EPISODE ONE: I'm thumbing the Sunday classifieds a coupla weeks ago looking under "Building Materials" when this ad jumps out:
"Rough sawn Oak, Cherry, Walnut lumber, air-dried 20 years. $2/board foot.
292-XXXX. "Oook! So's I get on the phone and call the advertiser, make arrangements to meet him down at his acreage south of town (I live in Omaha). I get there the next AM, and meet this old-timer, who as it turns out used to be in the tree-removal business, and came by this stuff that way. Then he leads me out to a shed, wherein lies...oh my.
Walnut, beautiful walnut, anywhere from 3/4-12/4 (mostly 4/4 and 8/4), mostly 8-10" wide, a couple 12+. White oak (burr oak, native around here) - less in quantity than the walnut, almost all 5/4 and 6/4 and 6-8" wide. And the cherry...not a ton left by the time I got there, but what there was was lovely, wide stuff; one board is 14.5" wide and 80" long. All the boards had a price written on the end, so keeping track was easy. Good thing, too.
I picked boards out until I ran out of space to haul them, and left a few behind to go pick up the next day. I wrote the guy a check for $200. I haven't even gotten around to figuring out how much I actually have all told, but I did total up the cherry - it came to 23.25BF, for which I paid $44, or $1.89/BF. I planed some up yesterday, and it's magnificent. I'll have to get back to you with the rest, but I'm thinking I probably wound up paying rather less than $2/BF when all's said and done.
Stay tuned...
Jason