[Paul_Guraedy]

My frien's, I am in Omaha, NE visiting relatives (grand daughter most of all). When here, I always visit Midwest Woodcarving. They carry some carving supplies; but, mainly, they carry wood!

Yesterday, I was talking to the owner specifically about lacewood vs. fish-tail oak and bloodwood vs. rosewood. After a while he said, "You want to see a piece of wood that you will not see anything like again in your life?"

Can a lover of wood say no? We went back into his store room and he fulfilled his promise. He has a piece of rosewood that is 6-7 feet long, 5-6 feet wide, a couple of inches thick and has the bark still on both sides. He found it, bought it and has now sold it.

The bark looked old. I suspect this piece was forgotten in some warehouse for years. Few producing countries let rosewood get out of their areas in very large or thick pieces.

He was right. Not again in my life. That tree had to be hundreds of years old at harvest time.

Incredibly beautiful!

Much to Diana's relief, this time I managed to get out of there and spend only about a hundred bucks on wood (cottonwood bark and holly).

[btree50]

Paul,
That had to be an impressive sight. Too bad you didnt get a picture of it with you next to it. Did the guy tell you what price he sold it for?
Jim

[squbrigg]

Paul, isn't it a wonderful feeling to look upon something so special like that Rosewood! So many things run through your mind immediately!!!! Projects that could blow you away, massive carvings, hundreds of "If I only had the right piece for it's!", and visions of other carvings, all scatter through your mind like a squall that springs up at sea!

While coming back from a short summer vacation trip to Nova Scotia, I stopped in the East Coast Hardwood Specialty store in Halifax, and picked up a few pieces. What struck my eye was similar to what you mentioned, only this was Mahogany, a stack of it, all from one tree obviously, but a good 5' to 6' wide, by 12' long and each piece about 3" to 4" thick. Each piece was marked with prices ranging from $4450 to $6700. But, my goodness the wood!!! The images floated through my mind fast and furious!!! I had to tear myself away.

I settled for a much smaller piece of Mahogany (1" X 22" X 5') and some nice pieces of Cherry, Butternut, Holly, Pear wood, and several pieces of good sized Basswood. That warehouse houses some of the nicest woods I've ever seen in my life, giant burls, huge sheets of sliced up burls, and the variety of woods from around the world is amaizing, A woodcarvers dream store. $902 lighter, my wife dragged me out to the car and pointed me home!

Bob