Triassic Industries

2009-11-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

In an effort to bring you more information we are moving our blogging effort to our facebook fan page. You do not have to be a member or login or anything like that. Feel free to browse all you like. We will leave these posts up so you can see older posts. Click here TRIASSIC

2009-11-19T16:35:00.001-07:00

We cut a rotten cottonwood tree at the Youth Garden Project. It had a hole it it for 40 ft. We also took down a russian olive that was surrounded by power lines. Katy Made chopsticks out of russian olive wood and scott had a chainsaw maintenance day.

Heat!

2009-11-14T08:52:00.001-07:00

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We now have heat in the shop! We hooked up a wood fired boiler that runs off our scrap wood and junk firewood! It is so nice to be warm. Dre is working here on a tamarisk bowl. Katy (in the mask) is working on a two hole dog bowl. Scott is chiseling.

2009-11-05T09:12:00.001-07:00

2009-11-04T07:22:00.000-07:00

2009-11-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

2009-08-28T08:54:00.000-06:00

2009-08-06T08:14:00.002-06:00

We checked out a lava flow in Nevada that had some nice material with crystals in it. We also found a bunch of "wonderstone" in western Utah, for jewelry and a small bowl.

2009-08-06T08:05:00.000-06:00

On our trip to California we did some rock hunting and check out some amazing trees. The first pictures are from an obsidian dome. we picked up a 200 lb chunk to carve into a couple of bowls hopefully. The last two are of a steam donkey used for hauling logs back in the day.

2009-07-19T17:04:00.000-06:00

We removed a large russian olive tree that blew over on a clients car, before and after. Katy ripped out some dead siberian elm trees with the bobcat!

2009-07-06T08:24:00.000-06:00

This was a 80+foot tall cottonwood tree with a 48" trunk for the first 12 feet. It was hanging over two houses and shedding limbs.

2009-06-23T09:27:00.000-06:00

These are some more bird baths and a demo wooden sink out of poplar, we will finish it with boat spar.

2009-06-23T09:24:00.000-06:00

We have been working on bird baths lately out of diorite from the La Sals and Basalt from Torrey.

2009-06-15T09:09:00.001-06:00

2009-06-15T09:03:00.000-06:00

We completed our solar kiln. It is basically a large greenhouse fro drying wood. It uses passive solar heat and solar electricity to drive the fan to circulate air. Most commercial wood drying useslarge amounts of electricity to remove moisture from wood. We have also started and finished a few projects.

2009-05-21T13:17:00.000-06:00

Wednesday we milled two large chinese elm trees for finish shelves for a new house. The tree came from the cisco motel when it was moved.

2009-05-15T07:46:00.000-06:00

We started growing mushrooms on our logs. We inoculated several species of trees with four species of mushrooms, shitake, maitake, chicken of the woods, and hen of the woods. We are experimenting with a few different things and how to start producing large quantities of edible and medicinal mushroom in the future. We want to use sawdust as well a logs for the growing medium and hope to be able to offer mushroom compost as a byproduct.

2009-05-14T11:09:00.000-06:00

We finally got the Moulder machine up and running. Here are some videos to give you an idea of how it works. It has four heads, each with it's own motor and in the video it's set up to plane all four sides of a the 2" x 2" piece of douglas fir. We are very excited to make some tongue and groove, maybe one day we'll actually have finished floors in all the rooms of our house!

2009-05-07T20:23:00.000-06:00

A few pictures of work in progress this week.

2009-04-24T15:14:00.000-06:00

We cut the base of a Basalt sink with the sawmill today. We had a diamond bandsaw blade made that fits the sawmill and mounted the stone on the mill.. it cut smooth and straight! We are hoping to use the blade for this and sculptures, fountains, head stones, counter tops etc.. We also installed wood racks in the shop so that we can store more wood inside.

2009-04-14T14:34:00.000-06:00

Katy milled chinese elm for cabinet wood in Mulberry grove while scott did maintenance on saws,trailer, truack and bobcat.

2009-04-12T15:59:00.000-06:00

We refinished a redwood burl table that Scott's mom and GT made in the late 70's. We brought it back from Illinois on our way back from Indiana.

2009-04-12T08:52:00.000-06:00

We took down two large black walnut trees on Friday. One was leaning over a house and the other was dominating two fruit trees. The log on one will be excellent for milling. The Bobcat was great for material removal.

2009-04-12T08:50:00.000-06:00

We installed out molder in the shop and should be making flooring and trim soon!

2009-04-08T07:57:00.000-06:00

We finished a Douglas Fir bench last week. It has through tenons and pegs. We went to Indiana to pick up a new machine. The driving was crazy across the country. We went to the factory and did some training and drove it 1200 miles home through 13" of new snow on Vail Pass. It made to to the shop safely, Chris helped unload it and we should have it set up in a few days. What is it? It is a molder for shaping wood into all kinds of shapes, tongue and groove floring and paneling, finished lumber, trim, quarter rounds, base and case, crown molding etc.. Look for some new work coming out soon!

2009-03-23T18:33:00.000-06:00

This is a video we made to day at Mulberry Grove in Moab where we are working on converting trees that were taken down to make room for this subdivision into lumber for a house in the subdivision.

2009-03-23T18:31:00.000-06:00

This is a picture of a nice pair of 16 penny nails buried in an Elm log!

2009-03-11T11:43:00.000-06:00

We bought a bobcat today. it is going to improve our ability to move logs and stone quite a bit. We will be able to get into town more often to pick up logs. It can also run attachments like a log splitter, stump grinder and chipper that we hope to add soon! This one is a little shiny but I am sure we will rough it up! Just kidding, this one is for our nephew and the dirty one is ours!

2009-03-09T09:02:00.000-06:00

Sunday Scott restored a marble printing press type-setting table. It is from the Moab Times Independent which started in the 1890's.. so it could be that old. This picture is after it was re-ground but before the new finish. It is now a kitchen island and the tequila and lime juice took its toll!!

2009-03-09T09:00:00.000-06:00

Sunday we milled up some more chinese elm. This slab will probably be cutting blocks.

2009-03-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

We have just started the firewood side of our business. We saw that most firewood being sold in the valley was expensive $200/ cord and of medium quality (mostly pinon and juniper). This is all wood that has to be cut on the mountain and hauled down so that it has a lot of energy going in to it. We are cutting wood in town and using our waste to provide hardwoods that have 20% more BTU's per cord than pinon. Hardwoods burn cleaner, it takes less energy to get them and you have to burn less by volume to get the same heat.

2009-03-07T08:13:00.000-07:00

Dre is inlaying stone into a chinese elm board that was cut in the middle of town. This will be our new sign. The logo is by Ocean. We are also working on spoons and bowls. The stack of wood is all paperbirch destined to become rolling pins. It makes great rolling pins because it has tight grain, no knots and is stable even after it gets wet. The wood came from Chad's house after it died.

2009-02-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

We milled some Douglas Fif for a horizontal fence. The waste boards from the fence we put back on the sawmill and remilled them for flooring (pictures later). We also milled some Engleman spruce trim.

2009-01-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

We have been busy the last two months with holiday orders and other things but are getting caught up. Here are pitures of Otter (the dog) and Liz's table. It is black walnut from a dead tree we cut down on mill creek. It was the tree house tree behind the old trailer park.

2008-11-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

The tree service is in full swing. We have been trimming and removing trees on a large estate that adjoins the nature conservancy. We also removed a large english walnut from between two houses. The top section was mostly fire wood but we were able to salvage two saw logs that will be nice for furniture.

2008-11-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Scott, Chris, and Brady took out a large group of wind damaged cottonwood trees and a cluster of russian olive in spanish valley.

2008-09-25T07:59:00.000-06:00

Chris and Scott took down two large cottonwood trees out on the river yesterday. They were rotten and tangled and had to be cut apart and seperted with the forklift

2008-09-08T10:04:00.000-06:00

We finished our first fountain out of gabbro from Torrey this week. We are excited ot work on larger ones now. Studio tour was this weekend and we met lots of interesting folks.

2008-09-03T08:58:00.000-06:00

We have been working on a bunch of different projects in preparation for the Moab Studio Tour this coming weekend. See you there.

2008-08-15T19:33:00.000-06:00

We cut this wood for a post and beam two story straw bale house. Its mostly 6x6's, 6x12's and some large beams (6x20x24'). We will post more pics as it goes up.

2008-08-13T10:17:00.000-06:00

2008-08-13T09:58:00.000-06:00

We have been over in Torrey cutting wood for some fences and a two story post and beam house. Here are acouple of movies. Hopefully we get better at posting them etc..

2008-07-02T07:30:00.000-06:00

Katy made this green alabaster lamp with a black walnut base. She sliced the alabaster very thin, 1/8-1/16 of an inch thick. The lamp uses a compact fluorescent bulb for efficiency.

walnut

2008-07-02T07:22:00.000-06:00

We cut another large black walnut tree yesterday. It was planted by the homeowners grandfather and died this winter. She is going to use some of the wood we mill to make two clocks. It was a bit of a rough day. Scott hit his head on the forks of the forklift and it seemed like it was the hottest day we have had yet. The humidity was very high and the mosquitoes made it all interesting. It was nice to have the forklift in town and to be able to get it all on the trailer!

2008-06-26T07:09:00.000-06:00

Scott cut a basalt maquette for a fountain and sealed it. The basalt came from torrey and is glacial deposit from the mountains there. It is very hard but beautiful. We are going to start offering bowls, sculptures, fountains, bird baths, and sinks in this stone. We also sealed the diorite sink/basin. Scott Started two alabaster bowls, one whit with red bands the other is red with speckles.

2008-06-26T07:04:00.000-06:00

Katy worked on some jewelry and lamp parts. She is combining black pipestone with varasite. She cut in to some lapis and some azurite. She cut slabs of a green alabaster with orange spots, white, white with red stripes and green alabaster.

2008-06-23T07:46:00.000-06:00

Katy finished a catalpa bowl with serving utensils and Scott finished a juniper burl bowl.

trailer

2008-06-22T18:14:00.000-06:00

We got our trailer this weekend after we dropped off the table. We loaded up Chris's forklift and it pulls great. We used it to pick cherries! That was fun. Now we will be able to pick up trees in town much easier.

aspen

2008-06-22T10:01:00.001-06:00

We finished a black walnut table for Topper"s in Aspen. The walnut was from Gayle's house on Powerhouse ln. Katy inlayed the top with some green alabaster. The table is seven feet long and 44 inches high. It is pegged with antler.

2008-05-16T08:50:00.000-06:00

Dave Sadoff finished a counter top for a client out of our poplar, apricot and chinese elm. It looks amazing and the woods compliment each other nicely. We finished some spoons and a pear wood bowl and a chinese elm bowl.

Table

2008-05-13T20:24:00.000-06:00

We spent part of the day turning Gayle's black walnut tree into Greg Topper's table. It will be a tall barstool type table for his restaurant, Topper's

sketch

2008-05-06T13:28:00.001-06:00

2008-05-05T19:55:00.000-06:00

we drug out one of the 32" black walnut logs today. It was hot and the winch got a workout! So did the forklift. It has a lot of fencing embeded in it but some of it should be solid.

2008-05-05T09:55:00.000-06:00

We cut a bunch of Black Walnut sunday. Nick Eason is a wood carver that helped drop this tree and we cut him some chunks for his carving. The large round is tree of heaven from Nancy's house for her bowl!

poplar

2008-05-02T16:47:00.001-06:00

This is a spalted poplar bread bowl. Poplar is a common wood in Moab that is definitely undervalued. It is very strong and light. It has nice subtle grain and this piece has spalted while on the ground and has crazy black spotting and streaks with hints of purple.

chopsticks

2008-05-02T16:41:00.000-06:00

Here are a few pictures of finished work. A set of black walnut gun stock blanks. A knot of dogbane cords for necklaces.Some russian olive chopsticks and some apricot and peach wood spoons and spatula.

cutting

2008-04-30T16:34:00.000-06:00

Scott cut two 32" black walnut trees today. He also managed to light his pants on fire when he was cutting metal for a new ramp! He's fine as always! It was just that kind of day.

Walnut

2008-04-19T19:39:00.000-06:00

We had a great day. We cut another dead black walnut. It was on Gayle's property which has a spring and mill creek running through it. Brady was in town so he made the cut. We drank spring water and went swimming in mill creek after we loaded the logs. Gayle made hummus and we ate fruit in the sun. It could not have been more fun! The logs look really good, solid with little checking.

2008-04-18T08:03:00.000-06:00

This week is a black walnut week. We got calls on four large dead black walnut trees which were in different places but all along mill creek. Kind of strange. Worked on a black walnut coffee table top. It is 1 3/4" thick and 20" wide by 5' long. The tree came from the old powerhouse lane residential area and had about 80 nails in it of every kind. Should have taken pictures, there were roofing nails, lots of 16 penny nails , a lag bolt, a square nail,a concrete nail, a couple of spikes, with a bunch of 8 penny nails thrown in for fun. The tree came down easy and looks like some nice wood.

visit

2008-04-16T08:03:00.000-06:00

Scott's Dad and Stepmother came out for a visit this weekend and and were swiftly put to work! We worked on a sink, some lamp designs and at the sawmill we cut poplar beams and chinese elm 1"x6" for some french doors Dave Sadoff is making.

2008-04-07T10:45:00.000-06:00

We finished a chestnut bowl and a catalpa bowl and server set. The stack of chinese elm is getting bigger. Today we are pulling stumps and things.

Elm

2008-04-05T08:51:00.000-06:00

Katy milled up a bunch of chinese elm for Dave's various projects, door, shelves, and cabinets. It came out beautifully. She also cut up another poplar log for 4x6's for chris's grease pit. Then she took a ride in th rock crawler with chris.

burn

2008-04-05T08:47:00.000-06:00

We burned the slash pile the tree trimmers left on the property and moved things around a bit so we can access more of the logs. We back lit the pile just before the wind picked up. Only a moment of excitement and then we ate elk roast and watched it all collapse in on itself.

chestnut

2008-04-05T08:44:00.000-06:00

We milled up the chestnut stump into 3 inch slabs for tables. They will be flipped and matched and inlayed with stone.

duane

2008-04-05T08:39:00.000-06:00

Duane and Dona were over and milled up a bunch of engelman spruce for cabinets

table

2008-04-02T15:57:00.000-06:00

Today we finished a table made from catalpa wood. It was our first project with the wood and we love it-beautiful grain, lightweight, and strong. Scott made pegs from black walnut for the base and we used black alabaster for the inlay. We are happy with how it turned out!

platter

2008-04-01T08:56:00.000-06:00

This is a black walnut platter. it was cut from the root ball of a tree that we dug up last summer. It has some nice grain.

elm

2008-03-30T19:27:00.000-06:00

We finished two chinese elm cutting boards. The first is a single slab. The second is larger, laminated strips. We also milled 3"x6" beams for chris out of poplar and wound up with some beautiful slabs. The poplar looks likeit has a fungus and spalted and produced the purple and black stains.

Finished

2008-03-25T19:01:00.000-06:00

We finished up hauling chinese elm logs from town today. We now have a giant pile. We also finished the ponderaosa pine burl table. It has a green alabaster inlay and a black walnut base. The alabaster is from torrey and the walnut from in town.

logs

2008-03-24T18:48:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we hauled a bunch of pear wood from the mulberry grove subdivision. Today we hauled some huge Chinese elm logs from 100 north downtown. They were large and wet. They were all less than 30years old and giant. Chris was instrumental, loaning us his big trailer (ours would have broke in half) and moving everything with the forklift. Notice the wheels off the ground! Thanks Chris!

Krista

2008-03-22T19:37:00.000-06:00

Krista joined the crew and helped with the ponderosa pine burl table. The solid black walnut base is finished and oiled and the top is almost done. Look for the final pic tomorrow. The inlay came out well and the grain is crazy.

2008-03-22T19:33:00.000-06:00

Katy cut out some jewelry pieces on Scott finished a juniper burl bowl we found with Duane the other day.

Table

2008-03-20T06:44:00.000-06:00

We slabbed this ponderosa pine burl that our neighbor found and matched it up, cut and glued it together. We cut out a rough block of green alabaster and ground it down into the shape of the knot hole. The knot hole was routered out then to match the stone (you can see all the sharpie marks trying to get it right) The stone was set in place and the edges set with epoxy to hold it. The more intact knot hole was also filled with stone and sealed in epoxy. It set late last night and we ground off the lower part to see the pattern. Today we will grind down the stone and the table top
and sand and finish it. The base will be a large block of black walnut.

Burl

2008-03-20T06:40:00.001-06:00

We dropped off this table at Earth Spirit. The table is sycamore slab with a maple base. Both trees that were cut in town. It is inlayed with richolite. Duane found a tree stup with burls while he was looking for antlers so we went back out and picked up three nice juniper burls.

walnut

2008-03-17T18:12:00.000-06:00

We milled a black walnut stump that we dug up this past summer. Clint wants gun stock blanks and we cut those out of this stump. We got a lot of other nice cuts too..Some 2 inch slabs for tables/counters some 1 inch boards for spoons, and some nice chunks that came off the outside for bowls! The grain is amazing.We found another stump on the way home that was being dug up!

dogbane

2008-03-17T18:06:00.001-06:00

We cut dogbane today.It is a small woody plant, a close relative to milkweed, for making cordage. It is strong and more durable than hemp. The indiginous folks used it for traps and snares. We use it for the cord of out necklaces. It lasts a long time and softens quickly. We stripped the small branches off and bundled the stalks for later processing.

bowls

2008-03-15T09:08:00.000-06:00

Scott finished two burl bowls the other day. The light colored one is pinon pine burl and the darker one is a juniper burl bowl. Both were found up in northern Utah where Scott works. They will be featured at Earth Spirit in Moab along with other wood bowls, alabaster lamps, tables and some jewelry.

mantle

2008-03-15T09:06:00.001-06:00

Eric installed the mantle we made in the house he is working on. It turned out well. The walls get painted soon and it should look amazing.

farm

2008-03-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

We looked at some farm land sunday that is in town. We want to have land for the sawmill that is close to the city trees, an orchard, greenhouse, big garden, chickens, etc.. This land has millcreek running through it with a dry pond.

comb

2008-03-03T07:55:00.000-07:00

We crushed most of the comb up and heated it on the wood stove on a double boiler and then strained off the honey into jars. Pictured is round one. Then we put the wax back and keep heating for several rounds and finally we will be left with just wax for candles and furniture finish. We also saved some of the best comb and picked out a mason jar full of bee pollen!

bees

2008-03-02T08:08:00.001-07:00

Today started off as a regular sort of day, errands moving stuff around etc and then we went with Jerry and Jen to reinspect a tree down the street. The tree was a globe willow that had split in two exposing a hive of wild bees. We hauled off the log of the broken section a few days ago. this fall when it split jerry put mite strips in and sealed it up from the full exposure. Unfortunately for the bees they did not survive the winter. Fortunatly for us they left lots of honey. We started digging in and pulled out pound after pound of honey comb, wax and some pollen. It was beautiful and amazing

honey

2008-03-02T08:03:00.000-07:00

We collected a lot of honey and ate it the whole time. It was so amazingly good, there was honey in several stages from very recent, old, crystallized, light colored, thick, thin, dark, sweet, sharp. it was incredible. We collected all we could. The hole was several feet into the trunk in both directions. We finally took our cache and resealed the trunk in the hope that some other swarm might decide to colonize this spot.

sleepy

2008-03-01T18:56:00.001-07:00

Our youngest honey collector passed out with her bowl of honey in her arms. We were all jealous. Now we will melt down and separate the honey from the wax, save it for candles and finishing furniture and jar honey and pollen as well as some honey in the comb.

willow

2008-02-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

Scott and Chad pulled two russian olive stumps out. We also picked up a black willow log and a tree of heaven stump.

2008-02-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

The chinese elm stair treads are finally finished. We milled a set that are 3"x 10"x 3' wide. They are beautiful. It was a lot of fun and a good challenge trying to get as many as possible out of each log. We also milled a chunk of russian olive for Jonny Hymas to carve into sculptures. Katy is hauling the cut off sections that we will make into spoons, chopsticks etc. The block has some amazing grain. It is 5"x5"x 4' long.

2008-02-25T16:28:00.000-07:00

Today was sunny and warm. What a gorgeous day. It was nice to work without being cold. We ware hoping that the nastiest part of winter is over. It feels like it. We picked up a large chinese elm and skidded it up on the trailer with the winch. The elm is for Karen's stair treads. Out at the mill we did some saw maintenance and katy did some more scraping on her elk hide. She is almost finished. Tomorrow we mill stairs!

hides

2008-02-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

Katy worked on splitting her elk hide (removing the hair) with a draw knife. She is also working on some sheep hides that will have the wool on! Scott worked on the trailer and cleaning up around the mill, sorting wood, and other random projects.

floor

2008-02-24T15:57:00.001-07:00

We went and looked at the floor that Derek and Cynde put down. It is a beetle kill engelman spruce floor that we milled for them back in the summer. It still has to be sanded and finished but it looks great so far.

truck

2008-02-23T09:20:00.001-07:00

The throw-out bearing went out on the truck so we pulled the transmission (thanks Chris!) and put a new clutch in. Lots of fun. Now we are back to work. Look for pictures of the finished black walnut mantle soon. Also pics of Katy tanning a bunch of hides.. sheep, elk, and deer.

winch

2008-02-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

We tested out the new winch set up on the trailer. it was so easy to move huge blocks of chestnut onto the trailer. we should be able to get to more trees alot faster. the trialer has lights and stuff and is legal now! We just dropped off the black walnut mantle and uprights and will post a before and after when eric installs them. Today we are working on a bunch of small projects, cutting boards, finishing the sink, a small burl platform, etc..

poplar

2008-01-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

A neighbors cottonwood tree was cut down the other day and Limbwalker left it long for us and Tim got it on our trailer with his tractor. The one section was so heavy he could only pick up one end at a time.

walnut

2008-01-31T09:29:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we worked on a black walnut log from the youth garden project that will be a hearth for a no longer used fire place. It has some outstanding figure to the grain and nice color.

snow

2008-01-27T16:42:00.001-07:00

Scott worked on the sink today and Katy worked on some russian olive chopsticks before it started snowing.

injury

2008-01-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

We milled some chinese elm yesterday, we are cutting some stair treads (pictured) and moved on to load a huge black walnut tree and our friend chad was helping us and pinched his finger and had to go to the hospital and get stitches. Wish we had a picture. We are getting back to working on soem progects and hope to start posting more often now.

sink

2007-11-27T17:56:00.001-07:00

Karen came over today and pounded on her sink. It is coming along nicely. We will grind it tomorrow on the inside. The stone is set up nicely for a cantilever posture.

sink

2007-11-26T18:30:00.001-07:00

Scott broke the alabaster sink he was working on so he started on a diorite one from a stone from the La Sal mountains. It looks like it is going to come out well. The outside will be rough and the inside polished and drilled fro a drain.

alabaster

2007-11-25T09:47:00.000-07:00

Before the feast part of the crew went for a hike in search of the green alabaster. We checked out some new spots. the were some nice views with the new snow. We packed out some nice pieces for a bowl and some lamps panels.The dogs were worn out at the end of the day.

thanksgiving

2007-11-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

We had thanksgiving in Torrey, UT with friends and ate continuously

ash

2007-11-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

We picked up a large ash tree from our neighbors house the other day. It looks like it has nice color

burl

2007-11-19T09:22:00.001-07:00

Scott finished a ponderosa pine burl slab from the La Sal mountains on friday for a small shrine for a friend. We also cut a large black walnut tree from the Youth Garden Project. Thank to everyone for their help with it