Wood Forage

18/11/2013 – I finally managed to go and see Attila Hoth of Southern Wood Trading on 7/11/2013. His warehouse is outside Windhoek, close to the Dobra Church. I struggled a bit to find the place so ended up having only about 10 minutes or so with him before having to rush back to work. The plan was to take a few pictures of the setup, but that did not happen due to the rush. I explained to him what I was after and how I want to build the bench. He agreed to work out a quote for the beech wood I need.

Attila promptly sent me the quote on Monday morning and now I have to find the money before the end of the year. The plan is to buy the wood and let it sit in the woodshed for a few months while I get the space for the bench sorted in the shop. It will also take a while to save for and order the Lie-Nielsen vise hardware. By the way, I am now leaning towards using their tail vise in the end vise position (rather than a second twin-screw vise), but this might still change a few times between now and the day I need to order.

I decided to use beech for this project for two main reasons. 1) The experience I gained building all those hand planes with beech this year made me realise that it is particularly stable. 2) The very light colour really helps with reflecting light, which improves visibility.

26/11/2013 – My minister of finance finally informed me today that we should be able to make the payment to Attila by the end of the week!!!

27/11/2013 – As luck would have it I saw Attila in the street close to my practice this morning and promptly found a place to park. Illegally of course. We had a quick chat about the good news I received and he agreed to square the wood up on his monstrous jointer. So hopefully the wood will arrive at home some time next week. That would conclude phase one of my biggest project yet.

Below you can see exactly what I received.