Craftsmanship in Wood

Interesting discussion last night on strong reasons to use wood in building construction. Trees are noted for sequestering carbon and do a good job at it. Having stored much carbon in itself the tree once harvested, milled and then fashioned into a beautiful timber frame, there it sits doing service as a structural member and a carbon storing member. As long as the timber remains in the structure the offending carbon is deferred from contributing to our green house gas effect.
Of course the tree is no longer contributing to the creation of new oxygen however, the idea is to aggressively plant more fast growing trees to contue the carbon capturing process.
Sorry for the simplification of a process which i'm sure is highly complicated, however i felt it deserved mentioning. I have built many timber frames in the past and hope to build more in the future and sometimes worried about all of the trees taken out of the forest for the projects. With improved reforestation practises hope could loom on the horizon for carbon capturing, silviculture and building.

Apparently to really lock the carbon down, you need to turn the wood into charcoal... Wood left as wood, will eventually rot and release the stored carbon back into the environment. But if you heat the wood turning it into charcoal, you basically take out the organic matter and are left with the inert carbon.

Obviously with wood used in construction, the natural decay is slowed.

Interestingly in Japan there seems to be a long tradition of using this carbonisation of wood as finishing and preservative technique. Called "hou Sugi Ban"

Check out this link: http://shousugiban.com

As a finishing technique, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj3KkJXHBW8 The segment is between 9:50-10:40

Does anyone know what the liquid might be that they are sponging on before the heat is applied?

Thanks for that information, will look further into it!

Kokako wrote:Does anyone know what the liquid might be that they are sponging on before the heat is applied?

It looks like they might be using water.
I like the burnished finish.

charlie wrote:

Kokako wrote:I like the burnished finish.

I agree Charlie! I also love the look of this house in the found at the first link:

I've read that some who use this finish will apply a mix of oils or fire retardant before using a blowtorch/heat source. Then apply some sort of sealant to the wood.