Figured lumber and how I find it.

A pile of birdseye maple. Its one of those things that when you find some good stuff, you get as much as you can. I have a lot of lumber around my shop and old shop and , well a few other places. I am a lumber junkie. There I said it. I love to find great figured wood. I get log sets and try and keep them seperated. That is not easy.

These are racks of flame birch, curly cherry,curly hard maple and slabs of spalted sycamore. There is some applewood on the floor along with some heartwood curly maple.

Here are some flame birch, curly hard maple, 8/4 plain maple, some slabs, some wide 6/4 white pine and 16/4 clear white pine. More birdseye and somewhere in there is some plain hard maple.  You just never have enough. My shop is full also. What can I say. I am a fortunate man. I look at each piece as i unload and stack it and think of what I can make with it. Lordy, there is some wonderful stuff in these piles.

Guess i didn't get to where to find this stuff. That will have to wait for now. if you need some, let me know....

White pine slab is ready to finish

Got the white pine slab sanded and epoxy in the cracks. Cleaned off the top and have it ready for finish. I use sandpaper from Industrial abrasives and it sure handles this pine nice. They are a nice small American company that really knows customer service and their products.

I am working on some black ash benches. We will see how they turn out. Black ash is soft and easy to work with. It is a very pretty grained wood. Hope to have some shots of those in the next week or so.

Slabs and table bases

I started getting a few of the slabs  ready to make some benches and tables. I have 2 real nice curly maple slabs.

They are almost 18" wide at the widest point. 

I was thinking a desk top, simple legs, an arch with a small drawer. These are a little over 8 feet long. I will trim them back to someplace around 6 to 7 feet. Not sure if I will dye these or just clear coat.

I am also working on some black ash benches and maybe a hall table. Black ash grows in the swamps and never gets very large. But it is very pretty. It is brown in color and has a very nice tight grain. It works very easy. These slabs came from some old trees, well over 100 years old.

These were cut in winter and dried this past summer. The bark is really hard to get off. The maple and oak pops right off. This stuff is welded on. Tried chisels and now using a drawknife. It takes about 30 minutes to do 1 edge . It is worth it though when you get done.

These will be made into a small sitting bench. I need to get these glued up and then sanded and ready for finish. I will be using some turned legs and an apron to finish this up. The wood will be an oil finish and the base will be black. It makes a nice combination.
As thick as these are, over 2" thick, the black ash is pretty light in weight. I hope to post more as these come along.