its winter, no global warming in site

Hi folks.
Yep its winter. Being a born and raised Wisconsinite[not sure if that is correct], I am used to snow and cold. So, I am not complaining about this winter. I think its been kind of mild. But my logging friends are not to happy. We had a very mild December and the snow and cold really never came. Then we got 12" of snow  and the ground never froze. Had some good cold temps after that, but the ground was covered and never froze. So, here it is, prime logging weather and its really hard to get into the woods.

Kind of like how anything can make gas prices rise, when loggers can't log, prices can rise. I have seen soft maple jump again. Its about the same as hard maple here. That is weird for us. Hard maple is always a premium product.

I have a full shop of wood. Got some really cool stuff.
Curly red oak, wide boards and super nice curl. I have some here now and hope to get more next month out of the kiln. A lot of this came from a veneer factory. They hate curl. I am not a huge red oak fan, but this is sweet stuff. I also have some really nice spalted maple and bark inclusion maple. Some has all kinds of unusual figure. I am showing a spoon I made out of a cut off end. It has spots like a spotted dog. The cutting board was done in 2 end cutoffs that were narrow and crappy. It sold for over 200$.

Let me know if you are looking for something special. I am sure I can help. Email or call, I am usually around.

First load from the kiln for the new year

Brought the first load home today from the kiln.  It was all thick curly [tiger] maple. Most soft red maple. 16/4 [4" thick], 12/4[3" thick] and some 10/4[2.5" thick]. I do believe this will be the only 16/4 and maybe 12/4 for the year. I only have small amounts and its really well figured. It take so long to dry I just can't afford to have it sitting around. If you are looking for some spectacular stock for slab tops or something else, let me know soon. I can't say how long this will last as its only a few hundred feet of each.  It does  contain some color. Moving this stuff lets me know how old I am. Some planks are over 200# each. It was worse when we got them green though. I will be getting a big load of 8/4 material of flame birch, curly [tiger] maple and birdseye maple out on this load as well.

Bowl turners, this has some real nice width to it. Some are nice and wide. Not much isn't under 10". The price on this batch of 16/4 is 20$ board foot. You have to take the whole piece. They are 8 feet long. The 12/4 is 15$ foot for the wide stock and 12$ foot for bed post stock.

 16/4 tiger maple

 16/4 tiger maple

 16/4 tiger maple

10/4 and 12/4 tiger maple

I know I have 1 piece of 16/4 hard maple. Tight curl. Its beautiful. Email me off my web site.Or call. The info is all on the web site.
www.bobkloes.com

Just in tme for the start of winter

 The pictures above are a couple bookmatched sets of walnut slabs. The taller of the two is 7' tall and the the smaller set is a little over 5' tall. Nice crotch figure in both sets. The bottom picture is a crotch piece of mulberry. Its 30" wide and about 54" long. The color is wonderful. It will turn to a reddish brown over time. This one is only about an inch thick. Nice and flat. The edges are wonderful. I do have a thicker one that matches this as well. Email me for more info if you want. I have lots of other slabs as well. A pair of pretty curly cherry ones and lots of tiger maple and walnut ones as well.

This is a shot of "paint grade" tiger maple. It got stained while drying. The figure is really nice and some will clean up  to be white. I cannot say what the stain would do for coloring this. Some has a spalted look to it. The stock is all 5/4 and the figure is really nice. I will list the price in the wood letter. It way under the price of spalted maple and curly [tiger] maple. Its even under the price of plain soft maple.

 The picture above does not do justice to the figure, but its a pile of 12/4, 8/4 and 6/4 birdseye maple. Thick stock takes so long to dry. If you hurry it, it can have all sorts of issues. The 8/4 stock and thicker can take several years to dry right. That is why some looks so gray. It weathers, but cleans up just fine. I even have some 16/4 stock.

This is a cart of pieces left over from a job I did for an aircraft company. Its all 8/4 birdseye. Enough to fill a pallet. There is 1 piece of walnut and I think some tiger on there too. Email me if you want a great deal on this pile. Seeing as 8/4 birdseye sells for 12$ board foot, there is well over a grand worth of material on here.

Next is the pile of 4/4, 6/4 and 8/4 flame birch. Its just stunning stuff. If you follow Charles Neil, you have seen his use of some of this material. I have made several pieces over the years from it. I plan yo use it for my kitchen cabinets when I get time to make them.

This was a tavern table I made from some of it a few years back.

The flame figure is just plain stunning.
Please email me for any information you are looking for. I ship all over the country.

I wish each of you a blessed Christmas season and a great new year.

Cutting season has begun.

This is the second load of the fall. About 500 ft. Got a load 2 weeks ago that was about twice this size. Lots of 8/4 birdseye and flame birch. A little 6/4 and lots of 4/4. Some nice wide stuff too. I even saw some spalted in there. My son in law dropped this off last night about 8 pm. It will get stacked and stickered this morning. Lots of frost as you can see. It is 25 as I write this. This is the time they start cutting lots of maple and birch at the mills. No staining when it is cold like this. This will now air dry for at least a month or more. Probably more. I have several thousand feet waiting to go into the kiln.  I did get the quarter sawn curly maple out of the kiln. I will be sending those pictures out in my wood letter to my customers. I have only a little, but it turned out very nice. More is air drying as we speak. If you don't get my wood letter and want one, email me. Hope you are staying warm  and to all my east coast friends, God bless you. Hope you all get through the aftermath of the storm ok. I hear lots of stories about no help from fema and the other government groups. I hope that is not the case.

Loading the kiln

Came home yesterday with a load of beautiful wet, green lumber. I got 8/4 birdseye maple, 8/4 and 4/4 flame birch and 4/4 curly hard maple. There is about 800ft, maybe more or less. I was driving with a friend of mine and we had his V10 ford truck. Nice truck. And I am not a ford guy. It was noticeable pulling this load. The roads were icy and sleet and snow was falling. Weatherman said it was sunny. Somehow, I need to find a job like that. Got the load back about 6 hours after we left home. Took it to the sawmill and drykiln guy I use. His name is Bob to. Come to think of it, the guy I drove with was named Bob too. 3 Bobs. No comment...
The load was too big to lift off the trailer with the bobcat[another bob]. I got on the back end , but it didn't do anything. So, we pulled part of the load off and dumped it on the landing. He came back and again I climbed on the back of the bobcat, this time it almost lifted it without coming up on the back end. Thankfully, my butt was enough to hold it almost down to get it unloaded.
Today, Bob called me and said it was time to load the kiln, but he was busy with his own project, so I went over and loaded. Good God , that stuff didn't get any lighter over night.

This is a piece of 8/4 birdseye, almost 14 or 15" wide and 12 feet long. It weighs about 32000 lbs. I think...

This is some 8/4 and 4/4 flame birch. Notice the red heartwood in the birch. It is the color of cherry. This is what they call unselected for color. Means they allow both heartwood and sap in the same piece. I dye this a cherry color and it looks great when its done. I can't wait to turn some legs from the 8/4 stock. All this stuff is just beautiful.

Another shot of the flame birch.

Notice the wide board on the bottom left? That is a 17" wide piece of 4/4 hard tiger maple. I got the stock from 1 tree and its all nice wide clear heavy tiger maple. Its the same as the 8/4 birdseye stock. That all came from 1 tree also. I call those log sets. Once they are dried, I keep all the pieces together. That way, the color for a project is all the same. The price on logs sets is about double or triple regular stock. I don't get things like this very often at all. I have to keep track of these and it takes space and time.

This is some of the birdseye stock, it was from a veneer log that wasn't white enough, I guess. Sure am glad I got it. This is all 12 feet long.

Another shot of the birdseye.

More flame birch.

Notice the top piece? It is called bark inclusion hard maple. Very striking. Its one of those woods you either really like or not. I happen to like it. A lot. Again all from 1 tree.

From the bottom, birdseye maple, bark inclusion hard maple and hard tiger maple.

In the middle of loading this, I had to run to pick up some pieces from a show I did last weekend. I got the truck loaded and came back and finished. I am now home, took some ibuprofen and will eat some dinner. Its been a long day and my butt is dragging. 

The stepback is complete

Looks pretty, doesn't it? 57" wide and 77" tall. All tiger maple, including the drawer sides and all the secondary wood. I really like how this turned out. Both size wise and color. I really like the light golden brown walnut dye on the tiger maple.

It has the lift up lid on top for added secret space. It is a very nice feature. Just make sure to allow space for expansion. I added about a 1/16" on either side and about 3/32" on the front. Everyone that sees it really loves it. I hope to get it shipped out soon. Have a couple other projects to get started. I also am wanting to start some more slab tables.

Getting the top section up on the bottom and getting pictures is always hard. God bless my wife. Could not do this without her help. She helped me get the top on and take pictures. Then take it back off. She is a trooper. I am blessed in many ways. She is the biggest blessing to me.
Got the secret drawers in place and all set to go. I hope you enjoyed the photos. I have more, but nothing much different then what is here. If you have questions, let me know.