Follow up to Tiger Maple

[Andy London]

Thanks so much for your kind comments, iy is really appreciated. I did a road trip to Cape Breton on Wednesday, March Break up here to visit a mill with a friend. The guy had called me as I had an ad looking for Birdseye....I have worked with Birdseye for close to 25 years and though I had seen it all....I bought 50 board feet of what he called quilted, when I planed a little piece at home, my jaw dropped, not only is the wood Quilted, it also has Birdseye and is curly. I have since ordered another 200 feet and spoke with a few professional woodworkers that agree that they have never seen anything like it.

But yes, I have found it hard cutting firewood since we got the lathes, everything looks so nice

Thanks for looking again!

Andy

[Tom Mullane]

BINGO... the jackpot... too bad it is not real thick stuff.. think of the bowls and platters that would make... But I can also see some absolutely fantastic pens in that wood...

[Gary Max]

Tom if we split the gas we could drive to Canada and find where Andy lives.---nah to cold up there.
That has to be the best Maple I have seen---I have been trying to get some for pen blanks for several months now without any luck.

[Andy London]

Come on up anytime, I have a shed with around 126 burls in it , some are in the 200 pound range. I lucked out on these after a hurricane two years ago, hauled 20 some pick up loads of burls and figured wood home. My son and I've been turning it ever since and haven't even made a dent in it.

Tom, He is sawing me some 2 and 3" stuff as we speak and will dry it also, I decided I have anough green stuff that I would like some drier woods as our inventory is pretty much nil. The price is right as he hasn't been able to sell these highly figured woods as people told him they are too difficult to work with, most of my work is flatwork in exotics so figured hard maple is a walk in the park.

As for turning, I find it turns very well, especially culy/tiger maple. Here is a neat wood if you can find some called Thuya, it is a root burl that grows in Morocco. Boy does it ever make the shop smell nice but you will go through a pile of sandpaper as it is full of oil.

[Corvin Alstot]

Smart move going back for more wood you willl never regret it.
How much per board/ft?

[Andy London]

Quilted maple is $9.00 plus 15% tax, 7 1/2 hour drive round trip so another $120.00 in gas, I can haul about 250 to 300 feet of dry maple max.....all in all it's a very good deal, quilted maple, even on the net can run one $23.00 a board foot, plus shipping. This way I get to see what I am buying first, I've never had much luck ordering figured woods on the net or over the phone. I trust the guy now that we have met, I spent an hour showing him what I look for, this way I will simply arrange to have a truck pick it up and get larger loads....gives me more shop time which is somewhat limited with the day job.

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Andy, you hit the motherload with that stash! I have never seen anything like it either. Congrats on the find and we look forward to completed project pics with that wood!

[Tyler Howell]

OOOOO lah lah!

[Steve Inniss]

Andy,
I agree, that wood is stunning.

It is from a Cape Breton woodlot? Did you happen to see some of the trees in the area it came from - and was there anything that would indicate what was going on below the bark?

-Steve

[Andy London]

It's in the Cape Breton highlands, about a 3 1/2 hour drive from Halifax, there are sugar maple ridges for as far as the eye can see, hundreds of thousands of maple trees. The weather was pretty bad on the drive up, I hit a snow storm an hour into the trip even though the weather report before I left said a perfect day....so it was four wheel drive most of the way. There were five mills that I was to visit, I bought this wood from the first guy, I went to the second guy's mill and he had really nice stuff but it was all green and no kiln, it was about 1:00 by then and the weather was getting worse so I called the other guys, said another time and started heading home.

I was running low on Birdseye in the shop, so I took out a wanted ad in a newsppaper up there, received 8 replies and went from there.

I'm going back up in a month to check out the other mills as the weather in late April, is generally safe

[Andy London]

I bought one plank of 2" Birdseye and decided to turn a piece this morning just to see what it looked like, this is summer cut wood, my favorite. The difference between summer cut and winter cut, if the tree is cut while the sap is still in it, the wood will have a nice golden coler to it. It's harder to find as most of the woods guys up here cut logs in the fall/winter/early spring, then switch over to thinning in the summer as it's easier work and a lot more money....

[Corvin Alstot]

Great looking birdeyes, I might have to change from tiger stripe
to birdeyes as my favorite wood.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Andy......I'm green with envy! Here as far as the eye can see......fir.....pine... Need I say more? Just color me green with envy!