On 21/10/10 09:50, Kate Morgan wrote:
My elderly husband used to enjoy woodturning and as he still has all the
equipment that he would need he is thinking about taking it up again. I
would like to buy him some turning blanks, some of the more unusual
woods perhaps. I have looked at magazines and there does seem to be
quite a few firms dealing with that sort of thing. Could anyone
recommend a good and reliable firm to deal with, he was looking at an
advert for SLHardwoods, are they good ?

thanks

kate

Kate,

I'm guessing that from the "BT Internet" e-mail address, and you
mentioning SL Hardwoods (a UK company), that you are in the UK? If so,
then there's not a lot of point paying shipping from the USA on wood
unless it is really special and unavailable more locally.

"Exotic" woods can be a bit intimidating (not wanting to "waste" an
expensive piece of wood), which can lead to procrastination. And, quite
frankly, _some_ exotics are only expensive because they have travelled
far, not because they are so much prettier than local wood (for example,
I far prefer Laburnum to the average "exotic" brown wood).

So my suggestion would be to get some reasonably priced British timber.
Sadly not many companies market the prettiest locally grown woods. But
there are usually people at clubs that have interesting bits for sale
and to swap. A starting place would be
http://www.woodturners.co.uk/branches.htm or internet search for local
turner's clubs; phone the secretary and have a chat.

I've not used SL Hardwoods, but that is more to do with the way I tend
to buy wood than because I don't trust them or anything.

Good luck
Andy