Happenings in the log yard

Well folks, its has been an interesting fall so far.
I had my knee replaced about 5 weeks ago. It was kind of planned, but being a stubborn cuss, I fought it . Finally had to bite the bullet and get it done. Thank you to the doctor who did it. It has gone well. I had big plans of being back to work sooner then later. The knee tells you what you can do. I think the little man inside has fun with me...

Anyway, I have brought in some extraordinary material. Some I got before surgery. One load of big thick curly cherry came in after. I have several thousand feet of figured maple air drying and ready to go in the kiln. I asked my kiln guy to wait as I was not sure how soon I would be back. My storage area is full. My other buildings are full, I need to get moving some stuff. Let me also say, I cannot thank the young man who has been helping me enough. Aaron Lindgren. I am hoping this continues, as he is a great honest person. I am not getting younger. I need to find someone to take this over sometime. Aaron has the right stuff. If you have not met him, over the next several months, I hope to introduce him to you all.

Now on to the good stuff. The first thing I want to bring up is the river recovered material I have gotten. I have a story all typed about the history of this wood. The logs are 250 to well over 300 years old. They have sat at the bottom of a river for over 150 years. The water has colored much of the lumber that was sawed out of these trees. I have about 1000' on hand right now with some more coming. I had it sawed into mostly 6/4 and 8/4 material.  I have it in logs sets. Most of what I have is flame birch, hard maple and birdseye maple. The logs were not huge wide logs. many were 24"  and less in width. But the figure and tightness of the grain is incredible. I have been posting lots of pictures on my facebook business page.
https://www.facebook.com/KloesCustomWoodwork
I post a lot of stuff on there. Please take a look . Its faster for me to post pictures there. Even some videos.
This old lumber that comes from these trees is a bit different then using newer material. The grain is incredibly tight. Its a bit more dusty. The colors are all over the place. I have some that is grey all the way through. Email me at bob@bobkloes.com and I can send you the story about the wood. It is very rare and  doubt I will ever get lumber like this again. You have all heard about the timber that came out of lake Superior. I have seen that and worked it. I believe this material is as nice or better. I will post some pictures down below. All of this material is sawn live edge.

The next material that has come in is some of the nicest 8/4 curly cherry I ever saw. I connected with a veneer sawmill in Pennsylvania. he saws only veneer logs. I bought 700' of green curly cherry last winter. Its now dry and I have it for sale. I never saw curly cherry like this. Up to 18" wide, a sap edge about an inch wide on a short strip of a 12 foot long plank. Once dried , I got it home a few weeks back along with some incredible curly white oak. The oak is sold. The curly cherry is also going fast. If you are interested in any planks of this material, let me know. Shipping is available, but it would go by truck I would think. This load also contains some beautiful quarter sawn curly cherry. I have not gone through the whole pile yet, but I do know there is a log set or two in this material. I am hoping to bring more of this in next year along with some curly walnut. It is not inexpensive, but some great stuff.
I have also had some great heavy eye birdseye maple and flame birch come in. The curly maple live edge planks are in stock. 4/4 through 16/4 material is available. I even have some 16/4 flame birch dry after 4 years.
I can ship via trucking for long pallets. Fed ex offers "flat rate " pallets which is a 48" by 40" box that I can put about 250 board feet in. It is about the least expensive way to ship to the west coast if you can use short lengths. But you must pick it up at a fed ex truck terminal. Fastenal is getting harder to shiop at times. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't ship long skids. Again you have to pick up at the fastenal it goes to. LTL loads also go to a truck terminal. Shipping to your home gets real expensive real fast. I wish I could do more, but I am not a huge company.
Another special wood I brought in was 8/4 spalted hard maple. I also got a bit of 4/4 and 6/4 was well. This was all cut from dead standing trees. I have it in lengths up to 12 feet long. 8 footers are the longest I usually ship. But if you want to come pick it up, let me know.
I guess I have talked enough. I will stop for now. Contact me through my web site or the email listed above, I am always glad to help pick the best material for your project and offer help with finishing the material you get from me.

 river log of birdseye maple

 one of the ends of the logs from the river

Part of the pile of river logs. They were all mostly axe cut.

 8/4 curly cherry

8/4 curly cherry

flame birch live edge plank from the river with some acetone on it to show the color.

June lumber news.

Well, its June and I am close to being done with stacking and stickering wood. I do believe I have one more big load of birdseye maple coming.

It has been a fun spring. Lots and lots of beautiful wood has come from the mills. Spalted maple in 8/4, birdseye maple in 4/45, 5/4 and 8/4. Flame birch in 6/4 with live edges. The spalted woods I have gotten in should be heading to the kiln soon. It will be kiln dried and heat treated to make sure no bugs are left alive. This all came from standing dead trees. Some is more colorful then others. There are some odds things in with this batch. Spalted large beech planks. They are massive. 12 feet long and 27" wide. A perfect book matched pair. Beautiful live edges.

If you look at my facebook page,
https://www.facebook.com/KloesCustomWoodwork/
There are lots and lots of pictures from when we stacked all this wood. I am still waiting on the old growth lumber to be kiln dried as well.

I get some odd figured stuff and it usually sells before it even dries. The very last load I got last week had 2 boards of 8/4 maple that had blister or burl figure on them. I took a picture and posted it on face book and they were gone. Never even asked a price. If you are wanting something like these, its always good to let me know. Same with burls. I have 2 huge hard maple ones up north waiting to get picked up. They are a couple hundred pounds each.  I am hoping to get more of those as time goes on. They seem to be in demand.

Lumber prices as a whole are down. The mills are not making much money. I always pay a certain price and will not drop it. I feel its only fair to stay up and make it so they work with me. Its the right thing to do. I have been blessed to work with a few great family run mills and it really pays off.

 I did start getting curly cherry and hope to get curly walnut from Pennsylvania later this year. The first load of 8/4 curly cherry is spectacular. Planks up to 20" wide and 12 feet long with little or no sap. Clear and red as can be. Its on sticks air drying right now. I hope to have it done by early fall. A couple log sets in it and many book matched pieces as well. Quarter sawn curly cherry too. Again, lots of photos on facebook. I will have access to large logs of these woods and can supply big log sets. The mill owner has logs that will yield 500 board feet. Those are huge logs.

The reason I post pictures on my facebook page is because it goes quick. I even started doing some short videos. They are not real good. I do those on instagram. I post a couple on facebook. I am not real handy with a cell phone.

I look forward to your continued business. I try and always be honest and upfront with my wood. The one thing that really sets me apart is I can help you with finishing and building with these figured woods. I don't know of another wood sales place that can say that. Please let me know if you are looking for a big log set or 20 board feet. I can help with most any amount. I ship several different ways and try to find the most economical way I can. Pallets are still the least expensive way. Talk to your woodworking friends and see if you can get an order together.

 end of one of the old growth logs from the river. You can still see a log mark as well.

 Another log from the river, worn smooth from laying down there 150 years or more.

Some of the wood from last week. Flame birch and 1 lonely piece of bark pocket hard maple.

April showers bring great stuff.

Yes, it's April and I have been wanting to get a new post up for a long time.

This is one of the busiest times of the year for me as a lot of new wood is coming from the mills. Soon it will be too warm to let wood sit stacked without spacers  and then you get mold and discoloring going on . It can happen really fast with maples and birches. So, I am out traveling and then piling all kinds of wood. Much of what I get now will not be dried for a while. I let all my stock air dry first. To me it's an important step. The fellow who does my drying and I both agree, air drying works best to let the wood slowly dry and help take away some of the stresses that come from rapid kiln drying.

A lot of the figured woods I get come from gnarly trees. Birdseye especially. So, slow air drying helps let the wood relax without inducing more stresses. I have found it does work for me. plus I am getting much more thicker material, which takes longer to dry. I don't like using high heat to dry my lumber. Bob [the fellow who does my drying] likes to run about 105 to 107 during a lot of the drying cycle. Lower temps are more gentle to the wood. Yes, I still get twists and cup and warp, but not as much as I was getting. WE try to do all we can during the prepping of the lumber. WE seal all the ends with anchor seal, add weight and banding to the piles. Use lots of dry stickers. There is a lot of handling I do with each piece of wood. I wish I could say i was mechanized liked the big mills are, but its just me for the most part. I haul it, stack it, sticker it, unload it from the kiln, bring it home and unload, sort , pile , sort some more and on it goes. I am not kidding when I say i touch each piece 10 times or more before it leaves my hands.

I get my material from several sources. Right from a few select mills for the most part, but also from a few lumber dealers as well. These are not retail sources. I am not getting a couple boards at a time. It takes some good honest relationships and prompt payments to run this. I am not someone's bank. I don't do charge accounts. I do sell to some larger businesses and its amazing what a bit of tact and honesty will do. I get contacted by a large company for an order of wood. They send me purchase orders. I will call and explain, this is what i do. No billing, no credit cards, no paypal. Tell me what you want. Send me a check and you will be sent the wood. Never had an issue. Only one bad check and I got it taken care of at once. I do the same with a new customer that wants to order. Trust is big for me. My reputation is worth a lot.

Sorry if this is boring, but it works for me. I am a big believer in the golden rule. Treat others as you would want to be treated. There I guess I have said enough on how I do business. Hope that helps folks understand a bit more.

Now for the wood that is coming in. If you don't follow me on facebook and instagram, that is where I will be posting most of my pictures. I will continue to do these posts. But using social media does work well for me. Time eats into a lot of how I post. Those two sources are fast enough for me.

I have found a few thousand feet of very old wood that came out of a river. These logs and boards are incredible. Its very old growth lumber from mostly hard maple and yellow birch that I have bought. These  logs were mostly cut in the 1860 and 70's. The growth rings  show them to be between 200 and 300+ years old. They laid in the river since the 1870's.  Ax cut, very tight growth rings and unusual colors. The river has a lot of iron in the water. They are not like bright white in color when cut. The wood shimmers. At this time I only have 1 log set of yellow birch that is kiln dried. I still have logs to saw. Most of what we have sawn is in 5/4, 6/4 and 8/4 thicknesses. The growth rings are incredibly tight. This is once in a lifetime material. These trees were growing before Columbus came to America. Contact me if you may be interested in some of these log sets. They are not inexpensive. Prices will be starting at 10$ per board foot and go up from there. There is a limited amount of this material.

I also have some great maple with very odd figure. Its all hard maple. Spalted birdseye maple, some very nice hard curly maple and soft curly maple. I am sorting birdseye into medium eye stock and heavy eye stock. Color does not bother me with most of the woods. But I can sort for white amterial if you are willing to pay more. I try and work with instrument folks. No 2 are ever looking for the same thing. One thing I will say. Don't expect me to sell all white heavy eye birdseye for the same as regular price material. The more I sort, them more it costs. I pull stock for guitars. I can't take pictures of every board and every square inch. They are 8 and 10 foot plans. I will not cut piecs out unless you pay for it. Just want to make sure every one understands.

I do have a great stock of curly cherry and am hopeful to be getting more curly walnut. I also have light figured birdseye and curl in hard maple that sells for regular maple prices.  Its in 4/4, 5/4 and 6/4 material.  I also have right now, some nice wide long walnut. 12" wide and up to 14 feet long. It will not last long. Also have live edge stock in 8/4, 10/4 , 12/4 and 16/4  curly maple. Some huge pieces, at least to me.

Please check out my facebook page if you have not done so lately
.https://www.facebook.com/KloesCustomWoodwork/
Also my instagram at bobkloes456 and finally my webpage.
 http://www.bobkloes.com/