Venturing into unknown territory

allen levine

Member
Messages
12,340
Location
new york city burbs
Im about to leave, and attempt to purchase a large quantity of hardwoods.
Mahogany, Maple, Oaks.
I was promised prices would be 30% less than what I can buy it for anywhere here, and I know the wood is unsurfaced, a path Ill cross soon enough.

Its going to be easy for this guy to see(hes been in the business since the beginning of time) that Im somewhat of a newbie, especially when it comes to purchasing wood.

I hope I come out of this ok, Im taking 3 price lists with me, and Im not even thinking about touching it unless hes at least 40% less than any of them.

Now the quality, well, thats where IM in trouble. Ill check for splits, warps, and overall look. Coloring, its just something I dont want to pass up on .
I need some hardwood, and the prices here on LI, well, its like college tuition money.

Hope I come out ok on this. Wish I had one of you guys with me, Ned, you downstate today?
(in my fifties, and Ive bought commercial investment real estate without as much concern as I have right now, like Im walking into a place or zone I know nothing about.Ive always used reliable dealers and never seemed to be dissapointed.)
 
Yep Allen, follow your gut, if you feel like the guy is taking you for a ride, walk.

I've dealt with a number of hardwood guys here, I've only found one that has treated me right, most of them use a great big shovel when I talk to them about quality and such.:rolleyes:

I just walk, with my money.

Wood, you know, it grows on trees :D :wave:
 
allen take along your block plane and take afew swipes to see what is under the rough! and if it feels like he's pushun you to buy walk! a good guy doesnt care if you buy or not, he has another right behind you who will..becasue he knows what he has is good stuff..
 
BOOOOOOOy this sounds familliar.

My first adventure in the lumber yard:

I walk in the door to the office. 10-11 people are all sitting at desks either chatting with each other or barking prices over the phone. It's a buzz of activity. The door closes with me half way in, sorta bumping my backside. I swear it was eggin' me on.

I micro-stepped a little further in the door and it shuts with a inordinate amount of noise for the forces involved. Everyone stops. It's like shouting something embarrassing at a party and the whole room goes silent as you finish the sentence.

These highly experienced people are all lookin' at me, now. I'm sure a pro just walks right in and begins shouting exactly what he's after and they expect this. It didn't take 'em long to realize I was trying to crawl entirely into my left shoe and become unnoticed. One guy, big muscular fella, with a Car Dealer Smile(tm) and a very forward-leaning conversational style barked "Hey. Whatcha need?"

Now folks who know me have never seen me falter in public. They almost always find me as the spokesperson for the group - not by their choice, I usually am the first to step up. I'm normally very comfortable around strangers and have no problem requesting what I'm after. I guess what I'm trying to say is ... my friends would laugh if "shy" was used to describe me.

Trouble is ... I ain't after nothin. I just want to look around and see what they have to offer. But these guys are serious folks. They jockey lumber around by the boxcar, not some piddly little squat who wants two or three boards for his end table project. Not some kid who has no idea what a skid of lumber is or how much it costs. It was one of the few times in my life that I truly was speechless. My charismatic personality took a hike when that blasted door swatted me into this chasm of unknown.

I managed to elloquently blurt out "Um.. Hi *smile*. I've never been here before. I'd um ... well. I'm a.."

"You wanna take a look around?" He jumped in.

"Yeah. Could I?" I still felt a bit off balance, but the chance for improvement was rising.

"Bill! Give this guy the nickel tour." He shouted over his shoulder.

A loafish man comes shuffling out from a hallway and he points at me and asks "This guy? Sure. Come with me.".

He walked me through the stacks of lumber and asked me all kinds of questions. He learned what kind of stuff I liked to do and took me by the stacks of wood that would be interesting to me. He seemed a little distracted, but heck he knew I wasn't likely to buy much so I don't blame him. He told me next time to just walk on in and start diggin'. They giggle at you less if you avoid the office until yer ready to pay up.

I've since wandered into the other two yards in my area and the atmosphere is the same. Ya just walk in, take a look around. Try to stay out of the way of the fork lifts and bustling work going on. Sheet goods are usually piled in such a way that you can have a look at the first couple sheets. There's almost always a stack of loose boards laying around somewhere that you can pick through. There are always pallets of one species in a given form (8/4, 4/4, etc). There are never prices on things in my yards - ya gotta ask for that.

I've since been to some other yards in other towns and they all seem to work the same. Go in, look through what ya like. Identify the things you'd like to know the price on and then you can ask someone at the counter for the prices. There is one place, MacBeath, that puts all their prices on the racks. VERY handy. I like that place, if only it weren't a 2 hour drive away.

Learn your lumber terms - quarter, flat, and rift sawn. 4/4, 8/4, 10/4. Green, rough, dried, s1s, s2s, s3s, s4s. Straight-line ripped. Skip planed.

Learn the defects. Checks, Cracks, Splits. Case hardening or Honeycomb.

Many of the terms will be regional or even yard specific, though. Yer best bet is to see if they'll take the time to help you through those unfamilliar things. If they don't, walk. If they're too busy to help, they're probably too busy to work with our small quantities. Unfortunately, there are just some places that are like that. The small guy is more trouble to them than it's worth. Other places know that small guys could turn into the future big guys and they take their time with us. I like going to those places best.

One other bit of advice I can share is: ALWAYS ask for the discount. These places are almost always working with fantastic margins and can work with the prices a little bit. I paid $1 less per pound than my friends did for some ebony at MacBeath a couple weeks ago. They were ashamed they hadn't asked for the discount when I told 'em. Always ask! What's the worst they're gonna say? No? So you pay their asking price... done and done. :)
 
Really great post Jason. I can totaly relate to every little detail. I have often thought that the lumber guys in general would do a heck of a lot more business if we could determine the price of the product without having to go and ask. In the willing buyer willing seller arrangement I want them to go first with the price. Then I can evaluate whether I am even in the market for that level of price product. What happens when you start asking and this one and this one etc. It reminds of the ice cream vendor on a bicycle when I was little. Until we got to understand what ice cream cost he used to get very mad with us trying to find our price point. In the end he lost out to higher sales because we (my friends and I) bought the cheapest ice cream since we knew we could afford it without having to ask the price.

I think the same applies to wood. Even a ball park would do.

One place I go to has a price list. That makes it somewhat easier provided you can identify what they are refering to.

At the end of the day I guess its their turf and it is up to us to belly up to the bar and learn how to but lumber. I think shopping from one guy will be the best to be able to form a relationship.
 
I went to the address, and while I was waiting for him, since I arrived way early, I walked over to an interesting park near his 2 shops.
A park dedicated to sculptures, along the east river on the Queens side.
Took a pic or two on my phone, nice car, I think it was mine 25 years ago.
I have no clue what the other thing is, then it started to rain.


Anyway, I waited 20 minutes extra, and drove away, then had a change of heart, realizing its pouring out, maybe hes delayed. So I drove back and he was already in the shop waiting. I must have missed him by 10 seconds.

I walked in and immediately was impressed. This is a real wood shop.
Each piece of machinery in this shop, was bigger than my entire garage.
He had 20 or 30 tables(probably more like 12-15, its just that there was so much stuff all over the place) he built for various clients, restaurants and such, one was Antique Oak, it was a phenominal piece in my opinion.
He restores windows and doorways, and is a general contractor, but builds anything. I could build a home full of furniture with just his scrap piles.

He had a bigger hardwood inventory then most lumber yards Ive been in.
Mahogany, Ive never seen a piece of 12/4, 16/4 12-18 feet long.
Tons of mahogany, not like the African Mahogany I bought recently.This was redishr/golden brown, best way I could describe it. Absolute 100% beautiful.
He was a European guy, and he was very easy going.
I think he wanted to sell alot more than 2-3 hundred board feet, but at 5 a board foot, Im taking a couple hundred BF. Its not cheap, but real mahogany is over 7.50 a board foot in the northeast, and thats if you can find it.
IM also taking Ash from him. He has tons of Maple, old, (antique?) oak, 100 years old, and tons of other stock that I didnt even have a clue.
Hes moving, so he wants to trim down his stock, guess the move is costing him a pretty dollar.
I hope I get the ash down to around 3 a bf, that would be great for me.
Im picking it all up Friday morning, so Ill offer some pics once its in my garage.

Again, I know its not a steal, but Ive always loved mahogany, and Id love to give it a whirl.
 
Last edited:
that cars about 30 feet off the ground. Manhattan in the background, sorry, it was dark and rainy.(looked like a bronzed trans am)

I gotta go finish that little stand Im working on, the client is pressuring me to hurry up(last time I build for my kidsI told my kid, listen, I have a drop of talent now, and my expertise in the woodworking field is worth something, I dont build anything for anyone for free anymore, so what can you barter with me? He told me since Im a total disaster when it comes to computers, consider this a tiny payment for all the computer work he does for me, cause he doesnt do any computer work for free either)
 

Attachments

  • sculpture1 (Medium).jpg
    sculpture1 (Medium).jpg
    39.4 KB · Views: 55
  • sculpture (Medium).jpg
    sculpture (Medium).jpg
    22.5 KB · Views: 66
Last edited:
Congrats on the wood score, and I'm afraid I'm stuck in the capital district for the time being.
your car sculpture reminded me of what I shot the other day....
postbeetle2.jpg


not all that impressive... until I pull back a bit...


postbeetle.jpg
 
Allen:

Good luck on the wood purchase. Did I miss where you said what you were going to build with the wood?

Is that car a monument to the movie "Hooper"?
Al us older folks will remember that Burt Reynolds movie.

Cheers

Jim
 
it felt good didnt it?

allen you felt good about going in once you saw he was legit and treated you well.. that is priceless. the best price isnt always what it seems if your treated poorly to get it. you will go back and have made new freind! great story and thanks for sharun it with us allen..
 
Again, I know its not a steal, but Ive always loved mahogany, and Id love to give it a whirl.


I know what you mean. I love mahogany too. So you and the rest here should get a kick out of this story...

Back in the late 70's, I was in the US Navy stationed in Argentia, Newfoundland, Canada. It used to be a full blown Naval Station and Naval Air Station so it had, among other things, a really nice woodworking hobby shop for the 'troops'. However, when I was there, there were a grand total of 250 active duty personnel on the base so getting in to the wood shop was easy. It was run by an older 'Newfie' carpenter who had been working on the base for decades. He really knew his stuff and took my passing interest in woodworking from high school wood shop and turned it into more of a passion (that then had to be surpressed for about 20 years after I left Argentia but that is a different story).

So that's just background to the real story. I decided I wanted to make a china cabinet and some record boxes for my wife (who was stationed in Buxton, North Carolina at the time). So this big old teddy bear of a carpenter takes me into the 'wood shed' to pick out some wood. And there sits this small pile of mahogany along with several other species. Now I knew a little about wood back then but not a lot so I ask, what's the least expensive of the wood here. He says the MAHAGONY! $0.75 a BF! Now even in 1978 that was cheap. That was NOT what I expected. Turns out, back in the lat 1940's/early 1950's some admiral decided he wanted to re-deck his flagship in mahagony. He needed 100K bf to do it. Well, some storekeeper managed to tack another zero on that and had 1,000,000 bf of Cuban mahagony delivered to Norfolk, VA. 900K of it sat on a pier in Norfolk until sometime in the late 1960's when they finally decided to split it up and ship it to various wood hobby shops at over seas bases and sold it at those hobby shops for what it cost in the early 1950's! So I made several pieces out of Mahagony. I got the last of the mahagony on the base. Also made some things out of oak stair treads (6' x 12" x 2") that we salvaged from the Officer's club that was being torn down. It had been built with wood milled from the old growth trees taken down to clear land for the base. That was some REAL nice QS white oak and it was free (not counting my labor pulling it out of the O club).

I don't ever expect to get nearly such a good deal on lumber ever again but I sure won't forget it or how it got me into this hobby in the first place.:D:thumb:
 
Last edited:
Id kinda think forestry laws and harvesting laws/lumber laws werent anywhere as strict as they are today.
900,000 bf extra, that would probably keep even me busy for at least 2 months.:D
 
TRICK OR TREAT!!!!!!!

so, what did you do today?
Ive been one busy lad this morning.
I let him do the counting, he added for split pieces, and seemed to do it alot faster than me, and I counted along, and in the end, he threw in alot of extra pieces. I inventoried most of it, havent stacked it, just threw it in garage for now.
Some old growth mahogany thrown in, and he wanted me to try making some doors(I tried to explain to him Im only a novice,but he told me I should make some door frames out of the spanish cedar, every one of his clients love them, ok, he was a super cool guy. He collects sailboats as a hobby, has 3 50 plus footers docked across the street from his new shop)
He had alot of help there to help me, and it eased my anxiety of getting less than what Im paying for, and Ill guess Ill never know, but Ill post the list, and a few pics, you guys can tell me how Im doing.
And now its time to buy a plane, and I dont have a clue about any of it.
But at least I have wood.
The white stuff is the 100 bf of ash.

I was a bit concerned, all his stuff was in 16 foot length and more, and I knew more than 8-10 footers I wouldnt be able to carry, and I didnt see any chop saws or mitre saws.
He has this Altendorf(spelling) table saw, with a slilding part, around 12-14 feet long, the entire section of the table slides, and there is a pull out side rail that supports the wood for cross cutting.It was pretty cool for some laymen like me to see this equipment in action.
 

Attachments

  • wood stuff 264 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 264 (Medium).jpg
    44.5 KB · Views: 33
  • wood stuff 265 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 265 (Medium).jpg
    44.5 KB · Views: 21
  • wood stuff 266 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 266 (Medium).jpg
    59 KB · Views: 22
  • wood stuff 267 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 267 (Medium).jpg
    46.8 KB · Views: 18
  • wood stuff 268 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 268 (Medium).jpg
    37.7 KB · Views: 23
  • wood stuff 269 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 269 (Medium).jpg
    36.7 KB · Views: 18
  • wood stuff 270 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 270 (Medium).jpg
    63.2 KB · Views: 26
  • wood stuff 271 (Medium).jpg
    wood stuff 271 (Medium).jpg
    54.4 KB · Views: 47
Last edited:
I'll let the accountants give you the bottom line Allen, but I will say that is a very nice looking pile of wood. Sounds like this guy new what he was doing, and your story shows no hint that he did anything except what one would hope for.
 
Top