I had a Wood Works Club of East Texas meeting yesterday. The meeting is at Stephen F. Austin State University at the forestry building. Many members of faculty and staff of the university are members. They have a cage on the side of the building full of milled lumber and we were allowed to pick boards form that cache. I got two pieces of 2" and 1.5" black walnut that is about 10 feet long. Not sure what I will make yet.
Obviously I will need to surface and cut it into lumber but getting seasoned black walnut is a major score. They also had cedar in the mix but I dont like cedar.
If you look closely at the bottom of the picture you see my dog’s tail giving approval for the wood.
This has been my week for good fortune. I got a big slab of Osage Orange and a giant pecan slab. The Osage Orange was a raffle at the Wood Workers club and I won. Another member of the club had a big pecan tree fall in his yard. The tree was on the left side of his house. There is a portico on the front door and his wife was standing under the portico. The tree fell just in front of the portico with his wife standing there. Of course it scared her but she was not hurt and the house was not damaged. The Osage orange is dry and ready to use and the pecan is green so it wall 1-2 years before it is ready to use. The same guy that gave me the pecan also gave me a log of osage orange. That will likely become a couple of bowls. The tree was dead 2-3 years before it was cut and is likely to use.
I am going to give a presentation to the Wood Working Club of East Texas on making box joints. I will use my Incra I-Box and will use the Shapeoko to make the top lid of the jewelry box.
I have a table for slabbing wood but it is too small. I bought from Veritas a slabbing system and earlier I had made the router sled for my Frued FT2000 and my Porter Cable 7519 routers. So today over in Nacgodoches I finally bought the 2x6 and 2x4 to make the table for the Veritas Slab kit. The kit uses 10 foot 1.5" electrical conduit and the kit has u bolts and nylon rollers to move the router around on the slab. Of course it started sprinkling on the way home but the 10 foot boards did not get wet.
So tonight and tomorrow I will build the table and assemble the conduit and router. Excited to get that walnut slabbed and cut up into boards. I think the osage orange is flat enough to run through the planner once I cut it straight and 13" wide. God just keeps smilling down on me. FYI the 9 2x6x10 and 4 2x4x10 cost $186.00 at Lowes and it took 30 minutes to pick out the straightest wood possible. It is always a struggle to get good lumber at Lowes but if you are persistent you can get some good Southern Yellow Pine. I also have about 1/2 gallon of latex paint that is sand color to spray the table down after I get it built. I bought a Wagner sprayer for spraying thicker paint and it works very well.
I mostly finished my slab flattening jig. I bought the kit from Lee Valley for $75.00 and the wood and screws was $185.00. I already had the Porter Cable 7519 router and Infinity mega planner bit.
If you lived closer, I’d be glad to give you a stick. My current stack is about 3K board feet of Walnut. Dried and ready to go. Mostly 1.5 to 2.5 inch thick slabs, average 12 feet long and 8-15 inches wide. Found it in up state NY for less than $0.80/board foot, rough cut.
Cost me $400 to go get it, but that only added $0.10/bt. Fortunately I have the acreage to store it on. Able to joint edges; plane 25" wide and drum sand up to 38"W.
Now if I could just get my head around 3D CNC work I’d be in 9th ?? heaven for sure.
