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... and maybe he'll be good to you.

180 bd. ft. qtrd. curly sugar maple.

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

Good score!

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Sweeeeeeeeeetttt So whats your address now ? I see a trip in my future !

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The Shallower the depth of the stream , The Louder the Babble !
The Taking Of Offense Is the Life Course Of The Stupid One !
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The truth will set you free , But FIRST, it will probably Piss you Off !
Creativity is allowing yourself to make Mistakes, Art is knowing which ones to Keep !
The Saddest thing anyone can do , is push a Loyal Person to the point that they Dont Care Anymore
Never met a STRONG person who had an EASY past !
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No kidding, I'm probably going to have to part with some of this.... blew my budget on day three!

It's going to be a long year....

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

before you can be good to your sawyer, you have to *have* a sawyer!

I guess I'll check the phonebook tomorrow :p

(nice score!)

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Jim Hansen

JH,
True indeed!

My relationship with my sawyer started about 12 years ago. I was doing custom woodworking (one off furniture, chests, antique repair, etc.). I needed a good source of local lumber, and, I wanted to be able to pick through it when I needed some with specific grain/color characteristics, and, I didn't want to pay too much for it. You can see how needy I was in that run on sentence.

I found sawyers (not listed under sawyer but 'lumber for sale' and such) in my local trader classifieds. I started visiting them and picking through their stock. After a couple years of doing this (one was even 3 hours round trip), I got to liking one feller that was local. He was a trim carpenter by trade and did the sawing/drying/sorting/grading/selling on the side as a hobby.

He never had a lot of lumber, but, he had good prices, was available in the evenings a lot and just an all around genuine guy.

I would visit him often and even though I might only purchase a couple boards we would shoot the bull for another hour or so. I even took over some sycamore and hedge that we quartered together on his old saw.



I began requesting that he keep his eye out for figured logs and when he busted one open that if he noticed the figure, to quarter saw a few 6/4 pieces for me. He would mostly forget, but even when you flatsaw a whole log you will get some boards with perfect and near perfect quarter.

When he remembers, he gives me a call as he is taking lumber out of the kiln so I can look over the pieces that might be of use to me. Recently he brought some black walnut out of the kiln and forgot to call me. I just happened to call him to see if he had gotten it out yet and he said "yeah, there's a guy here from out of town buying it all up right now". I rushed over and got a few pieces before it was all gone. The figure you see in my other thread on the Celtic couple is pretty light compared to what the out of towner had already put in his truck (he's going to build stairs to his basement with some super curly walnut ).

Anyway, he's been sittin' on this curly maple for a few years and finally offered it to me. I, of course, obliged and bought it all up. Even though most of was roughsawn at 5/4, buying the whole log allows me to find those book-matched brother planks and put them back together.

Start building a relationship with a sawyer today. I found that the guys doing it full-time with a building and a lot of other overhead were less interested in helping with my cause. They were after quantity sales and getting done by 5 pm.. Find out who your local custom woodworkers use. They guys who buy figured wood from local sawyers, not woodcraft and rockler.

Otherwise, there are a lot of choices who advertise on this forum and you typically don't have to do much in the way of processing. I build all mine from scratch (resawing back/sides/top(sitka only), making bridges, fretboards, necks, etc.), so this is just part of the process for me.

Good Luck!

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

For you others with WAS like me, here is a little sugar maple eye candy....

_________________
Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...

See, now you're just bein' mean :p

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Jim Hansen

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Chris Oliver
Infinity Luthiers
...in the shop.

live every minute...