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WOW!!! Super haul!
StackedView attachment 25238, RackedView attachment 25239 and built.View attachment 25240(and it works)
Got the halloween decorations put away, uprooted most of the flowers and potted plants, and now wake me up on Tuesday.
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.
Congrats on the haul, that ought to keep you nice and busy for a while.
And congrats on getting the saw up and running. I noticed you have the power switch over on the right hand side. I've got mine set up to the left of the blade where I can turn it off with my thigh at the end of a cut. It's something you might consider. One nice thing about the Ridgid is the switch is easy to move to different locations on the rail, so you can find the spot that works best for you. Here's a pic of mine, three or four modifications ago.
View attachment 25266
Allen,
Thanks for sharing your adventure. As for having room, I spent last summer building a new shop which is almost twice the size of my old space. Within 6 weeks after the big move I was again paralized with clutter . I know going in that any project involves moving things at least 3 times.
I was "around" woodworking for 20 years as a remodeling contractor. I would do the occasional small custom job using BORG lumber or S3S from a local mill. About 5 yrs. ago I decided I needed my own stash. A guy on another forum advertised air dried hickory for $1/bd. ft. and he wasn't too far away. I set up a meet, called my buddy, and off we went. To this day I hold both guys responsible for letting me buy 500 ft. of hickory, helping me load it into a GMC Safari and driving home with my headlights in the tree tops and my back doors roped shut. I had a planer but now I needed a jointer and a "bigger" table saw. I also needed my head examined. I built a couple small tables with the hickory, moved the rest of it twice and finally used it for lumber/equipment shelves and a mower storage shed. I have since returned to my "supplier" for more modest amounts of other species.
Now, I love woodworking. It's takes me to a place that no drugs ever could. You'd think I'd be out there in my shop right now, wouldn't you? Nope, I'm taking a break from looking for bargain planes on ebay. That's right. I'm now addicted to reworking 100 yr. old derelict hand planes, taking them from rusty hulks to a point where they once again make that swishing sound as they slice a full-width whisper of a shaving. I have a dream!