Ok so you guys probably have figured out by now that I buy lumber to make myself feel like my projects are progressing at all. I love my hobby and today I was reminded why. When I was in Hawaii I found a sawyer and got some koa off of him. In Denver I went to an urban lumber mill and got some Sycamore off him. Well now I'm in Vancouver for the month, for work, and I started looking for someone to take my money. Something local, with a story preferably.
So up comes this Kijiji (Canadian CL) advert for buddy who sells mantles, mostly maple. Email back and forth a few times, finally decide to make the hour long drive out to Abbotsford. Does not disappoint.
I meet this really awesome guy who has a garage full of wood. FULL. Manomanomanoman. Maple, walnut, some spruce. Dimensional, live-edge, pre-sawn tops, slabs the size of a large car. Stuff from his land he says. Years of accumulation he says.
He lets me rifle through his piles and offers his wood at ridiculously low prices. We get to talking and I discover he supplies violin / cello and double bass luthiers in China, with massive slabs of curly maple and spruce. Brings me into his house to see some of the stock. I'm no violinist but the stuff looked really well made, sounded great and was easy enough to play. Price was right too. I AM NOT HERE FOR A VIOLIN! FOCUS. It was hard. Back to the garage.
He asks me what brings me out to Vancouver, and I tell him for work, then he asks me what I do. I hate telling people what I do, not because I'm not proud of it, quite to the contrary. I've just seen too many residents and docs use their title as a pedestal to talk down to anyone not in the medical profession. So I tell him the truth - because he's literally opened up his home to me. Man am I happy I did.
He tells me about his daughters who out of a cruel twist of fate were both born with an extremely rare metabolic condition, and both very very very nearly died as babies. He tells me about how proud he is of his sons, for choosing to follow their own path. He tells me about his history, where he worked, how he got into this line of business. He shows me wood he inherited from his father, and how he's waiting for the right buyer to offer to make something exceptional out of it. We talk about access to health care and prioritization of care. We talked for about an hour. What a privilege to meet this man.
Anyways, on to the wood porn.
two 1-piece blanks, western maple. The top one is obviously spalted, and the black scrapes off (it's just the fungal bloom on the surface) but there is some great soft quilting and staining and spalt to the piece. It's a log he had stolen from his land as it was seasoning and that was sold back to him! by a guy claiming the logs were windfall and only good for firewood. Wrong. The second is truly quatersawn throughout with nice flame on 3/4 of it. 2" thick, at least 13" wide and about 26" long a piece.
What a great day.
So up comes this Kijiji (Canadian CL) advert for buddy who sells mantles, mostly maple. Email back and forth a few times, finally decide to make the hour long drive out to Abbotsford. Does not disappoint.
I meet this really awesome guy who has a garage full of wood. FULL. Manomanomanoman. Maple, walnut, some spruce. Dimensional, live-edge, pre-sawn tops, slabs the size of a large car. Stuff from his land he says. Years of accumulation he says.
He lets me rifle through his piles and offers his wood at ridiculously low prices. We get to talking and I discover he supplies violin / cello and double bass luthiers in China, with massive slabs of curly maple and spruce. Brings me into his house to see some of the stock. I'm no violinist but the stuff looked really well made, sounded great and was easy enough to play. Price was right too. I AM NOT HERE FOR A VIOLIN! FOCUS. It was hard. Back to the garage.
He asks me what brings me out to Vancouver, and I tell him for work, then he asks me what I do. I hate telling people what I do, not because I'm not proud of it, quite to the contrary. I've just seen too many residents and docs use their title as a pedestal to talk down to anyone not in the medical profession. So I tell him the truth - because he's literally opened up his home to me. Man am I happy I did.
He tells me about his daughters who out of a cruel twist of fate were both born with an extremely rare metabolic condition, and both very very very nearly died as babies. He tells me about how proud he is of his sons, for choosing to follow their own path. He tells me about his history, where he worked, how he got into this line of business. He shows me wood he inherited from his father, and how he's waiting for the right buyer to offer to make something exceptional out of it. We talk about access to health care and prioritization of care. We talked for about an hour. What a privilege to meet this man.
Anyways, on to the wood porn.
two 1-piece blanks, western maple. The top one is obviously spalted, and the black scrapes off (it's just the fungal bloom on the surface) but there is some great soft quilting and staining and spalt to the piece. It's a log he had stolen from his land as it was seasoning and that was sold back to him! by a guy claiming the logs were windfall and only good for firewood. Wrong. The second is truly quatersawn throughout with nice flame on 3/4 of it. 2" thick, at least 13" wide and about 26" long a piece.
What a great day.
