Got wood?

We have now all returned from the good ol' US of A and what a trip it was!  I had never and may never again see as much wood as I did in the last couple days.  Many of you may be thinking, yawn....but it was pretty thrilling.  The Gilmer Wood company in Portland, was mind boggling for several reasons.  Three massive warehouses, stocked to the roof and with absolutely no organization whatsoever.  It was incredible.  We were climbing over pallets, twenty feet high to get at wood that had apparently been buried for up to 30 years!  Thankfully, no one was buried alive, although it seemed a definite possibility throughout the day.  By my very rough estimation, inventory in the tens of millions and that doesn't include the hundreds of old, rusty, industrial sized machines that were scattered everywhere.  I'm realizing now, as I look at my pictures, that I've done a poor job documenting the above description in photos, but you'll have to trust me, it was ridiculous.

 

Don, Meredith, Robert, Steve N. and Roberta during a Masur Birch log and Pear plank search.

Jason and  Byron atop a pile of Pear planks that were 3 inches thick and in the $1000 a plank range, which as you can tell, was shocking to Byron.

Surf's up for Evan as he scopes out a big pile of ?????

 

This was the smaller half of the Claro Walnut log we looked at.

Don with a giant band saw that his ancestors must have manufactured.

 

Meredith and her nice log of Masur Birch. 

I know that when I'm home I'll miss Robert's bountiful variety of woods for accents, drawer fronts or pulls and such and so my strategy going in was to come back with as many nice little pieces of wood in various species as I could find.  I was thrilled to find a couple bins of cheap offcuts that I could sort though.  Pieces like Brazilian Satinwood, Curly Pear, Castello Boxwood, Kingwood, Macassar Ebony and Ziricote were among the highlights but I brought home a whole box full of treasures, most of which were a buck or two.  Saturday, before hitting the road our car also went to a place called Goby Walnut and had a much different and very pleasant shopping experience.  It's just down the road from Gilmer but being much smaller allows them to display their stock in a much more buyer friendly way.  They specialize in Walnut and had some beautiful planks that Steve and Byron indulged in while I found a couple nice planks of white oak that caught my fancy.  Best of all, at no point during the morning was I worried about any of us being crushed by a toppling tower of wood.

We also hit a nice co-op shop on the way down and saw another way in which people can work and share a space, much like we're all used to at the school.  McMenamins Edgefield outside of Portland was a great place to stay if you're ever in the area.  It is an old building converted into a hostel/ hotel with numerous bars, restaurants and a cool atmosphere.   On the way home we stopped at the Northwest Furniture Gallery in Seattle; lots of nice pieces worth seeing.   A bit more driving, missed the second to last ferry by five minutes and then caught the last ferry home.

Robert has continued down the road towards Fort Bragg, California to visit Britta Krenov, JK's widow.  Best of luck to him and hopefully we'll all make some good progress on our projects while he's away.