Behind the scenes of the Real Woodworking Campaign and New Legacy are men working wood from raw logs into flat boards resawn with massive tungsten-tipped teeth. The wood is stickered inside the kiln and thus dried so that moisture inside the wood is even and then it remains stickered to acclimate and release the heat from the kiln. Mark and I picked our wood carefully and took it back to the workshop where we stickered it once more. Tomorrow it will be needed for the Foundational II workshop.
Tom Bowden hangs a poster, one of many we have planned for the walls that represent companies with an ethos to complement our own in that the tools, equipment and materials promote real woodworking and not artificial substitutes. They will be carefully selected, not commercial advertisements with an educational nature.
Barney Drumm supplies our wood from sawn logs he rolls onto his mill for slabbing. He makes beams too, and we used these and will continue to use them on the remarkable timber-framed buildings we make. This week we were looking for some fairly clear stock and this is what we bought from Barney. The quality is ten time the quality of The Home Depot and Lowes and the price is about a third or so less. Same too with Lowes.
I find it always best to find a local mill where possible. In many states there are people like Barney who go against the flow and become Real Woodworkers in a particular category and we should use them to prevent them from being swallowed up by the big companies. “You can do it, we can help.”
Some will remember a month ago when I posted on newly hatched Canadian geese over by the pond. These are before and after pictures a month apart, but two families.
