A good afternoon in the shop

[Dave Beauchesne]

Had a good afternoon in the shop.
I am working on the base of a coffee table in BLM; just finished planing the base from rough jointing at the wood supplier.
The plane is a type 11 number 5C that I rehabbed, added a LV A2 blade and chip breaker, set the CB ' oh so close ' to the edge, and it handles the mini knots and grain reversal nicely.
Splashed a little mineral spirits on the material to get a better idea of what things will be like on the finished product.
Rust hunting in the morning was a total waste of time, but spending time in the shop was --- priceless

[Joe Bailey]

Question: BLM ?

[Dave Beauchesne]

Big Leaf Maple. Local wood here in southern British Columbia.
Not unlike Eastern Maple, only a fraction of BLM comes in figured variety. Eastern Maple primarily in fiddle back and birds eye; BLM comes in fiddle back, and quilted, as well as some massive, spectacular burls.

[Paul Saffold]

Wow that's got some beautiful figure. Hope you have more pictures as you build.
Joe, I think it's big leaf maple.

[David Weaver]

Not much better than cleaning up figured wood with a common pitch plane and a cap iron.

[Chris Griggs]

Real Purdy!

[Dave Beauchesne]

Thought I would show a couple ( cellphone ) pics of the other BLM varieties I mentioned.
The one shot is of fiddle back ( or tiger stripe ) with a piece of mildly quilted on too of it. I rescued the quilted from a firewood block and re-sawed some thin boards for a box or something in the future.
The last photo is of some 8/4 BLM burl with a tape measure for scale.
BLM is a more tan color than eastern hard maple, and the growth rings are generally much wider - 1/4" not being uncommon.
With that, the trees can be quite big; my buddy specializes in BLM slabs, and mills them up with an Alaska Mill - he is just doing a couple that are 42" wide.
It also spalts really nicely; I have some buried in the stack as well.

[Steve Voigt]

Looks great!
I think that before the "close chipbreaker" thing became commonly known, if someone had posted that picture and claimed that it was done with a Stanley bench plane, I would have thought he was lying.

[Joe Bailey]

Dave

Thanks for the education in Big Leaf Maple -- much appreciated.

[Matthew N. Masail]

looks amazing.... keep us posted!

[Kees Heiden]

Wow, indeed some spectaculair pieces of wood! I love that fiddle back stuff especially.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Very nice looking boards. What does this go for in you neck of the woods?

[Dave Beauchesne]

Joe:
As for price, I have it good.
Like I said, most of the stock I get is from my buddy, the sawyer. He also has a proper refrigerated kiln, so that is a bonus also.
Back to price. The slab I got for the coffee table was 66" long, 18" wide, and a full 8/4 after rough planing, so, that is about 16 board feet.
I paid $150.00 for the ' live edge both sides ' slab, and it has some of the most unique BLM figure I have seen.
The nice thing is I have second crack ( he gets first crack of course ) at most everything. As a result, I have a whole bunch of BLM that I have to get busy with.
As well, he has some real nice local Yellow Cedar ( cypress ), Red Cedar , Douglas Fir and Yew - I am not much of a softwood fan, but will pick up nice Yew and Yellow Cedar boards when they come up.
Sorry, long answer to say $10.00 a board foot for primo live edge BLM slabs.