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/