New wood

Someone in my local area was having a workshop sale the other day. I don’t know the reason behind it, but they were getting rid of everything it seems; power tools, hand tools, timber.

I wasn’t interested in the power tools, and there weren’t really any hand tools available that I didn’t already have. It was the timber, however, that caught my eye – there was tons of it. I made arrangements to meet the vendor, and I spent about an hour just going through it all, picking out what I wanted. A lot of it had already gone, but there was still plenty left – I could have spent a fortune.

Anyway, I made my selection and then made her an offer. We haggled for a bit and then I left…

…with all this:

I picked up some of my favourite woods to work with – Walnut, Cherry, Ash, Maple – as well as a few that I have not worked with before – Mahogany, Sycamore, Chestnut, Beech – and some that I had not even heard of – Canary, Purpleheart. I also picked up some Zebrano, which I have wanted to work with for a while, and some Ebony, which will be useful for inlay.

Finally, I picked up some small pieces of more exotic wood – Cocobolo, Lignum vitae, Sheoak, Panga Panga, Padauk. Many of these are quite difficult to work with, especially with hand tools, but that doesn’t bother me. It’s nice to have a stock of as many different species as possible. It helps me to gain experience of working with different types of wood, and you never know when a bit of Panga Panga is going to come in useful.

In any case, I won’t be needing to buy any wood for a while and, right now, I’m like a dog with two digglers.