I received some big white birch trunks and branches when a friend's tree died. Then I saw a family down the street had trimmed the same kind of trees,cutting down 1. the lady down the street said a friend made a christmas chandalier with some branches. A main one with a hook on top and used 2 branches to make cross branches on bottom (screwed on) and then she put candle holders on the end. I think she bought some at a store like Michaels. but you could use copper pipes and drill in a spot for them...I did a candlier once and used the flanges? that went around a faucet where they go into a wall...picked them up at a hardward store. Less expensive. I have cut a lot of them and tied to the grandkids big fort so they could call it a tree house for a while. I have cut some to use as curtain rods. I am gona use some of them to make candle bases or holders. I have some cut to use as bases for birdhouses I will make when they replace the fence. I kept all the small pieces to put on the outside of some of the birdhouse like logs and others to make some doll furniture with. Now I have not done them yet, just in my plans to do when I cut them up last week. I know all those ideas and plenty of time...lack of energy some days for this great grandma.

dragoness, girl, I gotta chip in and tell u not to toss 'em! My DH also grumbled and groused about me wanting a shed. I tried everything I could think of and the answer was NO! So, I went ahead one day and built one myself out of old windows I had saved! Understand I am a real klutz with tools, so it was a bit scary to think about building a shed myself but I finally got so fed up that I decided to go for it! I did lots and lots of research at the library and went down to the hardware store and asked lots of questions. What I did was get into my best meetin' clothes and then walk up to one of the men working there, and say "I have a couple of stupid questions". (trust me, this line works on male egos everytime). Did you know? These days, they sell these metal plates in different sizes that have holes at each end. You put that plate over two separate pieces of wood, pound nails through the holes and voila! you have a pretty sturdy connection. They also sell L shaped brackets that you can use the same way to make corners. I got lucky, I was able to raid DH's stash of metal wazzits and come up with enough plates and brackets for my secret project. So I assembled my stash, and hightailed it out to the backyard as soon as DH left. It took me longer than I expected and DH came home to find me struggling to try to put the roof on. He took one look at my "plan", decided he could do better (ok, maybe I nudged him a little in this general line of thinking), and went ahead finished it off. True my little shed is not fancy or very big, but I built that darn thing and now its built, DH is kinda proud that the little woman actually built something substantial. Course he leaves off the fact he refused to build it for me for many years! I actually took photos of the process, if you want to see them. I think you can see some of those metal plates which made it so much easier to do, in some of the pix: http://s60.photobucket.com/albums/h33/manxomecorvus/Garden%20Shed/

I'd just make sure that you are not using treated wood or old pallet wood. All woods can be sprayed with a bleach solution. For longevity you may want to try cedar, cypurus, or redwood...

In civilian life the style of letter font may prove to be some indication of age, but for government applications that would not always hold true. The government is very careful to insure that they do not endorse any manufacturers product to the exclusion of another, therefore they write the specifications to include not only the overall design and type of materials used to construct the product, but the also include the type of finish, whether it is to be painted, varnished, or plain metal. In turn, once the government creates the specifications they put it out to bid to civilian manufacturers with the understanding that the product must conform solely to the government specs. In most cases the the only identifying marks allowed would be a tag which has the Milspec number or the Federal Stock Number and the nomenclature of the item. In some instances the specifications are so complete that they would define exactly what information could be put on the tag, I.E. FSN (Federal Stock Number) and Nomenclature and it may state specifically the size of tag, type of material the tag is to be made of, such as a metal tag, lettering stenciled or printed on the item, size of the lettering, type font for the lettering and the exact position where the tag is to be placed. In the case of an item such as the hand truck in question, the original specifications may have been written back during the civil war, but given that it is of such a good design, requiring no modifications, a manufacturer may be obligated to produce it today to the same specs. To give you some idea of how critical the government is on specifications, once while stationed on a B-52 bomber base I was assigned duty as the receiving inspector for the munitions unit. We received two railroad car loads of belted 50cal. machine gun ammunition which was to packed in metal canisters, two to a pack in wooden crates, and labeling on the crates was to be stenciled black paint. When we inspected the shipment, the ammunition was correct, packed in the metal canisters two to a crate as specified but, the crates were stenciled with blue paint instead of black paint. We held the shipment for ten days pending a ruling and were told we had to ship it back to the manufacture for repacking. The assumption was that if they fudged on one spec, they may have fudged on others so the product did not meet government specs.