Exotic woods

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Permalink Reply by Toby on October 12, 2012 at 1:49am

Hi Brendan, I'd suggest finding a local woodcarving and/or wood working group (they have all the ins). If you can't find one of those try a local custom cabinet maker. Or try a vocational school that offers woodworking and talk with an instructor. That person is usually involved with my first suggestion. 

I just got lucky with my source he happens to have his accounting done by my wife's company and his biggest money maker is making custom wood floors.Hope that helps you out.

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on October 12, 2012 at 4:26am

Fretboards (some with precut fret slots 25.5") and odd pieces can be bought from many ebay sellers - i've picked up some interesting woods including rosewood, ebony, maple, afromosia to name a few, odd bundles can be cheap but buy from your own country as the postage can be expensive! (-:

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Permalink Reply by Huntz Meyer on October 12, 2012 at 5:43am

Rockler - good quality, fast, and easy.

http://woodworking.rockler.com/c/wood-products

Huntz

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on October 12, 2012 at 7:55am

You can also watch Craigslist. I stumbled across a guy who was selling some wood he had in his garage for years. You can also watch for any solid wood furniture that may be damaged and is going for a small price. Also used hardwood flooring that is being ripped up in a remodeling project might be a good candidate.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on October 12, 2012 at 7:57am

http://stores.ebay.com/Lonesome-Burl/Thin-Lumber-/_i.html?rt=nc&...      Here`s one of my favorite places to get exotic`s. I deal with this seller alot as i use alot of different woods on my slides and custom bridges. Great service and lots to choose from, plus they will do custom cutting if you get it touch with them. They made me 2 redwood burl fretboards on request...#1 in my exotic wood sellers!!!

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Permalink Reply by chevytrucking on October 12, 2012 at 9:28am

Go to a good magazine stand or bookstore and look in the back of several woodworking magazines. There a dozens of wood dealers and suppliers in the ads. If you get on a couple of their mailing lists, you'll start getting brochures from other dealers too.

 

If you just want a little piece of something exotic, like ebony or zebrawood for a nut or bridge, look on ebay under pen turning blanks or just turning blanks.

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Permalink Reply by William McCauley on October 12, 2012 at 5:16pm

Find a "Woodcraft" store, they have a pretty good selection of exotic woods. A word of warning, be careful cutting and sanding these woods (or any wood, for that matter). They can and will play HELL with your sinuses and respiratory system (don't ask how I know this). 

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on October 12, 2012 at 10:14pm

Right on, pen blanks are great. Also knife scales, (handles) which are quite a bit bigger than pen blanks and usually come in book matched pairs..
Try veneers too, nice cheap and easy way to get pretty pinstripes add a pinch of exoticism to even it oak and ash or whatever it vanilla stuff in ur part of the world :)

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Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on October 12, 2012 at 6:59pm

Here's a few:

http://www.bairdbrothers.com

http://oregonwildwood.com

http://www.woodnshop.com

http://www.woodworkerssource.com

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Permalink Reply by Don McCann on October 13, 2012 at 1:40am

Check out Oregon Wild Woods on the Internet. Dana Osman is the owner and he is a supplier for Luthier's all over the world. He is also on Facebook. He has some of the finest woods available for building guitars. I've bought a ton of wood from him. Check out my photos on my page here on Cigar Box Nation and you'll see photos of both wood and some of my guitars built from his wood. He is fair priced too. Just go to your search engine (Yahoo, Google, ect.) and type in Oregon Wild Woods and you can pick out the wood that you want right on line. I would also give him a call and get to know him, he's a great guy. Dana is one of us too, he has one of my CBG's built from his wood and he is learning to play it.

Don

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Permalink Reply by Brendan deVallance on October 14, 2012 at 2:27pm

Thanks for all these tips. I should be able to find something from all these leads. 

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Permalink Reply by Busyhands Slim on October 16, 2012 at 8:11pm

You don't have to go to a fancy wood supplier to find nice woods. You just have to look in some new and out-of-the-way places, and keep your eyes open.

I have some mahogany planks I picked out of the hardwood offcuts bin at a lumber yards years ago; I'm saving them for "something special", and have been for 35 years. But I have been using bubinga flooring that I snagged out of the dumpster behind a store renovation project at a mall. I got a LOT of that stuff, in 2- and 3-foot cutoff lengths, which has lasted for many projects. My first CBG neck was from walnut that I also pulled out of a dumpster - it was part of a piece of furniture someone had broken up - with a fingerboard made of oak trim from a kitchen remodeling and binding of strips of the bubinga.

I saw an article recently about all the century-old pianos that are being dumped because they only last about 80 years, but aren't worth spending the money to fix them up. If you could find one of those before it goes into the landfill, you'd have a lifetime supply of some nice hardwood. Maybe a call to a piano store would turn one up?

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