Good Wood

[Pearson]

If you need good quality wood for your project, I found a place in Portland, Oregon that has plenty and will ship. It is called Crosscut Hardwoods. I needed a piece of Spruce. They had it in 1" or 2" thickness plenty long enough to make spars out of. I only needed a 3 foot length, which they gladly cut for no charge. They have a website at www.crosscuthardwoods.com , or you can phone them at 503.224.9663.

[Ray36048]

Re: Good Wood

Be carefull.....

Spruce of the right size vs spruce that meets the requirements of AC 43.13 are two different things. If you are making spars, make sure you know what you are buying.

[Pearson]

Re: Good Wood

Ray, Yes, I think it goes without saying that when buying wood for spars one has to be very careful. I just wanted to share with everyone that this place has a very good selection and they ship.

[mulwyk]

Re: Good Wood

Good info, Richard. And, Thanks for posting the link to their website (it's like an electronic candy store). How unreasonable are the prices?

[Pearson]

Re: Good Wood

The spruce that I bought was $6 a board foot. It was cut from a piece about 12 feet long that I could not find a single knot in. As Ray pointed out, you would want to somehow verify that it met the regs for use as spar material. But I mainly put the link up for those who might need wood for uses other than spars.

[Hank Jarrett]

Re: Good Wood

I have found that most GOOD lumber yards will allow you to hand select a piece of wood for a critical application. The one I have used let me dig through all of his supply and knew it was for an airplane, but I would put "small sailboat mast" on the order invoice for their protection.
They are looking for liability insulation, not to give you a hard time.
Hank

Can't say I blame them. That's why I would always say it was for a "sailboat". The boat guys use aircraft inspection requirements and good yards are used to seeing the requirements.

[Robert Lees]

Re: Good Wood

A lot of quality lumber yards are also used to dealing with folks who are restoring wood-framed cars (Morgan for example, uses ash, I think), and 1930's-type motorcraft like a Chriscraft, which uses teak and other water-resistant woods.

Find an enthusiast there, and you will have a very expert timber inspector. Maybe not the same type of wood of course, but the inspection principles are the same for grain straightness, defects, run-out, moisture content etc.