It’s just like with the Giant Silver Maple I got my hands on. All my woodworking buddies and for that matter any woodworkers that see some of the beautiful stuff I burn, always get pissed at me.
They get pissed at me for wasting such terrific wood. Of course I’m a bit torn by this, I love my buddies and I’m totally amazed at the skill and talent they possess. These guys make everything from fine jewelry boxes and fully custom cabinets to amazing pieces of furniture.
One has even gone so far as to build, from scratch, an amazing wooden bodied classic convertible.
They take dead trees and turn them into works of art….period! But the way I see it is this. If they want the wood as much as I do, then they would make more of an effort to source it.
On a few occasions, very few I might add, some guys have offered to trade me wood. I’m cool with that to a point. However just like they want the best wood for what they do, so do I.
Pretty furniture or ornaments made from oak, maple, walnut, cherry or apple. Long burning hot fires, made from oak, maple, walnut, cherry or apple….see a pattern here? If a buddy calls me and says he’s looking for something in particular or something that’s just unique or unusual, then I’ll definitely keep my eyes and ears open for them.
This one time, I was asked if I wanted a truck load of old lumber. The gentleman who used to live in the house my buddy purchased was a woodworker of some type. Of course I said yes, after all, it was at least a truck full of free kindling. When I got to this guys shop, I almost fell over.
This old guy had four foot to ten foot lengths of 1″ x 3″, 2″ x 3″, 3″ x 3″, 2″ x 4″ and 2″ x 6″ stacked floor to ceiling. It was all beautiful hardwood. Teak, mahogany, rosewood, walnut and much more. Some were almost white, some dark brown, some almost green in colour, while others were red and purple. I immediately called a couple of my woodworking buddies, you would have thought they had won the lottery by their remarks.
We filled up a whole full size panel van for the first guy who showed up. So you see I do have a heart. When it comes to the downed trees, then it’s back to the wood snob thing. Cause if I’m going to do all the hard work….
