Why I Love my Wife and Minivans (Gloat)

[Eric Porter]

I hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day Holiday. I can tell you I sure did. My family and I traveled to my folks house in Knoxville, TN and had a wonderful visit. On Sunday afternoon I noticed an ad in the local paper offering cherry lumber for sale. I called the number and spoke with a farmer who had a local sawyer cut up some logs he cleared for pasture land. As far as dimensions, he said it was "pretty long", "mostly 4/4 but some thicker", and "some as wide as 10 inches".


Below are the pictures of what I found and brought home. The reason for the title of the post is that my wife is willing to let me bring home as much lumber as I want as long as I can still fit the kids and our luggage in the van. She's is wonderful, but prefers to call me a tool collector rather than a wood worker, and with this trip she's also begun referring to me as a wood collector.

As you can see our Honda Odyssey is more than up to the task of hauling a load of lumber home while still allowing plenty of room for our stuff.

First pic is of the three cherry boards that I picked up. They were too long to fit in the van so I lashed them to the luggage rack. Two are 12 inches wide and one is 10 1/2. All heart wood, the differing colors are due to the rain.
Cherry.JPG

This is a pic of the other lumber packed in the van. Is that cherry...? Nope, he just happened to have some walnut as well.
Van.JPG

There was a hidden gloat in the bottom right of the last picture. This is a pic of the inside of the Dewalt case. My brother who lives in a rough part of town found this case stashed in his landscaping one night. We assumed it was stolen but discarded because it was missing the batteries. It just so happens that I have several 18v Dewalt tools so I will be putting these to work.
Tools.JPG

This is a picture of the walnut that I picked up. Two 12 inch planks, one 10 inch plank, and one 8 inch plank.
walnut.JPG

The final pic is the one I am most excited about. It is 12 inches wide, 4 inch es thick and almost 9 feet long. More than enough for a mantle or several monster table legs.
beam.JPG

Thanks for looking.

[Jerry Olexa]

Good gloat. You have a nice family, van and wood!!!

[Kevin Blunt]

Nice score Eric,

Congrats.

Kevin

[Hal Hanevik]

gee Eric, Don't run a lost and found ad in the local paper or check with the police department over your "found" tools, you might have to give em back to their rightful owner.... Dude, i hate it when that happens

[Joe Blankshain]

Eric,

Nice haul and as far as I am concerned, tools that grow in shrubs are free pickin's.

[Doug Shepard]

...
There was a hidden gloat in the bottom right of the last picture. This is a pic of the inside of the Dewalt case. My brother who lives in a rough part of town found this case stashed in his landscaping one night. We assumed it was stolen but discarded because it was missing the batteries. It just so happens that I have several 18v Dewalt tools so I will be putting these to work.
...

Eric - you aint kiddin about "rough part of town". I had to jettison all my tools to gain altitude when all the AK47 fire threatened to bring down my hot air balloon. Sure hope my table saw didn't land on anybody's house. If I PM you with my address, think I could get my Dewalt stuff back?

Nice wood haul too.

[Maurice Ungaro]

Now Eric.....we are all very sure that you are going to make your wife something REALLY nice with all of that sweet lumber!

[Eric Porter]

Thanks for all the nice replys guys. I was very excited to bring home what I did. After I posted my wife read what I wrote and couldn't believe that I didn't tell everyone how much I paid for the wood after going on and on to her about what a good deal it was. I told her I didn' want to gloat too much, but I decided to share. The ad said $1/bf. but as with most good ole country boys I ended up getting it for about $.75/bf. once I picked out what I wanted.

gee Eric, Don't run a lost and found ad in the local paper or check with the police department over your "found" tools, you might have to give em back to their rightful owner.... Dude, i hate it when that happens

As far as finding the rightful owner of the tools, I think my brother did his best before passing them on to me. He found the Dewalt case last November and first checked with the local patrol officers to no avail. He then placed an ad in his neighborhood newsletter for the tools. He even had one guy call but after two months, the guy would never come over to look at or claim the tools. Therefore, he blessed me with them.

Eric

[Blaine Harrison]

First of all, that's a great price on cherry that wide! I don't know if it's dried or not, but I'm sure that you know or can find out. The weight would be the first clue.

As far as finding the rightful owner of the tools, I think my brother did his best before passing them on to me. He found the Dewalt case last November and first checked with the local patrol officers to no avail. He then placed an ad in his neighborhood newsletter for the tools. He even had one guy call but after two months, the guy would never come over to look at or claim the tools. Therefore, he blessed me with them.

Eric

Looks like everything within reason has been done to find the original owner of the tools. Looks like you got yourself a nice combo kit. Just FYI, I know of a website that sells rebuilt batteries for cordless tools. I have no affiliation to it and have not ordered from them, but from what I've heard, they do a very nice job. The website is batteryrebuilders.com. (Since it's germain to the discussion, I think this link is OK, but since I'm new, let me know if I've stepped over the bounds.)

Blaine

[Jim Becker]

Nice "haul" !!! Nothing bad about some nice cherry and walnut inventory to have on hand for your next project(s). And nothing wrong with "collecting" lumber when you can get it at the right price and with a special feature, like wide width. I have some very wide 5/4 cherry boards in my rack that I acquired that way a number of years ago...they are just waiting for the right project.