My first visit to lumber mill

[Doug Jones]

WOW is all I can say. This place is not a saw mill they don't cut board out of logs but they do plane and edge joint any kind of board to customer specifications. Anyhow, I saw board that blew me away, and some common type wood. Did you know that "purple heart" wood is actually purple in color? Until today I didn't. He had bass wood, cocobolo, bubinga, sassafras, and various maple, walnut, popular, oak, cedar, cherry, and many others I can't recall.

So after all that looking I only bought a few pieces of cherry, (didn't have alot of money at the time).

I am totally wowed over what I saw just in his shed, he also has three kilns and one more shed that I never even got to look at.
Thanks for reading,
Later, Doug

[Doug Jones]

PS... you should see the size of the bandsaw this guy has. The upper wheel is twice as big as the tire off my truck.

[Jeff Watson]

Where was this "sawmill" located? I live down in Bloomington. Just wondering. Wood prices reasonable? thanks

[Doug Jones]

Where was this "sawmill" located? I live down in Bloomington. Just wondering. Wood prices reasonable? thanks


Jeff, I'm not sure of the pricing, whether it was good or not cause I've never bought wood like this before or even priced it before. I always bought pine from the box stores. Anyhow, I bought three pieces of cherry at just under $3.00 a b/f. I don't have a clue if this is good or not. I do remember him saying that he can true one edge for $0.09 a b/f on any purchase.

"Gebharts" located in Cayuga, IN north of Terra Haute, traveling up SR 63

[Glenn Clabo]

Jeff, I'm not sure of the pricing, whether it was good or not cause I've never bought wood like this before or even priced it before. I always bought pine from the box stores. Anyhow, I bought three pieces of cherry at just under $3.00 a b/f. I don't have a clue if this is good or not. I do remember him saying that he can true one edge for $0.09 a b/f on any purchase.


Cherry at $3.00 a b/f!!! Geez...I'd be so happy I'd go broke buying some every payday. It's $5.50 @ 100 b/f min up here.

[Mike Schwing]

Shoot! Cherry at $3/bf makes it almost competitive enough to use as wall studs!

Why do you think they called it purpleheart? You're going to be blown away by yellowheart, bloodwood, lacewood, and zebrawood! ;)

[Jim Becker]

Shoot! Cherry at $3/bf makes it almost competitive enough to use as wall studs!

Take a ride up here to Pennsyl-tucky early on some Saturday morning and I'll introduce you to where I buy my cherry (in NJ)...for $2.50-3.50 BF. You can fill up the back of that nice new Suburban and make it understand that it is indeed, a tool... :D

[Rajiv Dighe]

Shoot! Cherry at $3/bf makes it almost competitive enough to use as wall studs!



Not to gloat or anything, but I just came home saturday from local mill with some lumber. Here are prices I paid.

Cherry :- $1 /bf
Red Elm:- $1/bf
Walnut:- $1/bf
hard Maple $1/bf
Curly maple:- $2/bf

Those are in Canadian $$ BTW.

All air dried & has been drying for between 5-7 years. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I have found woodworker's nirvana as one of my friend's put it :)

--Rajiv

[Jim Young]

Doug, You can easily become addicted to going to mills. Most will let you pick through the piles of lumber, this is the way to get the perfect boards for a project. I have never been to a mill and left empty handed, even if I didn't find what I went there for. It's a disease, I'm convinced.

[Doug Jones]

I have never been to a mill and left empty handed, even if I didn't find what I went there for. It's a disease, I'm convinced.

Thanks for the warning Jim , I originally went to this mill just to look and ended up leaving with the cherry. One of these days when I save enough pennies, I'm going to get some purple heart wood, Loved that stuff.