Think I Found the Source for My Bench Lumber

[Jim Koepke]

I called Bob's Big Boards a few weeks ago and never got a call back.

So today, the wife and I are in town and looking through the local free classifieds. She spotted this:

PATTERN MAPLE Lumber, $10- $15 board foot; Hickory Lumber, $1 board foot; Ash Lumber, $1 board foot; Many other woods available. All kiln dried.

Called the number and after talking to the guy for a while I realized it was Bob. So Candy and I drove up to his place and Candy fell in love with all the wood. She likes doing things in wood also, just different things than me. For an independent sawyer, he has quite a variety of local and exotic woods.

Anyway, I will likely be going back tomorrow to pick out a bunch of 4/4X6 inch pieces and will have to wait for the 8/4 to go through the kiln. He says he has some 6X6 posts buried somewhere that we can look through for legs.

While going through his shop, I noticed a rack of about 4" slabs that look like they may make good bench tops. I asked about a small one, about 4"X2'X8'. He said probably about $150. I may be tempted to just buy a slab from him and make a bench from that.

Candy was just oohing and awing at all the slices, slabs and other piece of insides of trees. Bob loves wood and it is so easy to tell when he starts showing someone around his shop.

If I remember and he doesn't mind I will try to get some pictures of his set up and post them here.

jtk