Wood!

My dry timber stock is running very low and timber is getting more and more expensive. Yesterday I ventured down to the local timber yard in search of something to top up my stock without hurting my own less than full wallet too much!

I had a rummage through their 'dry timber shed' and discovered three, four inch thick chunks of Acacia, air dried and been there for years as the wood yard guy told me. I asked for a price and he said £15 each, I didn't say anything for a bit and let him try to find me other stuff before I said " £30 for all 3?" He agreed and I took them away.

I took them over to the new, unfinished workshop, which houses the 'big'(not that big) bandsaw to process them. I got a good few turning blanks from it, these are on the left of the picture. Ten bowl/side grain blanks, the biggest of which is twelve inches wide and the smallest six inches, seven end grain four inch square by six inch long blanks, three eighteen inch long two inch squared spindle blanks and a few small bits for pens(I hate making pens but people do like to buy them!) Not bad for £30.......

The right hand side of the picture is the last of my four inch thick Elm stash! I'm pretty gutted about this coming to an end as English Elm is hard to come by and this came from a big tree(which you don't see any more) with nice 'big tree' grain patterning. Just six, five inch side grain blanks and six four inch square by six inch end grain ones and thats it :(

I have also acquired a large piece of Ekki which is really dense and my piece is difficult to lift! I don't know how it will turn and may regret getting it..............

What I really want is a supply of three or four inch thick dry Sycamore but I can only seem to find two inch!