trunk. Then two men-one left-handed and one right-handed - started chopping away with double-sided axes.

The loggers-mostly Swedish, Polish, German, Irish and Norwegian immigrants-worked 11-hour days, six days a week. It took each two-man crew several days to hack their way to the center of a tree, leaving behind an undercut tall enough for them to stand inside.

The same men would then go to the other side of the tree and grab each end of a long, two-handled saw. Heaving back and forth, they made one continuous cut back through the trunk toward the undercut. Every foot or so, they hammered in 24-inch steel wedges to prevent the tree's incredible weight from snagging the saw.

When only a few inches remained between the back cut and the undercut, the loggers used even more wedges and powerful blows from a sledgehammer to topple the sequoia in the direction of the undercut. Link

it can't be a lumber theme without a nod to the Albany Timber Carnival:

The story of the American Chestnut:

Lumber guide:

How not to buy crap lumber:

This is endearing and entertaining and informative. Finding the perfect wood finish:

Lumber store lingo:

I love sawmill videos:

This needed to fit in here somewhere:

JTB - this one is for you:

Anatomy of Wood - Improve your carving efficiency with an understanding of wood grain

Making plywood:

Mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Trees, Joyce Kilmer.

Randomly spotted in Hobby Lobby:

Hobby? Obsession? Illness? Doesn't matter. We salute amateur mad scientist home garage engineering.

How to break two landspeed records:

Public service announcement:

Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a Christmas crafting theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.

Notable comments from last week department:

Words of wisdom:

"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).

If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute something from your personal hobbying. We will feature a different theme next time. What are you hobbying? We love showing off Horde hobbying. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:30 PM

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