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See what you are up against Ian? The guy above supports child slavery, probably got it online where he paid no taxes, cares not about the quality as long as it makes it home, and sends his salary to Bangladesh.
And he is proud of it. Maybe you are right, maybe the average American is quite a dolt. They just may deserve their water mains to sink their houses and their bridges to maim their children.
But you are bloody misinformed about Americans cadillacs heating up polar bears dens.
The ENGLISH heated the atmosphere with their coal mines firing Newcomens and Watts crappy steam engines, turning their looms with 8 year old girls working 10 hour days, while pop worked underground in the Cornish tin mines for a pastie a 12 hour day.
Then came Newcomen, and a improved steam engine, which exhausted Englands coal entirely. Then YOUR BOYS [unemployed] came to california to enhance our rape of nature and accelerate the use of coal. It's all on your shoulders, those sweaty polar bears.
The rest of the Brits were off on big sailing ships spreading venereal disease and smallpox around the earth. They killed more souls than 100,000 9-11's, and we are not counting the slaughter in India; the numbers would be too big.
Snow cores from the Arctic actually fingerprint the first coal 'fallout' as from Englands dirty coal in the late 1600's.
Then you managed to take the Australian paradise, fill it with sodomites and ner-do wells, and label it a succesful " transport"
Last edited by ballvalve; 12-31-2010 at 01:55 PM.
HOLY SMOKES!
IKEA even have plumbing tools!
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/28512100
They are giving you the mini cutter at no charge! Son of a *****!
I'm heading there now, can't pass that deal up
That's a low price! I wouldn't buy it if it wasn't made in china!
Read what the end of this sentence means.
IKEA does actually make a few good lines. Here's a few tips if you want your IKEA stuff to last a decade or more:
1) buy the solid wood stuff. It's there. Just look.
2) Use wood glue. For smaller items (things that won't need to be disassembled if you need to move them to another room like beds) don't just rely on the screw thingies that hold the furniture together. Use wood glue as well. This stops the charachteristic "shake" IKEA furniture can develop after a few years.
Last edited by Ian Gills; 12-31-2010 at 04:11 PM.
Its becoming an Ikea, Costco and Walmart world. We are losing our soul.
Hard to find a private restaurant or cafe unless you are in Kansas or New York.
Ikea does make some nice stuff, but the local cabinetmakers can beat their kitchen prices when given the chance. And a house outfitted entirely from Ikea just screams temporary, transient, cheap.
Give me a 1700's stone farmhouse in Italy, a few thousand feet of roughsawn local lumber, and I'll show you what life and living can really be.
I do a lot of my own woodwork now. Granted, I have to make do with Red Oak which is far inferior to European Oak but it's better than nothing.
Red wood is probably the best you've got, which is a mediocre timber compared to what is on offer in Europe.
I wouldn't live in a stone house though. Too cold. In some, condensation can freeze on the inside.
But then again, I wouldn't live in a wooden house either. Like most Americans do.
We like brick houses with slate roofs.
Last edited by Ian Gills; 01-01-2011 at 01:13 PM.
Really now Ian, you should know that western European and even most of east European wood [especially old growth oak] is long gone or locked up in parks.
America is a candy store for wood, and the prices are fantastic. If not for American white oak barrels, your Scotch would cost 10x more.
You need not use red oak, move to white oak, which is actually cheaper in some markets. Its as close as you will get to the wood the English built their ships with. American white oak is also superior in that the pores do not allow water through when SAWED. To make a barrel in European oak, the wood must be split, with huge waste.
I buy white oak at @1.60$ per board foot. I own a serious sawmill, but could never compete with that price.
Where you really have the American advantage is in black walnut, at @5.00$ per BF [likely cheaper on the east coast]
And its all sustainable. Studies show harvest is less than regrowth for about 15 years now. Small family plots, mostly.
Your european pine is crap, cut from those hideous little sticks growing in a sterile tree cornfield. I would venture your only advantage is in Beech, which is from Russia anyway. Try Alder, a very nice wood from Oregon.
Most of my house is built of 16" THICK double core block, insulation in one and steel in the other. Then I framed the house in heart redwood for termite and rot resistance. The beams came out of my own mill from pine trees the size of what Europeans must pay 10$ to get into a park to have a look at.
Last edited by ballvalve; 01-01-2011 at 04:26 PM.
Beech is best.
We have maple, even harder than Beech. About the same color. And you can buy the Russian Beech here quite cheap.
Wider widths available in maple.
I'm about to buy some maple. And I recently imported some beech. So I'll let you know.
There's one thing you can grow though. Yes we cannabis. Yes to 19.
Clear European Beech is $3.15 per BF here. Maple, clear, surfaced is @ $3.95. What are you paying for Beech?
Maple is terrible to try and stain, so I use it only with clear finishes. Alder loves stain, and I get full on 1" clear surfaced for $1.56. I suppose because its a west coast thing.
When cannabis is legal and they grow it like corn, the price will be lower than cigarettes.
The present illegal growers fear such a proposition greatly.
Last edited by ballvalve; 01-04-2011 at 10:22 AM.
Back to topic : Another hemmorage of skilled woodworking jobs last year, gone to Indonesia.
http://www.irsauctions.com/index_lot...tails&id=13675
And a new one. Hundreds of skilled workers out on the burger king circuit soon.
http://www.irsauctions.com/index_lot...tails&id=14358
This is the silent, incremental, fall of Rome. We don't even can sardines in the USA anymore!
The monster corps with big lawyers get trillions of dollars to survive from Obama - making poor quality cars.
The little guys that provide the backbone of America get bent over and worked over with a government rolling pin.
case study: Indonesian clips finger tip with saw. He is fired or hides the injury. My guy just used up $1340 for his 20 minutes in the ER. I could have fixed it with a butterfly bandage. 89cents, plus a glove..... THEY x-rayed it twice. Sterile dressing cost? $276
500$ worth of paperwork. They almost beg him to file for permanent disability. He took the stitches out himself and saved another thousand for the deranged system.
Indonesia gets to unload shiploads of our equipment at 1 cent on the dollar and laugh at our ignorance.
Last edited by ballvalve; 02-02-2011 at 11:01 AM.
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