Buying The Wood: Elegant Elm

 This weekend I made the full commitment to doing the large hand tool cabinet.  I had gone back and forth for weeks, trying to decide what to use for wood.  It looked like my budget was only going to handle a hardwood frame inset with plywood panels, but even in figuring that cost (alder faced plywood at $179 per panel, plus shipping) and alder lumber at $4 bf,  it was looking more expensive than the value of the final product, at least for what I wanted.
  Then I contacted a man I'd met through WoodBarter.com. He lives 150 miles away, but has shipped me some very nice maple and walnut in flat rate boxes.  I asked about his walnut stash, and he replied, "Yes, but right now I have all this Elm sitting."  He showed me photos of a desk he'd made from it, in a warm, golden-oiled beautiful finish, and he had lots of it, in 8/4 thickness and everything from 8" wide to 20" wide.


We drove over to his place, and
here's what I brought home.

I need to add a correction here. 
I'd originally blogged this wood 
as Yew but my seller corrected 
me, it is not Yew, but ELM.  I 
knew that, but was so tired after unloading this pickup, I messed 
up on the unmarked wood and 
had Yew on the brain. Sorry for
the confusion.  It has been 
corrected throughout this post.




And here it is unloaded into the garage:

All Elm, 7' long boards, 14"w down to 8" wide.

And several large slabs, all Elm except for the center one, third from the left, which is 8/4 silver maple, six feet long.

Now that I have it unloaded, I spent some time just sitting on my shop stool staring at it all!  It's so beautiful it makes my heart swell. Silly me.




 Now, I'm just hoping I can get the lower base cabinet of the hand tool cabinet completed before the cold sets in and I can't trust any glue-ups. By then I'll have to wait for spring.  In the meantime, I have grandkids' presents to make, Christmas projects to stock for websites, and a min-lathe stand to build so I can DO the Christmas projects.  I'm hoping those duties will go quickly.   This Elm is going to make an amazing large, floor-standing cabinet, and I am quite excited about building it!