Gifted Ebony

[glenn bradley]

My son-in-law's work leases out portions of their warehouses and perform 3rd party logistics for all sorts of companies. Customers and use are pretty dynamic in that part of the business. As customers come and go there are often tail ends of stock or product left that get thrown out. One such leftover caught my SIL's eye and he grabbed it for me.

I figured I had hit the mother load since this is almost as much gaboon ebony as I have gone through in 20 years.

Then he hauls this billet in.

My lumberyard may suspect I have stopped using ebony since I doubt I will need to buy any for the foreseeable future.

 

[Ryan Mooney]

Ooh my! That is indeed quite the haul.

I'm left wondering what the original project was if that was the leftovers!

 

[Tom Niemi]

Mother load for sure!!! He deserves a steak dinner for that

 

[Rennie Heuer]

OMG!

 

[Robert Horky]

I see more G&G pieces being made soon. Can hardly wait to see them. For sure that is a rather amazing find.

 

[Leo Voisine]

Are my eyes deceiving me.

Wow - I see a huge pile of money there.
Buying that much would cost a fortune.

CONGRATS on such an awesome GIFT.

 

[glenn bradley]

My head is still reeling . Several pieces have splits or what looks like impact damage. This may have excluded its use for whatever the original purpose was in a larger scale use model. Regardless, the bulk of the material is in undamaged, rich, black, sections larger than the 1" x 2" x 16" wax-dipped sticks I normally buy.

Everything is relative. We used to sell rack mounted switches and routers by the dumpster load when we were doing hardware level upgrades to large installations. Try to picture how much hardware gets swapped when someplace like a 125,000 acre military base upgrades from ATM data networking technology to mulit-gig Ethernet at the turn of the century. Previously precious decommissioned hardware would get used for door stops. I can only assume that a similar mindset was in the movers who cleaned out the warehouse. These few odds and ends, while precious to me, weren't worth the trouble of picking up. Thanks whoever-you-were

 

[Frank Fusco]

tail ends of stock or product left that get thrown out.

There is no such thing as scrap wood.
I can sure think of a bunch of projects for that wood shown. Nice catch.

 

[Tom Niemi]

Just looked up the price of gaboon ebony here, $178.45 per board foot, maybe 2 steak dinners are appropriate

 

[Mike Stafford]

Not that I recommend you do it but that would be worth a fortune cut up into pen blanks. A single Gaboon ebony pen blank is more than $14. Sold as blanks would yield a pretty nice retirement account.

Lucky you! Enjoy!

 

[Chuck Ellis]

Everything is relative. We used to sell rack mounted switches and routers by the dumpster load when we were doing hardware level upgrades to large installations. Try to picture how much hardware gets swapped when someplace like a 125,000 acre military base upgrades from ATM data networking technology to mulit-gig Ethernet at the turn of the century. Previously precious decommissioned hardware would get used for door stops. I can only assume that a similar mindset was in the movers who cleaned out the warehouse. These few odds and ends, while precious to me, weren't worth the trouble of picking up. Thanks whoever-you-were

Has nothing to do with original post -- congrats on the wood by the way -- but 60 years ago when I was lead radioman onboard my ship, we often changed out the insulators on our whip antennae... the ceramic would get cracked from the motion of the whip antennae and on arrival back in port or sometimes at sea, we would put up a new insulator... 100 lbs +/- of brass and ceramic that fit along side the exhaust stack in a bracket then held the upright antenna..... the old insulators were then just dumped in a dumpster or if we had to change one at sea, over the side. Even in those days they were several 100$$ per insulator and contained more brass than ceramic...

 

[Ryan Mooney]

A single Gaboon ebony pen blank is more than $14.

A few years back (checks... 2014..) craft supplies had a close out sale and I was able to buy a lot of 50 at $0.50 each. I should have bought all the lots they'd let me hah.. ah well you don't know what you don't know until you learn it.

I got to see some of the pieces of purple heart they were using to replace some of the lock mechanisms at the local dam. HUGE pieces. I know they cost in the 10's of thousands.

 

[Mike Stafford]

A number of years ago I had a chance to buy some African Blackwood in the round. A local dealer bought a lot of exotics sight unseen and included was a blackwood log about 7 feet long and about 9 inches in diameter. Of course there was sapwood all around the central core of blackwood but there was still a lot of blackwood to be had. He offered it to me for $695. I foolishly thought that was too much and did not buy it. Had I had half a brain I would have realized that I could have parted it out as sticks and made many times that investment.

But I was lacking even a half a brain... I always miss the big deals.

 

[larry merlau]

the rest of you arent alone in letting a good deal get away i had the opportunity to get a large piece of 8/4 from the tree that was in the back of old shed. in texas.. hindsight sometime leaves a bad taste

 

[Chuck Ellis]

A few years back (checks... 2014..) craft supplies had a close out sale and I was able to buy a lot of 50 at $0.50 each. I should have bought all the lots they'd let me hah.. ah well you don't know what you don't know until you learn it.

I got to see some of the pieces of purple heart they were using to replace some of the lock mechanisms at the local dam. HUGE pieces. I know they cost in the 10's of thousands.

I've been watching a guy up in Washington/Oregon don't remember which who was rebuilding a 106 year old sailing ship... I watched him put a new keel on the boat... 40' of purple heart... almost hurt to watch him cut and shape that for the keel.

 

[Toni Ciuraneta]

I'm really happy for you Glenn, whatever else I would say would be out of place.

 

[Mike Stafford]

I've been watching a guy up in Washington/Oregon don't remember which who was rebuilding a 106 year old sailing ship... I watched him put a new keel on the boat... 40' of purple heart... almost hurt to watch him cut and shape that for the keel.

A number of years ago I was contacted by a local banker who wanted me to turn some boxes for him. I have no idea how he came to know of my existence but he did.
It seems his father was working on the restoration of a skipjack; a fishing craft used in the Chesapeake Bay. The son was going up and working with his dad and brothers and many other people on this project in .

Anyway, the banker was saving cutoffs of some of the timber being used in the project; specifically he was saving the Angelique. I was totally unfamiliar with this species of wood but I agreed to try and turn the boxes.

Angelique (Dicorynia paraensis) is a very dense and hard wood that has a variety of uses from flooring to ship decking and marine construction. It has also been used as railroad ties. So ever so often he would stop by my house on the way home from Virginia and drop off some chunks of Angelique that were large enough for turning a box. This darn wood was very hard, very heavy and very abrasive as it must have been loaded with silica.

It turned out that the banker wanted a box for his father, himself, ;his wife, and his three brothers. So I turned 6 boxes in six different designs for this man. I did get to see some pictures of the skipjack under construction and I have to say I have a lot of respect for these craftsmen trying to preserve a piece of nautical history.