Don't want your secrets but I do want

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rlharding

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Joined
Nov 20, 2007
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Location
Nr Vancouver, BC
to know more about the business of selling wood. I have NO intention of getting in to it. I have an extremely well paying Job and I do this ONLY as a hobby.

That said, I know if I go to my aunt's ranch in AZ I can have all the apple wood I want from apple trees that are very old, some are dead standing, some need serious pruning. I can also get citrus wood and I am sure due to the size of her ranch I could find some desert iron wood. Here in Canada I have more maple than I can deal with, most of it now is green and there is a lot lying around I can go cut. SO my question has nothing to do with needing to go into the wood business.

However, I have always been interested/curious about how 'ordinary' people get their exotic wood. By that I mean people who don't have a mill or storefront selling exotic woods. So what do you do? Go on holiday and meet someone by chance and then start importing? Just source out your own suppliers in foreign countries and make deals with them?

How do you ensure that there are no unwanted bugs in wood from foreign countries?

I find the whole venture fascinating. If it's giving away secrets I certainly understand and will just carry on making up weird and wonderful 'truths' in my imagination.

r
 
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Ruth, I don't sell, I trade. Selling is a lot of hard work. Getting the wood is the first and easiest. Chain saw to easy hauling size. Then you haul it to someplace to size cut it; Saw Mill, Woodmizer or large bandsaw. Figure a price based on amount of work/costs involved. Then announce it here with photos, go to USPS and get many Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes.
Mail boxes from Az., cheaper than BC.

Microwave for critters. Poisons shouldn't be used due to residue...
Don't forget metal detector, really screw up a saw or kill someone from shrapnel. (Saw Mill should check...)
 
Ruth,

I agree that it isn't right that you should fret about such things. Get a big container and ship it all to me and I'll be happy to worry about it for you (I can't believe I'm the first to make you this offer).:D:D:D
 
Originally posted by hilltopper46

Ruth,

I agree that it isn't right that you should fret about such things. Get a big container and ship it all to me and I'll be happy to worry about it for you (I can't believe I'm the first to make you this offer).:D:D:D
Click to expand...
Karl must still be asleep!
 
Ruth covered most of it. Add to what she said...sealing to protect and storage. But, with your access to so much nice wood, selling could be a nice sideline to cover costs of your woodworking/turning avocation. Check prices from other vendors and consider being competitive.
 
When I first started turning pens I did lot of scrounging for wood. I work for a University that has over 300 species of tree growing on it. I know all the grounds workers so got my pick of the pruning etc. Only to end up with a pile of rotting logs. I quickly learned that though this wood was free, that is about what it is worth as far as penturning material. I then started looking on e-bay for the exotics and such. I wold find something I liked but often it was more than I needed, so I would keep what i wanted and offer the rest here to other turners. that worked really well as long as I was able to tell from e-bay photos what I was going to get. translation, I got a big box...or three of duds. Next i found a local wood store that actually carries all the exotic types that are so loved by penturners. I though I had finally found the holy grail. Wrong again, actually finding a section of board that would make a nice pen is not as easy as you might think. Plus I learned that it is not really smart to take a large piece of wood to cut it into little bitty pieces. look more for small really exceptional pieces they cost less per cubic inch because there potential uses are fewer. In the midst of all this I knew about this guy that makes it his specialty to hand select only the finest woods to cut into pen blanks. But he wanted a fortune for them. And they are worth every penny. Now there are several of them out there but Bill B. still stands out as the best of the best for quality blanks any time. I did manage to find one extremely good buy on e-bay, but have not been able to bring myself to cut it up yet. have had it for 2 years and still don't know just what to do with it. The wood thing is pitted with snares, be careful out there. Now I am at the point that I do wood by leaving to those that do wood. I make pens. Oh I do know about some sources for very nice wood in large pieces but never took the plunge to buy one and cut it up. that one still has some appeal
 
Thanks Daniel. Your answer was more to the point of what I have been wondering about. Thanks everyone else as well.
I have no desire to go into the wood business, even with all my wood from my own property. It intrigues me that there are many, many people selling exotic wood and I wondered how they got into it and conduct the business. I think I have imagined that everybody must have made contacts overseas and have small shipments of wood flown in. Then Nolan said something recently about the ship having left the port and I imagined a huge amount of wood and Nolan driving up to the ship and hauling it all way.........so I was just curious.

When I first started doing pens I was buying of ebay. I bought one batch that was 154 pieces of walnut for $10 and it was great, long since gone and I have a free source now.

I will probably remain curious. Thanks for the input though.
 
Do check for limits on what you can do with particular wood. Your local University extnsion office could probabl;y help out there. I recently learned there are limits on what you can do with Ash because of some kind of bug it gets. Since you're in Canada, I bet there are limitson what you can bring into the country and snd out of the country.
 
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