There must have been something in the air this month, because it seems like I fell into some really great learning opportunities with local lumber suppliers. Continuing my story from my earlier blog post, George and his Woodmizer sawmill produced some great walnut boards for a coffee table project I’ve been thinking about. George also told me that he was going to a location in my area about a week and a half ago to cut some fallen logs (from last year’s Midwest hurricane), on a private piece of property.
When I arrived, there was George and a few other neighbors watching logs of cherry, maple and ash being cut into nice even slabs, ready for the drying racks. One of the logs, as shown below, was 12’ long and about 22” in diameter, solid rock maple. I’ve been contemplating building one of those Holtzapfel workbenches out of solid maple for some time, but have had a hard time justifying the cost of lumber. After some negotiations with the property owner, I convinced him to have the log cut into slabs just over 2” thick, and I agreed to purchase the wood. I couldn’t resist taking some shots of this process. In the end, it yielded just about 300 bd/ft of solid, knot-free maple (with some beautiful spalting). My final cost was about .50 cents a bd/ft, versus $6+ retail.
Now I just have to wait about 2 years for it to air dry in my back-yard before it can be brought inside for further acclimation. I followed an article from Fine Woodworking on building an outdoor drying area and here are the results. Everything seems to be going fine, including controlling the end splits with latex paint.
With that project out of the way, I have continued to work on the dovetailed modern shelves and butcher block cutting boards I started at the Woodworking in America conference. I'll have some updates on that next week..
Next week I’ll give everyone a recount of another wood find I came across in town. Here is a little teaser of what is to come. This is a boule of 2” thick, 20”+ wide and 20’ long boards of Makore from a single log. Stay tuned for an amazing opportunity for hobbyist or professionals to access some of the most amazing imported and domestic lumber you can find.
