What Was Your First?

[Jerry Murray]

I just made an expensive purchase of some stunning wood. It is a chunk of Amboyna Burl and some Camphor burl.

I am shaking my head thinking about what I just did...but then start thinking about WHAT I'd like to do with both pieces and start to calm down.

What was the first really expensive piece of wood that you purchased?

[Dave Anthony]

I bought some highly figured bubinga at a woodworking show. My wife picked it out, as she wanted it made into a table. She also bought me an 18" bandsaw at the same show, because "a bookmatched top would look really nice.:)"

[Adam Wissman]

I purchased some purple heart and made it into a nice looking fretwork shelf. it was the same one featured in Woodsmith magazine October 07 issue #173 but without the mirror. it turned out wonderful and would not have been so beautiful if it wasn't for that expensive piece of wood.

[Mike Langford]

My 1st expensive piece was from Woodcraft......(note price :eek:)

117549

[David DeCristoforo]

Amboyna burl is awesome. And expensive! The most expensive wood I ever bought was two smallish slices from a Brazilian rosewood burl... the "only" I have ever encountered. I have had them for years and still have not come up with a "slam dunk" use for them.....

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Brazilian rosewood burls? I bet those look great!

I have a couple really nice pomelle sapelle (sp?) boards that I've been saving for a jewlery chest for my wife. I'll get the design down one of these days... They cost as much as that last 100bf of QS white oak, plus the 100bf of poplar :o!

I bought them before I knew anything about veneer too. Probably wouldn't do it again.

[Todd Burch]

I guess it would have to be this waterfall bubinga. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=18442

I bought two slabs. Delivered from Eastern Canada they were about $1100 each, including shipping. They were 1" thick, 52" wide and 12' long.

Todd

[David DeCristoforo]

In the early 90's I did a job for a guy who had collected exotic woods for many years. He bought a slab of that "famous" quilted mahogany.
https://mcphersonguitars.com/data/mcphersonguitars/file/321_5551_Quilted%20Mahogany.pdf
The slab was around 28 inches wide and over 12 feet long. He paid five grand for it. We built it into his house, using it for an "overmantle" inlaid into the massive stone fireplace. Unfortunately the house burned down two weeks before they moved in, taking most of his rare wood collection (including the mahogany slab) with it. But, outside my bit of rosewood burl, that was probably the most expensive wood I ever got near even though I wasn't the one to buy it.

[Bill Houghton]

I bought some highly figured bubinga at a woodworking show. My wife picked it out, as she wanted it made into a table. She also bought me an 18" bandsaw at the same show, because "a bookmatched top would look really nice.:)"

but for any single folks here: does your wife have unmarried sisters?

[David Keller NC]

My 1st expensive piece was from Woodcraft......(note price :eek:)

117549

Actually, Mike - that's a very good price on Macassar now. It's getting increasingly hard to find, and several well-known lumber dealers now charge about $90 a b.f. for it.

To the OP - Amboyna burl's nice, but there are other burls out there that are a lot more expensive. A superb piece of desert ironwood, for example, can cost as much as $140 a b.f.

But in my case, the first high-expense, high-value wood I bought was a solid billet of exceptional Gabon Ebony. Solid black, with no gray streaks, and 5 feet long, 8" wide, 6" high - about the size of 1/2 of a railroad tie (and it looks like a railroad tie standing in my shop - just a really expensive railroad tie). It weighs in at about 120 lbs.

[Jeff Willard]

Snakewood. A piece triangular in cross section, about 3" across at the widest point, and maybe 14" long. It was $108, over ten years ago.

I remember running across some Desert Ironwood log sections at a dealer some years ago. Had a sign on them-$4.00/lb. As I was standing there contemplating them, the guy working there piped up, "if you want any of them, you can have them for half that". All three of them went home with me.I don't remember what they all weighed, but I still have the largest one intact and it must be in the 45# area. It's probably about 16" long and 6-7" in diameter. Brutal to work with, but nothing else looks like it.

[Mike Langford]

Actually, Mike - that's a very good price on Macassar now. It's getting increasingly hard to find, and several well-known lumber dealers now charge about $90 a b.f. for it......

Yeah, I did buy that in '05......

[alex grams]

A chunk of Koa my wife and I found at a lumber store on our honeymoon to Hawaii. I paid about 250$ for it (including shipping back to Texas).

Am just now starting a project of a living room set using some of it. I am nervous as heck about cutting into it.

[David DeCristoforo]

The last piece of Indian red sandalwood I saw for sale was 1.75" thick 3" wide and 7" long and the "asking price" was $150. That works out to right around $575 per BF. That would put it right up there.....

The mention of desert ironwood reminded me of once when this guy walks into my shop with a small log of the stuff. He wanted me to bandsaw it into knife handle blanks for him. There was a "crook" on one end and it looked like if I cut it right there, the small end would make a dandy mallet. So I told him I'd saw it up for him if I could have that piece. He agreed. Several hours and several bandsaw blades later I finally had the blanks done. That's when I learned why it's called "iron" wood. If you figure the time I spent plus the cost of the blades, that was the most expensive chunk of wood I ever acquired! But it did make a nice mallet!

[Jeff Willard]

That's when I learned why it's called "iron" wood.

I turned a lidded container, about 4" by 11" out of the stuff. In the process of hollowing it, I ended up turning through a bullet. The bullet was only slightly tougher than the wood.

[Leo Graywacz]

And I get upset when I have to buy Curly Maple at $10/BF

[Montgomery Scott]

That depends on what you call expensive. I've purchased pink ivory, macassar ebony, etc. But probably the most expensive wood I've purchased was small blocks of high grade desert ironwood burl for ~$500/bd ft and I bought a few flitches of 40 year old Brazilian rosewood up to 17" wide for around $900 and about a year ago or so I bought a 57 lb slab of amboyna burl for $700. I have around 60 species of wood, most of them exotic, but only a few what I'd call really expensive. http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/92/l_63a9dc9435169555c85ada55ec97cda2.jpg

[Fred Voorhees]

Honestly, I have yet to purchase anything that could be called exotic wood.

[David Keller NC]

Honestly, I have yet to purchase anything that could be called exotic wood.

Yeah, but "exotic" is open to interpretation. The asians absolutely go nuts over birds-eye maple, and I've been told that's why you can't get the really high-grade stuff. It all gets cut for veneer and shipped to the far East.

To me, "exotic" includes a few North American species. A chunk of desert ironwood is definitely in that category - it's not like I can walk around and find a few pieces of it (in the South, anyway).

[Rob Diz]

That would be an 8/4 piece of fiddleback Koa I picked up in, oh the 5 minutes I had as I drove to the airport to return the rental car before the last shuttle went back to the ship we were on.

Big family trip, but no time for lumber hunting, so I found the largest thickest piece I thought I could fit in a dufflebag and bought it. I wish I had more time at Aloha Lumber. I could barely tell the guys what I wanted fast enough.

My wife didn't go with me, but was moaning about the costs of things on the big island. I didn't tell her how much I paid, but it was about $75/bf if memory serves.

that board still awaits its calling. I don't know if I will ever have the heart to cut into it.

Every now and again I'll take a look see though :D

[Bruce Page]

The most expensive per b/f was some Koa that I picked up in Kauai a few years ago. I haven’t decided what I want to do with it so it’s still in the lumber rack.

[Chip Lindley]

*Expensive* lumber! But I did not pay full price for it! Three black walnut planks, 2-1/4" x 16" x 14' long at a farm auction. Nobody seemed to want them very badly. I was prepared to pay $400, but my winning bid was $80! The man selling his property was in his 80s. He said that walnut tree was cut down when he was a boy, and had been stored in the barn ever since!

I have never spent any amount on exotic wood. I hope for bargains, like those walnut planks, and the 300 bf of 4/4 cherry for $400, and a neighbor's free claro walnut log I had sawed into beautiful figured boards for only $15!!