Gathering Materials

 

After coming up with a rough design, I had to decide how to build it. The rest of the cabinets in my garage are simple plywood carcasses with a door edged in hardwood. I could go this route though I have doubts as to whether the strength of that construction would be sufficient as I am planning to densely load it up with lots of tools, mostly metal and thus it might need to hold a fair amount of weight. Also, I would like to try a new method I have never tried before and will write about in a future post. So I decided on building the cabinet mostly out of hardwood though I will still used plywood for the back panel of the main carcass and the panels within each of the hinged doors.

I could go to my local LoNards Depot which has three or four types of hardwood priced extremely high and individually shrink wrapped in plastic. I could order the hardwood online which gives me a bit more control but is still pretty high priced for "shop furniture". In the end, I decided this project was worth the hassle of visiting the Amish lumbermill 20 miles south of town. It is a hassle because being Amish, they have no phone to check that they have what I am looking for or even that they might be open when I get there. Amish have no qualms about simply locking the door and going someplace else if business is light and there is somewhere else they would rather be. More than once I have made the drive down there only to find the doors locked with a note saying they would return several hours hence. 

I decided to go during the middle of the week and mid-morning to increase my chances and made the drive to the place I have purchased lumber several times over the years. When I walked in through the open door, I was pleased to see an Amish young man there but displeased to see that there were no racks of wood anymore. They had all been replaced by what appeared to be metal fabrication machines. I told the young Amish man I was looking to purchase hardwood and he directed me to the new location of the business several more miles away. 

I found it and this time, the Amish man I had normally dealt with in the past was there though he now ran an archery supply store. His younger brother took over the lumber business and was happy to help me. He asked what I was looking for and I in turn ask if he had a list of species and prices. Of course being Amish and not in tune with catering to customers, he said he didn't have such a list. Years ago on a previous trip to the previous location of this business, I had seen some quarter sawn sycamore that was really beautiful and different looking that other species so I inquired the pricing of it. It was within my budget but was confined at the bottom of a huge stack and they said if I could come back the following week, they would have it dug out. I declined and asked instead what they had that was readily available. A few minutes later, I was selecting rough sawn boards from a stack of hard maple.

I loaded up the boards and paid a tiny fraction of what it would cost me to purchase such materials at the local LoNards Depot if they were to carry such a species which they don't. I think I paid $1.20 per board foot (woodworking unit of measurement) and at LoNards Depot, an equivalent species of wood would have cost me closer to $10 to $15 per board foot. The Amish materials are rough sawn meaning I have to do a fair amount of work to make them flat, smooth and straight. Also, I have to work around defects where as the LoNards Depot materials have much fewer and come mostly flat, smooth and straight.

After a morning's worth of work, I was able to get the lumber cut into smaller, more manageable sizes, flattened and smoothed on two sides. The ends aren't square nor are the edges straight, but I could do both of those things another day on the tablesaw in short order. The pile on the back left of my work bench are the cutoffs which I will use to create custom brackets for all my various hand tools when it comes time to start loading the completed cabinet.