Herbine Hardwoods is located in Lucketts just outside of Leesburg, the owner Rick Herbine owns a small farm and has a kiln and sawmill on premise. The hardwood business is a side business and by appointment only so you have to call him ahead of time and leave a message. He is good about returning calls and setting up a time meet.

They have a large selection of various local species plus some odd stuff throw in here and there. They almost always has cherry, oak (Red and While), popular, walnut and ash. They also have a shorts area where there is a collection of 4-5 footer that are sold at a discount.

When I was last there he had several large box elm slabs that were really cool with their red streaks. There was also the large piece of 5/4 live edge spalted maple that had to come home with me. Rick knows his wood and is a good guy to talk wood with.

http://www.herbinehardwood.com/

On their webpage the address is miss-spelled (Kimball and not Kimble), so it does not show up in google maps. Here is a link to the google maps location.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1+kimble+Rd+Berryville,+VA&sll=39.183976,-77.994067&sspn=0.062072,0.13175&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1+Kimble+Rd,+Berryville,+Clarke,+Virginia+22611&z=17

The copper was pretty banged up from being ripped off a roof, folded up and then transported 600 miles, so I had to spend a bit of time with a rubber mallet, deadbolt and hammer to flatten it out enough to use, but I am happy with the result. I found that starting in the center and working my way out in circles worked the best, however it curled the corners, so I would then have to flip it over and work the other side a bit to work the curl out. Once I got it flat I took a piece of 1/4 plywood cut to the size I needed and held it over the area I wanted to use. While holding the panel I scored a like with a utility knife and the cut on the scoremark with a pain of tin snips. Overall it was fairly easy. Once it was cut I gently sanded the edges being careful not to sand the patina off so they were not as sharp. A

Once the copper was flattened and cut to size I used contact cement to laminate it together, put it in between two pieces of plywood and put about 400lbs of weights (Helps to have your gym in your shop :)) on top of it.

Today I stopped at the shop and mounted the panel into the foot board panel which I had put an initial coat of finish on and here is the result. It is a little hard to tell from the photo, but the panel is framed by a 1.5 inch wide frame in-between it and the next panel. I tried to match the panel/rail grains the best I could.

Here is a picture of the work in progress.

While I was out shopping for wood for the bed posts I visited one of my local wood dealers who had a cool piece of crotch mahogany that I just could not pass up especially when it was only $35.00. It is hard to tell from the pictures, but it is 53 inches high by 33 inches wide at the bottom and 1.5 inches thick.. I has some cracks and splits but I think I will be able to butterfly them and make a cool desktop out of it, however I am open to ideas. Thoughts of what to do with it??