Wood working/building things

Sure if you arent to picky concerning sawn dimensions  and expect they ARENT dried when they sell.
There are "sawmills"  "everywhere"  but we westerner wouldnt call them that,  Rather common is they saw planks with a chainsaw FREEHAND. Some are very skilled at it.

But in Davao there is/was a proper sawmill exporting a bunsh of years ago. I dont know if it excist still.

Thanks

aalottjr wrote:

Thanks

Hi and welcome to the forum, hope you find what you are looking for.
For me, plenty of others, google will be your best friend. There are plenty of suppliers in and around Davao and I'm sure you will find what you need and at times improvise as we do here.

https://tinyurl.com/5bcksbty

Good luck.

Cheers, Steve.

Buying wood off the street can be done. I also live close to Davao. In my city there is a certain area of town where a lot of wood sellers are located in the same area. Avoid coco lumber as it is both heavy and low quality, but if you do use it, paint it. Same goes for any wood, it will be eaten by microscopic worms called bok-bok if you don't paint it. Like someone said above, it will not be properly dried when you buy it unless by accident, however if you have the wherewithall and patience, you might find a supplier of good seasoned wood, especially in Davao.

Where I live, if I ask for jimilina, which is a hard blond wood with a tight grain, I am invariably sent home with either fake jimilina or bad jimilina, sometimes as light as balsam wood or it could be cut with a spoon. My repeated mistake is to buy wood on the way home from a tiresome shopping trip. The sellers know a tired old man when they see one and they know I'm in a hurry to go home. Do not make this mistake.

The best wood I ever used in the Phils was my own jimilina trees which I paid a chainsaw operator to cut down on my own property and saw into boards. This seems to be very good, durable lumber. We made a new floor structure in our second story with it. It planes nice if you want it smooth.

When we renovated our house, we replaced every stick of wood with concrete. There's pretty much no wood left in the house except the ceilings. When we carried our bed out of the upstairs bedroom to replace the floor, my foot went through the floor three times. Wood will be eaten. There is something called solignum that they want to treat everything with to slow down the advance of termites. But they will want to mix diesel oil with it and maybe even spray it after it's nailed into the wall. Do not allow either. It has to be applied with a brush, full strength.

I learned the hard way that newly cut wood, especially coco lumber, has to be stored upright so the water will drain out of it. If stacked flat it will rot from the inside out. The first time we had our roof replaced, we paid a guy to use some coco lumber we'd harvested and he did 3/4 of the job then quit without explanation. I looked at what was left of the wood and I could cut it with my fingernail. Ten years later we had no choice but to replace the roof again, and this time we used welded steel for the structure.

stumpednomore wrote:

Buying wood off the street can be done. I also live close to Davao. In my city there is a certain area of town where a lot of wood sellers are located in the same area. Avoid coco lumber as it is both heavy and low quality, but if you do use it, paint it. Same goes for any wood, it will be eaten by microscopic worms called bok-bok if you don't paint it. Like someone said above, it will not be properly dried when you buy it unless by accident, however if you have the wherewithall and patience, you might find a supplier of good seasoned wood, especially in Davao.

Where I live, if I ask for jimilina, which is a hard blond wood with a tight grain, I am invariably sent home with either fake jimilina or bad jimilina, sometimes as light as balsam wood or it could be cut with a spoon. My repeated mistake is to buy wood on the way home from a tiresome shopping trip. The sellers know a tired old man when they see one and they know I'm in a hurry to go home. Do not make this mistake.

The best wood I ever used in the Phils was my own jimilina trees which I paid a chainsaw operator to cut down on my own property and saw into boards. This seems to be very good, durable lumber. We made a new floor structure in our second story with it. It planes nice if you want it smooth.

When we renovated our house, we replaced every stick of wood with concrete. There's pretty much no wood left in the house except the ceilings. When we carried our bed out of the upstairs bedroom to replace the floor, my foot went through the floor three times. Wood will be eaten. There is something called solignum that they want to treat everything with to slow down the advance of termites. But they will want to mix diesel oil with it and maybe even spray it after it's nailed into the wall. Do not allow either. It has to be applied with a brush, full strength.

I learned the hard way that newly cut wood, especially coco lumber, has to be stored upright so the water will drain out of it. If stacked flat it will rot from the inside out. The first time we had our roof replaced, we paid a guy to use some coco lumber we'd harvested and he did 3/4 of the job then quit without explanation. I looked at what was left of the wood and I could cut it with my fingernail. Ten years later we had no choice but to replace the roof again, and this time we used welded steel for the structure.

(omo)
Agreed...termite infestation here is a real PITA (commando trained i think!)
I'll stick with steel/ready made hard plastic cabinets anyday.

PITA is an understatement. We purchased a house here 4 odd years ago, concrete floors, block walls and rendered, Narra trusses and roof battens, metal roof. Moved our furniture here from Oz 2 years ago and within a month the termites were coming out of the power points for the new feed,,,,,,, many posts from me and others on this but honestly, live with it, a mini war that will never end with thousands upon thousands of pesos spent on chemicals to control,,,,,,, I am just back from the pump house that is built from bamboo and what looks like coco lumber and a tin roof. 4th time since moving here with the poison for them and the worry for me is will those chemicals make their way down to the water table some 30 ft down?

In the mean time the goats and cows seem to keep away these days generally but from time to time I see a few cows walking along the beach, not something you see every day.

Cheers, Steve.

Some wood types are more resistant.  E g Paraiso termites dont like. I believe Acacia too.


("jimilina"  =Gmelina.)

Sounds like I need to build beds out of metal.
So what I’m hearing Is even though the house built out of concrete if furniture is wood the
Ninja Termites will conquer all barriers and leave me lying on the concrete!
Thanks
Terry from Texas

aalottjr wrote:

Sounds like I need to build beds out of metal.
So what I’m hearing Is even though the house built out of concrete if furniture is wood the
Ninja Termites will conquer all barriers and leave me lying on the concrete!
Thanks
Terry from Texas

Termites dont like the heartwood =the  part most in cemtre
and dont eat Teak and Mahogany.  Some tricky thouh in Phils by called some NOT Mahogany for "Mahoany".
There are trees called "White teak" in Phils I have forgot which and I dont know if ternits avoid that too.

With the lock down I have nothing better to do after You Tube, Netflix and Expat.com, so termites became an interesting thing to find out about on Google.

There are 200 species of termites in the Philippines, 90% of the damage is caused by the Coptotermes species.

Surprising Termites are subterranean and build their nest in moist soil and build mud tunnels. They work their way underground to reach wood (cellulose).

In the air they are susceptible to desiccation.

I know nothing about termites from personal experience. First thing I might do is look for their mound outside and destroy it.

More realistic things is use treated wood and prior to construction of your home have a chemical barrier by applications of termiticide.

Thanks
I had a house in Texas that I found a hole near where toilet and found the one wall by termites very damaged so replaced studs and remodeled.
I am looking forward to moving to Philippines in 12-24 months. So I enjoy woodworking and building things with wood. So I know I’ll figure it out but am trying to determine what I will do as I’ll be fully retired then. I retired once and got bored so now in UAE working as contract guy for another year or so.

Especially in Philippines best to learn how to do some welding too.

They have city hardware and local wood cutters in and around the Davis area

Davao

@aalottjr yes a very good supply of lumber in Davao  city they are located in Coca-Cola village  in Davao city

This is a good thread to resurrect. I would like to know what other wood working hobbyists are making. My passion is bamboo and I hope to do more now that I have some free time.

I made the bench and table earlier but then we got busy on some major projects and I wasn't able to do any bamboo work. The bench only has a few nails in the seat and those could be removed now that it is tied. The table doesn't have any nails. The 4 legs are made of 2 pieces of bamboo that I heated and bent. It is all held together by tapered bamboo spikes that are inside the legs. My wife claimed the table.

We cut a lot of bamboo from the father in law's property for scaffolding to paint the 2nd story of the house. I saved all the good pieces for future projects. The future is now because our adopted son will be 3 in November and he doesn't have a playhouse. The only nails are in the floor slats, the rest is pegged or tied. We are going to order the nipa for the roof tomorrow and the shingles will also be tied on with bamboo strips. It is sitting in front of my workshop now but will be positioned somewhere in that area because the little guy likes to help me in my shop.