Weekend trip to the candy store…
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So I am fascinated by exotic hardwoods, even if I am not really building much with them right now. I tend to relegate myself to the scrap bin and try to find small pieces that I can make things like boxes and such with. I am years away from making an exotic piece of furniture–not even sure if that’s something I”ll ever pursue. But anyway, normally the more limiting choices here are to pick through the bin at Woodcraft and see what I can find for $4/lb of scraps. This weekend I decided to take my 4th trip (in 3 years or so) to visit Rick Wood at the Woodyard down in Concord, GA. Rick is a super nice guy who has a great selection of lumber at prices that make some of the retail establishments look crazy. The only catch is that it takes 1-1.5 hours each way to get there so it’s a bit of a road trip (but one worth making). Once there I picked up a stack of interesting looking wood–mostly cheaper rough stuff that I could mill down and refine/dimension for some later projects. Now I need to figure out some ideas to make (all I have now are some purpleheart and curly maple dovetail boxes that I’m going to make for my nieces).
not bad for $52+ tax…some mahogany, purpleheart, maple, curly maple, ash, cypress, oak, rosewood and I believe canarywood…
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You must be logged in to view attached files.wow, thats a great price! i live in bluffton south Carolina and i mostly have to go to either Savannah ga or to Charleston south Carolina to get wood like rosewood, curly maple, and theres my favorite woods like zebra wood and tiger wood and also Aromatic Cedar. and i mostly get 3-5 6 foot boards each and it cost total of $400-$500 depends if they have any deals, which in my opinion is way too much money to spend on 15-20 boards. but i mostly only use that wood if someone wants me to build furniture for them and they want one of those woods, so then i just have to make the price for the furniture more expensive (which it seems like whenever i higher the price people just dont understand that different woods cost different prices).
anyway, so to get back to what you were asking, i would probably make dovetail boxes, cutting boards, or even like a kids seats or you could even make small side tables.
just some ideas!
I live about a mile away from a lumberyard called “Tropical Exotic Hardwoods” https://www.tehwoods.com/
Went in there once, and I was a complete train wreck. I saw a piece of curly teak so flawlessly beautiful I swore, from that moment and for the rest of my life, I would only work in teak until the day I died.
Wandering into the very next isle, I saw a piece of figured bocote that was so unbelievable I immediately amended my teak vow to bocote.After about 3 isles, a dozen broken oaths and 45 minutes of exclamations at undreamed-of beauty, I hadn’t made a single decision or bought so much as a board foot of lumber. Complete train wreck. Gonna stick to more conventional lumberyards from now on, if only in the name of productivity.
They also have an “offcuts” bin where you can buy exotic woods by the pound. In the USA, they’ll even ship to you for free if you buy 100 lbs at 2.50 per pound, so 250 bucks gets you 100 lbs of exotic off-cuts: https://www.tehwoods.com/wood-shop/other-stock/100-lbs-exotic-cut-offs-shipping-included. If you’re into very small projects (chess pieces? Pens?) and need some figured kingwood or black palm or curly wenge or who-knows-what then maybe that’s a good buy.
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