Wood Purchasing Questions

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jcollazo

jcollazo

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Joined
Apr 3, 2006
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714
Location
Bellflower, CA, USA.
I have some questions to ask of the turners in this group.

First, a little background.....
I have a close friend who has just purchased the company he has worked at for the past 29 years. It's a wood import business that in the past has supplied vendors with moulding, wood flooring, and specialty architectural components.

Now that he owns the company, he would like to branch out into selling exotic woods for general/hobbyist woodworking. This is where he wants me to come in.

In one of our discussions I said that I wouldn't mind marketing wood to woodworking and turning groups. This would also include direct sales like Big Rob and Kelvin do in the Business Classifieds (competition's a good thing, right guys?;)).

So, my questions are:
1. Are there any particular sizes of wood that would be most beneficial to you? (besides pen blank sizes)

2. Are there any particular cuts of wood that would be most beneficial to you?

3. Is there anything in particular you would like to see in purchasing wood?

I will make note of all comments. I feel this is a good (small) opportunity for my friend and a good way to supplement my disability income.
 
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I would like to see things that are rare and highly figured, such as curly cocobolo, curly macassar ebony, african blackwood burl, etc.
 
Gary - Right now he'll be using his long time South American suppliers. So we're talking Mahogany, Cocobolo, Rosewood, Cumaru, Merbau, Brazilian Redwood, and....... the usual SA woods. He will be getting Asian and African woods as soon as he can determine what the market wants.

I've also told him that many woods that would be considered "junk" in the flooring market could be spectacular for turning and general woodworking accents. These would be woods that are spalted, from branches, crotch wood, burls, and heartwood/sapwood interfaces.

I will be starting slow[^]
 
A couple of the sizes we've talked about are 8" x 8" x 18" and 8" x 8" x 24". Any interest for those in Mahagony, Rosewood or Cocobolo?

James & Eric - I've noted your sizes.
Stan & Steve - We think alike.
 
Eric - I'm not selling right now. I'm just getting information on what folks would want in sizes, etc. Thos is just "Market Research".

Thanks for the info[:D]
 
Joe,
It really depends on the figure. To paraphrase the famous movie, "if you import it (and it's highly figured), it will sell".
 
Most turning blocks average 2-4" thick and 6-14" square. Mind you it would be great to see some 6" thick stuff, but most of that would need to be green waxed blocks.
 
What most of these guys said.. Since I don't have a pickup truck, and live in town, and am retired with a heavy lifting limitation,I don't get much opportunity to pick up large sized wood chunks in the neighborhood, so I am sometimes in the market for nice turning blocks. Also, my few efforts at cutting and preserving without major cracks have been of marginal success. As always, have to balance desire and affordability. I think some nice, fairly large sized, 4 to 6" thick pieces would sell well. On the Woodturninz site recently there are some Aussie burls offered, that look good, resonably priced, and are going fast!
Good luck with the venture.[8D]
 
Can he assure the wood is not illegally logged? That is right now the most serious problem in South America. All these companies are buying "legally" logged wood when it is actually stuff on the open market that has been snagged from reserves and areas that shouldn't be logged. Make sure your boss ensures his wood is from places that are replanting and managing their forests....otherwise in a few years us woodturners won't have anything to turn.
 
The company has been in business for about 35 years and has worked only with sustainable lumber projects with the various foresty ministries in those countries. From what I'm told there's a lot of burning of the "junk pieces"... wood that we would like... crotch, spalted, smaller burls.. things like that. That's what I'd like to see brought in.

He also has several million feet of dowels made from SA woods. I'm going over to the warehouse later this week to the sizes and species he has in there.
 
Most of my turning seems to be k'scopes, and I usually use 2x2 and maybe 8" long or multiples of that. I buy a lot of 2x8x8 blocks and rip into 4 2x2's to save money. Why it's cheaper to buy short lengths of 2x8 instead of 2x2 baffles me though. I can use anything with nice figure or grain, but have bad reactions to cocobola and related species.
 
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