A Large Format Humidor

[Alan Bienlein]

[allen levine]

stu, when buying anything called mahogany, you have to be real careful what they are selling you is actually a mahogany, anywhere.
There are alot of species, referred to as African mahogany, phillipine mahogany, asian mahogany, that isnt really mahogany, but has similar grain and coloring.
Im sure you know this, but Ive been on a mission to find anything close to hondurian mahogany, and have been discovering all the mahoganies arent really mahogany at all.

[Bill Arnold]

That's some really nice wood, Stu. I'm glad our prices here aren't so crazy!!!

By the way, in the photo of your van, that yellow container reminded me it's been along time since I had any of that stuff!

[Peter Rideout]

"I had to ask "How much" and he said $19 a BF...OUCH but.... it is an amazing board...."

Stu
Next time I bring you a hunk of firewood, I want a second cup of coffee!!

But, I've never seen anything even remotely like your stuff. If I do, I'm going to have some sharp words with my firewood guy!

[Vaughn McMillan]

I missed the curly maple pics when you posted them. Sorry, but I think you got taken. I can see from here that one of the edges of the board is not square. It's all wany and crooked along that edge.

Tell ya what...go ahead and ship both halves of that board to me, and I'll see if I can fix it for you. If I succeed, you can drop by the house next time you're in LA and pick them up. And if I don't, well, we just freed up some shop space for you.

How's that sound?

[Stuart Ablett]

I missed the curly maple pics when you posted them. Sorry, but I think you got taken. I can see from here that one of the edges of the board is not square. It's all wany and crooked along that edge.

Tell ya what...go ahead and ship both halves of that board to me, and I'll see if I can fix it for you. If I succeed, you can drop by the house next time you're in LA and pick them up. And if I don't, well, we just freed up some shop space for you.

How's that sound?

Heading to the post office now.......

[Alex Reid]

Nice chunk of wood you got there dude. Shin-Kiba huh. Haven't been up there in too long. Need to make a visit sometime soon. Looking good on the humidor. Is this the one you were talking about a couple of years back? Will be watching the progress.

[Stuart Ablett]

I missed the curly maple pics when you posted them. Sorry, but I think you got taken. I can see from here that one of the edges of the board is not square. It's all wany and crooked along that edge.

Tell ya what...go ahead and ship both halves of that board to me, and I'll see if I can fix it for you. If I succeed, you can drop by the house next time you're in LA and pick them up. And if I don't, well, we just freed up some shop space for you.

How's that sound?

OK sent it COD the shipping was $500

[Stuart Ablett]

I got a call from my wood supplier saying he had the Spanish Cedar in for me, so I went and got it........


While I was there chatting with the guy he asked me if I could use some Teak, I said that depended on the price, his reply was "How about free...?"
you can see the two Spanish Cedar boards there and the one Teak board. He told me that on the back side of the board there was a flaw (the black line).......

..... and his customers that buy Teak from him would not want this board, cool!

BTW when I asked him how they get the Spanish Cedar, as it is on a banned list he said they just import it as "Cedrela Mahogany" as it is VERY closely related to Mahogany, and Cedrela is the name for Spanish Cedar in the areas it is grown.

Great, then he asked me if I've ever worked with White Sycamore...? I said that I had not. He told me it is much like Maple and he had a piece that I might be interested in, it is about 42" long, 8" wide and a full 2" thick........





.... again the price was to my liking, FREE!! He said with the one knot in it and all that nasty curl, most of his customers would just burn it for firewood

Next time I go to see him, I'll be taking along a GOOD bottle of sake for his troubles

Anyone here work with this White Sycamore before?

Cheers!

[Stuart Ablett]

Well after various thing got in the way, I'm finally back on track with the humidor build. One thing that side tracked me and REALLY frustrated me is setting up my planer knives, I was just setting them by hand, and I knew that was not the best method, I should really use a jig, so I finally ordered the jig in the manual, they are two of these little doodas that have magnets in them etc, I went through a lot of bull feathers with the guys at the home center until I could make them understand what I wanted, several phone calls to the Makita guys and they figured it out. I stressed that I needed two of the doodads, the guy told me not to worry, two come as a set, so you only order one.....

A week later I get a phone call, yep, my parts are in, I head out to get them, and they have only one...... .... bad words were said....

Then it turns out that it is not even the correct thing I need :-X The jig thing I got, is for the disposable knives, I have the standard knives..... sigh..... OK so I ordered one of those.

OK I got the face frame done on the bottom cabinet.....



It is rather chunky, but the top part of the display humidor will have tall glass doors, so I want them to hold together, and thicker is better, I think.

Next up I sliced up part of the Spanish Cedar board I got to line the whole cabinet.

I started with these......



.... and after Big Blue went through them like a hot knife through butter I ended up with these......



I'm sure glad I have my resaw bandsaw on occasions like this, Big Blue Rocks!!

I jointed one face and one edge, then I ran them all through the thickness planer, to get two flat parallel sides, I'd slice off one piece from each board, then run them all through the planer again, slice, planer, slice.... till done. The I used a sled and ran the back sides of each through the thickness planer too, so both sides are flat and smooth. This wood sure works well! Took them down to about 5mm or 3/16"

I'll line the whole inside of the cabinet with the Spanish Cedar panels.


just to give you an idea, yes I'll have to redrill my shelf holes, but that is fine as I drilled WAY too many the first time.....

Next up I have to work on the doors, this will be the first time to use the new cutter set that is supposed to work well for glass doors, we shall see!

Cheers!