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...