Unexpected Craigslist wood find

So I’m out to take a look at this Makita 2030 Jointer/Planer I found in Craigslist. About the only way I was not buying was if the motor was fried. Get there and take a look at the 2030 which happens be in better shape than I expected (new rollers, new planer blade but with a nick) so I of course bought it. The old boy selling it says “I have some other stuff around here I need to sell you want to take a look?”. Hey I’m game you never know what you’ll find on one of these trips. So he tells me his son used to do allot of woodwork but no longer does and hasn’t for some time (it was his 2030 I just bought). Any ways the old boy says “I have this pile of strips over here you may be interested in”. Hey why not lets see what he has. We go around back and I notice that there is a big pile of something on the ground covered by a tarp. We pull the tarp off and I liked to have a cow. Right there on the top is a chunk of Black Wallnut that looks to be 8” wide x 24-36” long and 2” thick and under that a chunk of Cherry about the same size. Then under those a tone of 12’ long strips of various widths but most 2-3” wide and 1” thick of various woods. And of course no telling whats down under that pile that you can’t see. He tells me he wan’t $50 for the pile and I could not say no. And of course he has more for me to look at. He shows me a pile of pipe clamps ~14 that are kinda of rough but hey I only have a few clamps at this point so I want those as well. He wants $50 for the clamps then says you see all that wood over there ( smaller pile of wood but looks to be thicker stuff ~4”x~4”x~3’-4’) you buy the clamps you can have it for free. Oh man I’m hooked so I take that as well. Now for the proof:

Above you see all the long stuff. I had to actually cut off the ends because they were too long for me to safely haul. You can also just see 2030 I bought but it is mostly covered with wood :)

This is mostly the shorter stuff I got for free. Sorry you can’t see the Thicker stuff because they are on the bottom.

That was 2 weeks ago and on Monday of this week I get a call from the seller and he asks if I’m interested in some more strips. Sure I’ll come buy and take a look at what he has. Get there and take a look and come home with this all for free mostly because it is in pretty bad shape but still has some usable wood.

And this was buried on the bottom:
as you can see those two in the middle have been ate up by post beetles but the rest are fine. Oh FYI that is 8/4 12” wide oak won’t know what kind of oak until I clean it up.

So with all those thin strips now cleaned up (all the dirt and junk cleaned off them) what I found in that pile was Walnut, Cherry, Hard maple, Popular and Oak (rift, quarter and plain) and maybe some Mahogany.

Now the question is what am I going to do with it all. For one I’m going to make some cutting boards :)

Richard

-- --- Richard Jackson