A visit to the wood store

So, I finally made it down to Paxton Woods this afternoon.

Amazing experience.

I’d been in a hardwood store before when we were buying oak for our banisters and such and they had a small area up front for woodworkers, so to speak. They’ve now moved and now only do commercial wood.

Paxton also does major commercial work, large quantities of wood, custom mouldings, etc but their “Woodworker’s Store” is *much*  better than Centennial’s was.

I’ve seen purpleheart before – but not 10/4 8″X8′ pieces of it.  12-14″ wide maple about 12 to 13 feet long.  A lot of different exotics, a lot of domestic – one I hadn’t heard of before:  oak red apple. Still have to look that one up.

I was looking in general because we’re about at the place where we need more wood for puzzles and I’m definitely looking for wood for the boxes for the puzzles. They had a rack of clearance mouldings. Among what was there was a bunch of alder, about 1/2 to 5/8″ thick (next time I need to take my tape measure with me), in the neighborhood of 4 inches wide, and 8 to 10 feet long. The best part is the “clearance” bit.  $0.22 per lineal foot.

They also have a clearance rack, stuff that’s too broken up for “normal” people to use.  Evidently it’s stacking up on them because it used to $1.00/bdft – it’s now down to $0.50/bdft.

I was wandering around, just gawking. Each piece has a tag on it that tells what it is, what size (like 4/4, etc) and how many board feet it is, but I couldn’t find prices anywhere. So I went up to the counter and asked the guy about a price list and he came out and showed me where the stickers were that had the prices. On the racks, of course. In my defense they were a little hidden and if I hadn’t been looking at the wood I should have seen them)  Nice folks though – explained things that a new person might not know (some of which I didn’t.)

So I’ll be back on Friday (when I have money again) and pick up the alder and maybe some of the “trash” wood so we can build up a stock of cubes.  And I’ll definitely be back when I need some wood. Very nice people, prices seemed reasonable to me, and you don’t have to pay for shipping.

They have several facilities across the nation and you can visit their site at http://www.paxtonwood.com. If you’re near one I think they’re worth the visit.