Wood in July

Well, it hot here in Wisconsin. But its July and it should be. Sorry, I don't believe in that global warming stuff.

But enough of that. Got a kiln load of wood to pile and sort. Got started with some really nice white hard maple that comes from a veneer mill. They hate figure. Thank you Jesus! What I get are pure white boards that have light birdseye and curl. Its usually not heavy enough figure for me, so I sell this for 4.50 board foot. Makes beautiful drawer sides or whatever you want. It runs from 6" wide to over 12" wide. 8 feet long with a little 10 foot stock. If you can use a few hundred feet or more, I can give you a bit of a discount. This costs me more then regular hard maple as it is all FAS and better.

Another thing this time is 8/4 bark pocket hard maple. I only have about 130 bd ft, so there is not much. But is it pretty. And some are 12" wide. Its all 10 feet long.   I have some 4/4 in the same thing, but with deep curl in it. I have maybe 500 ft of the 4/4.

Curly red oak is in stock. Wide and heavy curl for the most part. Again, this comes from the veneer mill. So the stock is all top shelf. A lot of wide  stock and also some 6/4 and 8/4 available. For red oak, it is nice!

Some crazy heavy curl in hard maple is here. It is one the hardest woods to get. But the curl is stunning. I have both 4/4, 5/4,6/4 and 8/4. I have a good supply of the 4/4, but the rest is much smaller amounts. If you want something pretty and breathtaking, the hard curl is it. Most is white one side at least and a lot of the 4/4 is white both sides. I love the heartweood, but some only want white. I do try and make surete curl goes all the way through.

One last thing. I get boards of neat stuff, but only a couple boards. This stuff is usually all hard maple with burl clusters, wierd colors, all sorts of stuff. If you want to make some cool boxes or smaller projects, this works great. It comes and goes, but I rarely get more then 4 or 5 pieces of one tree. I also get boards that have defects. Birdseye and curl mostly. The mineral streaks can cause cracks in hard maple boards. So I pull these and only charge for the sound material. Right now I have some wide boards , but you only pay like 25$ , as I only figure on the good stuff andcharge way less per board foot.
Got sa few photos for you this time. Let me know how I can help. I will help with advice on woodworking or finishing to anyone who buys from me. Its almost 40 years experience working with this wood and building custom pieces. Not many wood sellers can offer that. Check me out on facebook and instagram as well. Lots more pictures. My instagram is bobkloes456.

Shaping box sides and running molding

I have had some questions about how I shape the box sides for the kits for the Charles Neil box.
http://intheworkshop.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/my-boxes-finished/

I start with rough sawn 5/4 curly maple.

I cut this into 24" long pieces and run 1 face over my old jointer to get a somewhat flat face.. I then take it and plane to 1 and 3/16" thick. I then joint 1 edge square. Take to the table saw and rip to rough width. I then joint 1 edge again. The rip to final width, in this case 4 and 3/4" wide.
Now the fun part starts. Can you feel the grain in a fresh planed board and tell what direction it goes? I have to, no choice. I first mark to top face of the board in chalk. I then look at and feel the edges to see which way the grain runs. With figured wood , its like cat fur. Its not easy, but you best figure it out. When I run this through the molder, I can't lose it with chips being ripped out and grain torn. Makes expensive charcoal. [That's another story for another time. Yes I do make charcoal out of scrap wood] It not a perfect method, but it helps if I can tell which way the grain runs , so I can see where the piece will feed the best through the molder. I mark an arrow showing me the way I want it to run. Then I have to figure out which way the molding will go through the molder. It all takes time.

Once that is all done and marked on the board, I lay out the molding on the end of a piece, so I can cut rabbets down the piece to make it easier to run the piece through the molder without taking so much meat out in 2 cuts. Yes this molding is done in 2 cuts in figured wood with a 1984 Williams and Hussey molder. Pretty darn good machine.
Here is what the rabbets look like in the boards.

Next , you set up the molder and check your depth of cut. You need 3/8" on either side of the molding for the feed rollers to grab on to. You can see the heartwood in some of the pieces above. I can still get good stock out of all that, as long as the heartwood does not show up in the front side. It does not bother me if there is heartwood in the inside of the box. Plus the figure deeper in the log is always better.

 Next I start running the pieces through. Here is the first pass. I need to get a dust hood for this machine. It is blowing out lots of shavings and pieces. If you stand in the way , its like getting peppered with buckshot.

After everything is run through once, you make 1 turn of the handle and do the second pass.

Once they are done with the second pass , comes quality control. You look at each piece and cull out any with chips, torn grain or dark heartwood on the show face. I have a pile of stock that I have set off to the side. I can still cut side pieces from it, it just will not be all from 1 board. Some will just be burned. I want to give some away to the local high school for kids to try and make some boxes. They don't have to be the same size of box. But at least the kids can make some use out of it.

 This is what they look like after the first pass.

 Here they are after the second pass. This run turned out real nice. I am sending out about another 8 kits today. Let me know if any of you still want some sides or kits. Other wise I will tear the machine down and change over to something else. I can always make up more, but it will not be the fast turnaround as right now. Thanks for reading. Hope this is interesting.

Pretty nice looking grain.