"Dave Balderstone" wrote in message
news:230220092251301502%dave@N_O_T_T_H_I_Sbalderst one.ca...
In article , DGDevin
wrote:

Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Hum - know anyone down at the ship channel ? Some cargo ships
use exotic (foreign) wood to block and brace with. Some big stuff
we used to get years ago overseas.

Some decades ago a pal of mine who is a fanatical woodworker went to
Africa
to teach for two years, Tanzania. When he was about to return he bought
a
whole bunch of real interesting wood, and had it carefully made into
extra-heavy-duty shipping crates in which to return his household goods,
and
by carefully I mean he plotted out every screw and nail hole. Of course
when he got back he dismantled the crates and stacked the wood on racks,
he's still building stuff out of it all these years later. I hate to
think
what some of those slabs are worth today.

Brilliant! _ing Brilliant!

There used to be a couple places up the street from me that put out pallets
for people to take. Not any more. But I would cut them up for firewood.
Then I noticed that some of them were unusually heavy and hard. The chainsaw
had difficulty cutting through them.

I began to cut the ends, nails, etc and save the good parts. I never knew
what kind of wood it was. Just that they came from all over the world and
some of the wood was wildly figured and unusally colored.

I had a pretty good stack of this and was contemplating projects for this
pile of mystery wood. Then one day a friend brought somebody by who
examined the pile and got very excited. He apparently knew about some of
this wood. Now this is the part where it gets surreal. He pulled some
money out of his pocket and started waving it around. He wanted to buy all
of it.

I figured I would just get more of this up the street. In a moment of
weakness, I took the cash. Then the folks up the street moved and my source
was no longer available. Oh, well.....