Menu
What's new

One heck of a score!

Vaughn McMillan said:
Were you wearing a mask when you stole that stuff? That's a heck of a score indeed!

Or a lot of electric guitar tops if you're a luthier.
Click to expand...
thats what I was thinking when i saw this post, did he have a gun?

when I take elen to the lancaster area of pa, there is a fabric store called zinks. next door, in front of the fabric warehouse is a lumber place, and often they have a huge pile outside near loading dock with sign, FREE, if I had a bigger car when Ive been there I would have piling it into my car, someones trash is another ones treasure, but john got a steal, if one builds small stuff, boxes, guitars, etc....
 
I hope I'm wrong, but many furniture and other companies making products from wood commonly cut off the last 1-2' of boards because that's where the drying stresses are greatest. Wide drops from ends will usually split somewhere down their center area as they age, even after being machined into something. This may or may not be the case with this wood, but be aware of this possibility. Ripping down the approximate center will usually relieve the stresses and then you can re-join the two pieces with good wood glue after jointing the edges. After ripping, I would wait a few days to let the stresses settle before jointing. You may be surprised when you hold the two cut pieces back together before jointing, to see just how far the wood moves after it's been cut. Definitely use a ripping knife or splitter and hold downs while making these cuts too. I have had boards explode when ripping them. The result was two board halves that curved toward each other during the cut, and not just a little. Relieving the stress cause the cut to be completed without the need of the saw blade. The 4' long board had a 2" wide gap between them in the center/ saw kerf while their ends were held together and touching. This had been a dry 2 X 8 before I decided to rip it. What was left was worthless for the planned use.

Even if these are cut down the approximate middle because of this, there is still a lot of good wood there, and easily worth several times what you paid. Congratulations on the great buy. I did really well on some 1' X 5' 12mm Baltic Birch ply a about 6 years back, but your buy was a far better than mine, both in volume and price.

Charley
 
Well, I have never scored anything as wonderful as those two pallets of curly maple. If I did I would gloat about it. :D Heck, I am going to gloat about it to my woodworking buddies at our monthly luncheon. I can almost guarantee none of them know anyone they have never met who has made such a score on wood.:p

There is custom milling company about 20 miles from me. This firm makes fancy doors, unbelievable trim for doors, crown molding, and other beautiful pieces of woodwork. They start with huge boards 2-3" thick and up to 12" wide.

Once a year they have a yard sale. As Charley said they cut off a couple of feet from both ends; sometimes more. Also they have pieces up to four feet long sometimes that were left from a job. They bundle this stuff up with shrink wrap with 4-5 pieces per bundle and sell it. Over the years I have bought curly maple, birdseye maple, mahogany, poplar, walnut and other species in cutoffs like I described.

I built jewelry boxes and turned many bowls and plates from that wood. Some of it was like 13/4 so you could get a pretty nice bowl out of it. I resawed lots of this wood to make jewelry boxes, humidors, tackle boxes etc. A number of my turning tool handles were turned from pieces of that wood.

I haven't been to their yard sale in quite a few years because I haven't seen it advertised in the paper but I still have a stack of their cutoffs that I periodically cut up into pieces for turning small bowls.

The best part of this endeavor aside from getting some primo timber was the prices. These bundles sold for $7.50 each. Never lost any money on that wood.
 
My best score in this regard was probably twenty years ago now there was a small furniture manufacturer nearby where I got as much oak and lyptus wood as I could fit in my ranger for $200. Nothing over maybe 3’ long but I’ve gotten plenty of use from it. I also bought out the wood rack at an estate auction which had a few fun exotics in it for not too much. Neither of those holds a candle to this score though!

Actually my real best score was a bunch of maple burl off cuts my cousin had in the burn pile at an old lumber mill that I scrounged for free. That was “honey back up the suv, yes I know we’re at the beginning of a two week road trip we’re just going to have to work around as much of this as we can fit and still marginally have room for the luggage… you don’t mind holding the small suitcase on your lap do you” kind of situation. I regret not having had a bigger vehicle on that run lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top