Woodworker's Journal 2008-32-5, страница 22

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Wood's Splintered History: Grand Xylariums

How Much Wood

Would a Wood Collector Collect? Gary Green has encountered alligators, snakes, and needle-shooting cacti in pursuit of his pastime. He's slid off mountains, been caught trespassing, and walked six miles after slashing a tire in the middle of nowhere.

And what does he have to show for all this? Thousands upon thousands of pieces of wood, each about the size of your hand, each smoothly sanded, each different. Welcome to the world of wood collecting.

For Green, his xylarium, or wood collection, started while he was splitting firewood one day in 1992. He began wondering what the woods would look like planed down. By the end of the day, he had 10 nice small samples.

He continued to collect; with the purchase of another collection, his total jumped to 6,000-plus.

Read All About It!

Like history? Like wood? WJ editors like both, and we thought you'd enjoy this excerpt from Spike Carlsen's A Splintered History ofWood. Elsewhere in the book, you can read about belt sander races, the (birch) Spruce Goose, wood as the foundation of civilization and more. The book is published by Collins and priced at $24.95 (ISBN: 9780061373565).

From the book A SPLINTERED HISTORY OFWOOD by Spike Carlsen. Copyright (c) 2008 by Spike Carlsen. Reprinted by permission of Collins, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Green is not alone in his passion. The International Wood Collector's Society (IWCS), founded in 1947, has over 1,100 members in 50 states and 35 countries, including Estonia and Iceland.

It's a bottomless hobby. With as

Scott Phillips, host of "The American Woodshop" and co-host of "The American Homeshop" TV shows is just one of many woodworkers who are also serious wood collectors, as described in this excerpt from Spike Carlsen's new book.

many as 80,000 species of trees on the planet, a person gathering one wood a day would still require 219 years to amass a complete collection. Even Richard Crow of England, who has what most consider to be the world's largest private collection, has only (only!) 7,000 species; less than 10 percent of the woods nature has given us. This from a man who has collected for 50 years; whose family has been in the lumber business since 1795. Most collectors use a varied approach: they'll field-collect some, buy some, trade some and cut some out of larger boards.

Though standard specimens 1/2" x 3" x 6" are little bigger than a Hershey bar, large collections take up a cumulatively large amount of space. Green began storing his collection on the walls of his office, ran out of walls (and discovered that samples faded in sunlight), and now stores most in plastic tubs. An

English collector who lives in a small flat collects specimens as cross-sections on microscope slides. Some display their samples like books on a shelf. Ralph Cox echoes the words of many in saying, "My wife thinks I have too much wood, but I really don't."

Many IWCS members are woodworkers and choose to display their collections as objects they've created: forests of 2" high trees, bowls, rice-size goblets, quilts, pens, spoons, lapel pins, carved boxes and thimbles. One collector has whittled 2,000 dolphins; another has turned 1,100 different eggs from 1,100 different species. Maps with countries, states, or even counties crafted from woods native to that area are popular.

Shop Talk continues on page 24 ...

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October 2008 Woodworker's Journal