Chechen

[qbilder]

Stumbled on a lucky find at Woodcraft. They had a flitch board of chechen, loaded with quilt and some curl, even has some pomele going on. PIA because it's a lot of effort to get it from that into turning squares, and it's a $500 slab, but was worth it. I don't see chechen like that very often and couldn't pass it up. Do any of y'all shop for wood like that, too? I get almost all of my birdseye & curly maples like this, and a lot of my exotics.

Got a few prime cut squares from it The pic doesn't show how alive the wood is. It shimmers with figure everywhere.

 

[cueman]

I buy wood all kinds of ways. Slabs, short logs, squares and rounds.,

 

[PRED]

I buy wood all kinds of ways. Slabs, short logs, squares and rounds.,

If it catches your discerning eye, buy! A deep throated Bandsaw is your friend.

 

[CuesDirectly]

Awesome piece.

I have run the extremes over the last 25 years with wood.

I once had a self loading log truck load 9 loads and I took it to a mill. They milled it for me over a year period, boy did I make some friends happy with free wood.

With Pool Cues, the largest pieces I have worked with weighed in around 300 pounds, that was 6 years ago and I still have wood from it.

I have over 30 species at this time and it's nice to find smaller turning squares.

What would be nice is a thread here to trade woods with other cue makers, a wood exchange.

 

[Michael Webb]

Bet you already got your design gears turning.

 

[qbilder]

What would be nice is a thread here to trade woods with other cue makers, a wood exchange.

That would be a great way to broaden wood vocabulary for sure. I have a few makers I do that with already. Pretty much any maker I know fairly well & consider a friend gets to share in on any score new and/or different that I come across. They do the same with me. Having a specific barter section could potentially open a lot of networking doors.

 

[JC]

Eric you have worked yourself into a good market position in a relatively short period of time. By building a cue and reputation that permits pricing which enables you to buy wood like that allows the cycle to continue.

When I got interested in building a pool cue it was your approach to it that caught my eye. Don't have any idea whether I will ever get there or not at this point but your strategies make sense to me and are inspirational.

JC

 

[qbilder]

Bet you already got your design gears turning.

Chechen is one of those woods that's common, but every once in a while there's a stand of timber that has crazy figured logs. I've seen it happen with koa, bubinga, sapele, narra, etc. For a stretch there will be an availability of insane figured stuff, then poof it's gone. I learned that lesson long ago and made a rule that i'd buy everything available or as much as I can afford. Last time I had the chance to buy chechen this good was back in 2003. It's an awesome cue wood that doesn't really look quite like anything else.

 

[qbilder]

Eric you have worked yourself into a good market position in a relatively short period of time. By building a cue and reputation that permits pricing which enables you to buy wood like that allows the cycle to continue.

When I got interested in building a pool cue it was your approach to it that caught my eye. Don't have any idea whether I will ever get there or not at this point but your strategies make sense to me and are inspirational.

JC

:embarrassed2: Thank you.

As I said in my previous post, buying wood like this was a hard lesson learned. Older makers told me to buy as much good wood as I can because it's never getting cheaper, and may not always be available. It made sense to me but never really struck home until my own experience echoed their wisdom.

Here's a few other woods I sourced from rough cut boards:

Karelian birch

Katalox

River red gum

 

[cueman]

Chechen is one of those woods that's common, but every once in a while there's a stand of timber that has crazy figured logs. I've seen it happen with koa, bubinga, sapele, narra, etc. For a stretch there will be an availability of insane figured stuff, then poof it's gone. I learned that lesson long ago and made a rule that i'd buy everything available or as much as I can afford. Last time I had the chance to buy chechen this good was back in 2003. It's an awesome cue wood that doesn't really look quite like anything else.

I have not thought about it until I read this post. But I have not seen any good figured Chechen in many years either. There is a huge slab of really figured bubinga that I know of and it is priced at 19,000.00. Needless to say I have no plans to buy it. You have some really great looking woods.

 

[Mcues]

Wood

That's interesting looking Birch The Chechen reminds me of some Waterfall Bubinga I have somewhere.

Mario

 

[louieatienza]

I haven't been on Woodcraft's site In a long while. Didn't even know they sold lumber. Sweet piece there, Eric!

I actually do buy wood this way quite a bit, because for acoustic guitars I need at least 8" wide, and usually boards that wide and above have a premium added to them. I have to send boards out for resawing because I don't have the capability yet of slicing 1/8" thick boards 8"+ wide. My guy can do it up to 12" wide.

But regardless of what's made, it's nice to have a consistency of grain, color, and tone from piece to piece, and in the end it can be a lot cheaper than buying a single turning square. Just had resawn some really nice pau ferro, fiddleback maple, some perfectly quartered shadua (ovangkol), and some crazy pomelle sapele. Also have on deck some amazing cocobolo slabs (one of them quartersawn with bees-wing figuring), a slab of bocote, a couple curly maple slabs, a slab of ancient kauri... looks so much nicer when the back and sides come from consecutive boards off the same slab...

 

[HQueen]

After taking a 12 year break from cue making I was seriously surprised to see how much certain woods have gone up in price. It was also cool because of the burls I bought then are now ready to be worked. Wood is a great investment IMO, better than money in the bank (as long as you actually have money in the bank).

 

[cueman]

After taking a 12 year break from cue making I was seriously surprised to see how much certain woods have gone up in price. It was also cool because of the burls I bought then are now ready to be worked. Wood is a great investment IMO, better than money in the bank (as long as you actually have money in the bank).

My only concern with investing in exotic wood is that the crazies in power will make them illegal like they did Ivory.

 

[skins]

:embarrassed2: Thank you.

As I said in my previous post, buying wood like this was a hard lesson learned. Older makers told me to buy as much good wood as I can because it's never getting cheaper, and may not always be available. It made sense to me but never really struck home until my own experience echoed their wisdom.

Here's a few other woods I sourced from rough cut boards:

Karelian birch

Katalox

River red gum

...............

Karelian (Scandinavian) Birch looks great when used for drums too :smile:

...............

 

[GoldRush cues]

Cocobolo !

[/ATTACH]Here is some highly figured cocobolo I found recently. I bought every board I could

 

[GoldRush cues]

Bubinga

I just bought this board of Bubinga at my local Hughes hardwoods. I find a piece about every 5 years there.its 8 ft long 9 inches wide 8/4. Got it for $160!!

 

[GoldRush cues]

More cocobolo

Here's some more highly figured coco

 

[HQueen]

My only concern with investing in exotic wood is that the crazies in power will make them illegal like they did Ivory.

I hear you, that’s always a concern. On the flip side buying exotic lumber and then having governments from where the wood is harvested either shut down or limit the export will obviously make prices rise.
I like to age my wood for years so I like to buy in bulk whenever possible. It may cause me an issue one day. But the way crazy government is acting these days they could conceivably outlaw making anything out of wood!