Sustainable Furniture

West Coast Woods designs and produces beautiful functional furniture for home and office. Handcrafted using the finest urban salvage materials and old world techniques, we create timeless desks, chairs, tables and shelving and more.Contact us to discuss your furniture needs. Our team will work with you in choosing a wood, style and finish to create custom wood furniture that suits you!

Studio Made: Santa Cruz Woodworkers

Jackel Enterprises Salvages Trees Headed for Landfill

Museum of Art & History organizes tour of lumberyard in Watsonville

Photo & Story by Samantha Larson

Nov 02, 2011 

SantaCruz.com

Steve Jackel moseys about the premises of Jackel Enterprises, occasionally interrupting his monologue to point out an irregular slab of Monterey cypress—wood with umber lines that swirl into a speckling of eyes—or a bisected redwood log with burnt bark, evidence of the fire it didn’t survive. Jackel acquired these pieces of lumber because his business involves “urban, suburban and rural forestry.”

He salvages trees that would probably otherwise be taken to the landfill after falling on a road during a storm or being cut down to make room for new landscaping. Jackel explains that salvaging these trees is good for both the landowner and the environment because it halts some carbon emissions. If Jackel doesn’t buy the tree, the owner has to “take it to the landfill. And he has to pay the landfill. So it’s a double negative—it’s money out of his pocket and the carbon gets released.” Jackel has been involved in processing salvaged woods since 1974, when he met a park ranger at Henry Cowell State Park trying to get rid of a walnut tree.

Even though at the time he was working at a lumberyard, Jackel marvels that he was “24 years old and hadn’t made the connection between lumber and a tree.” He says he got it the moment they cracked the walnut tree open and he saw the beauty of what was inside. Jackel is teaming up with the Museum of Art and History to help more people internalize the connection between trees and wood this Saturday with a guided tour through his Watsonville mill, woodshop and lumberyard.

“None of these woods are what I would call popular in the scheme of markets,” Jackel says, but some of the local woodworking artists currently featured at MAH in an exhibit called “Studio Made: Santa Cruz Woodworkers” still covet them. It’s the “defects and character” within salvaged woods, as Jackel calls it, that appeal to these artisans. Matthew Werner, who makes handcrafted furniture using marquetry (a technique of creating a decorative veneer), says, “I’m always looking for unique woods—anything a little different from what’s on the racks at the lumber store.”

Redwood logs with a burnt live trim salvaged from the 2009 Big Sur Fire.

Patrick Stafford, another local woodworking artist and teacher at Cabrillo College, says he uses salvaged woods whenever possible for environmental reasons.

“There’s less and less wood available. I feel like people are wasting wood in huge amounts,” he says. Stafford also says the quality of traditionally harvested lumber has diminished over the last 30 years due to efforts to keep up with the increasing demand for it.

“The quality of the wood is not as good as it once was because they are growing the trees too fast,” he explains.

In addition to showing off the lumber itself, Jackel will explain different parts of the “low-tech science” involved in preparing salvaged woods for use, such as the kiln that balances the wood’s moisture content with the ambient air. He will also discuss the differences between types of woods and certification processes on the upcoming tour.

If the Shoe Fits...

Friday evening I journeyed to the Workshop Residence in San Francisco for a gallery showing of creations by Martha Davis. As an industrial designer, Martha was captivated by the unique intersection of utility and style of fashion design, and ventured into designing footwear in 2006. I was intrigued when the award winning designer contacted Jackel Enterprises to purchase wood, and became anxious to see what she crafted with the old growth Redwood salvaged from the Big Sur fire.

Upon my arrival to the artist’s studio, I was greeted by a fascinating display of shoes and belts. A quick observation revealed these were no ordinary fashion designs - they had been handcrafted using Italian leather, bowling ball resin, and salvaged wood! The subtle leather combined with vibrant resin highlighted the natural texture and color of the rescued Redwood. It was refreshing and inspiring to see fashion accessories with an unexpected mix of materials that uniquely display the raw beauty of wood! 

For more on the Workshop Residence or Martha Davis, visit www.TheWorkShopResidence.com.

Lumber Future-Who has the crystal ball?

The times are precarious for those of us engaged in lumber related businesses. If you based your business planning on the news, and you have experienced the shrinkage of the market, you would be wanting to know: Will the government bail me out too? Of course we know the answer to this, unless we have large lobby firms representing our interests, no.

Our business has contracted to a small degree. I prefer to see this as our evolving business. We have always been about high quality materials, customer service, and fair value. For the forseeable future we will be able to maintain these essential elements. The biggest change has been the loss of business for commodity driven enterprises. If your business depended on tract housing or lower priced residential construction, you may be experiencing difficulties.

Now is the time to reconsider the core values of your business. We are looking at every aspect of our operation to ensure our maintenance of what we feel makes our business relevant. Our clients want high quality lumber and wood products. We are making sure that we live up to their expectations.

Some things are out of our control. The devaluation of the dollar and the increasing cost of fuel is creating an environment of ever escalating costs. In some cases mills are dumping inventory, in other cases mills are shutting down and there are inventory shortages. And, we have all been faced with increased transportation costs.

Through all the drama of the economic travails and the political showdowns, we are doing our best to maintain a steady specific focus of who we are and what we do!

FSC Story

I have been involved with wood working since 1973. Between house building and crafting musical instruments, I was totally engaged in the beauty of wood. I thought it was the coolest thing to make things. To see the wood come alive when the finish was applied was a most astounding experience. In those days we never thought about the resource or the people involved in its creation. The main problem was finding the quality of material or the right specie that we needed to fabricate our projects.

It was in the late 1970’s when I first heard about deforestation. A friend had returned from a visit to Honduras and relayed his story of deforestation and exploitation of native peoples. To those of us who were engaged in the use of these tropical woods it was hard to believe. Connecting the dots between building a beautiful musical instrument with the loss of habitat was an abstract concept. It seemed illogical that at some not so distant future there would be an absence of resources.

When I became more engaged in wood sales in the late 1980’s the evidence became clearer. Lumber resources were being extinguished. Vast tracts of tropical forest were being exploited. Now, the reasons for this are more complicated than what I am going to discuss today. In the early 1990’s I attended a forum in Berekely with other like minded Bay Area wood sellers and users. It was at this meeting that I met the agent for Northern California Smart Wood which was the certifying agency for the Forest Stewardship Council. These groups were promoting third party auditing of lumber industry processes. I believed in this process and actually became certified in the mid 1990’s. Hence our low number SWCOC 000041. This was at the beginning of this movement. This certification was costly and I found that there was no market or demand and I dropped our certification.

In the ensuing years “Certification”, “FSC”, “sustainability” have become more prominently placed in the marketplace. Last year I thought that we would give this another try. If people (the market) don’t buy these products, we can’t be part of the process.

So, this past September, we got recertified. We are now stocking FSC certified hardwoods: maple, cherry, and oak, and softwoods: Doug Fir and shortly Western Red Cedar. By purchasing this material you are supporting sustainable forestry. Without the market’s support it will not succeed.

Your pal,

Steve Jackel
1-9-08