Getting Wood

I have this friend in Alvarado, another woodworker named Tim Marko. When I met him he handed me a card for the sawyer from whom he buys all his hardwood. The sawyer's name is Fritz Hannaman, and he lives about 10 miles away from me, on a little road outside of Mansfield, Texas.

Tim showed me several projects he's built with wood purchased from Fritz, and the wood was, in every case, as beautiful as Tim's craftsmanship. That's no small feat, either, as Tim is very good at what he does.

I figured I should head on over and see what I could find of interest in Fritz's shop. It turns out I found pretty much everything there to be of interest.

I picked up all the wood you see in the back of my truck last week, paid Fritz $43.00 for the whole pile. He even threw in some black walnut off-cuts he was going to use for kindling, charged me nothing for them.

I got lots of black walnut and some spalted pecan. I can't wait to use the pecan!!! I've already milled up some black walnut legs for a few candle holder blanks I had sitting on my bench. The stock he gifted to me was superior to the black walnut I had used previously, so I made the legs a bit taller to show off the wood.

I'll buy more wood from Fritz, and in the near future. He actually sells a lot of the wood from his small mill to the Rockler store I have been buying from. Going to Fritz directly will save me tons of money. I'll still shop at Rockler for tools and hardware, but Fritz is now my go-to guy for all things hardwood.

This new-found source of wood presents me with a new problem: Soon, and for the first time since I joined Design Style Guide I will have more products for sale online than I have spaces available to display them at our team website. What to do, what to do...

The Lectern Initiative, part still-not-quite-the-second

I've been substitute teaching recently. Actually I've been substitute teaching for almost seven years, but that's not what I meant. What I meant was I subbed five days-in-a-row, ending yesterday, September 23, when I spent the entire day in our in-school suspension unit... with no air conditioning. It was 85 degrees and very humid. And they don't give the "guard" of this unit a break during the day except for 32 minutes for lunch. And I didn't get enough sleep the night before.

It whipped me.

I slept in today, finally arising at 11:50 AM. Aaaaaah, was that nice!

I got up, got dressed, took care of some business at Etsy which turned into a sale a few minutes later, then went to my shop and began cutting those strips of wood to length. I now have the glue-up on the column mostly finished, having built up two sides of the unit this afternoon. They're clamped to my bench right now. Tomorrow I only have to glue the two sides together with two large and two very small pieces in between and the column will be done. After that I'll begin working on the upper and lower supports.

I ordered brass threaded inserts and leveling legs from Rockler Wookworking earlier today. Those items should be here by Friday or Saturday. I'll install a threaded insert at the end of each "leg" and run a leveler up into each of them.

I could actually finish this project within a very few days assuming there are no major interruptions. Of course I have to take into account the fact that I'm going to a friends house Saturday to give him an estimate on a workshop he wants me to build/remodel for him, and my in-laws will be here Saturday night or Sunday and I'm showing my mother-in-law how to tie-dye a t-shirt. But this should all work out just fine.

Addendum: Thursday, September 25, 2008

I have the center column glued up and in clamps now.  I'll let the glue cook for several hours before taking it out of the clamps.  At that point I can start fitting the legs and upper supports in place.  I'd do it tonight but I have to go buy a new DirecTV receiver/DVR, and we're upgrading to HD in the process.  Yay!!!