The Lumber Guy

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Why all Woodworking Magazines look the same


I counted ad space in my Popular Woodworking magazine. Ads represented almost 43% of the total surface area. These are the same or similar ads found in other major woodworking magazines. Add the similar columns: Tips, problem solving, letters to the editor and pretty soon you have over 50% identical or similar content. That’s why all woodworking magazines look alike.

Except for Garreson Lumber’s Tally Sheet. With only 41% ad space, it really stands out from the crowd-all three pages. You won’t find any Powermatic, Porter Cable Freud nor Jet ads. It’s jam packed with advice and um, other information also. There’s no charge for the newsletter. Garreson Lumber’s Tally editor tried to post it at their website but something happened. The electrons got mixed up in the phone wires and the result was so hideous, so horrific that he deleted it before it caused an international incident. The only way to get the Tally Sheet is to buy lumber from Garreson Lumber Company (or request a free subscription by e-mail . Send your name and address). Buy even one board and you receive the newsletter for life or until the editor figures out how to delete inactive subscribers’ addresses from the list.

Kiln Dried Zucchini: Sorry, sold out


If you get Garreson Lumber’s newsletter, the Tally Sheet, you know we recently kiln dried some zucchini slices. Well, I just sold them for $1.00 apiece. Yes, it’s true. I can sell anything. And no, the buyer wasn’t an art student. If you want KD zuchini, I recommend ordering now for the next batch. First come, first serve. Garreson Lumber also sells kiln dried lumber.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Staining Cherry

<> Bill came to buy some cherry for door trim. The pieces had a little bit of sapwood on the best face.

“Can your customer live with this?” I asked.

“In this case, it’s no problem,” he answered. “They want me to put a walnut stain on it.”

I think Bill told me that just to see me do my little “don’t-make-me-sell-you-this-why-
would-you-pay-almost-$5/BF-just-to-stain-it” dance. Or maybe he wanted to hear the “Customer-is-always-right-I-love-my-customers-even-when-they-buy-cherry-to-make-
designer-toothpicks” chant.

Traumatic events imprint our memories. I remember the day John F. Kennedy died, the explosion of the Challenger, my wedding, and the day someone wanted to apply an ebony stain to black cherry.

“Why don’t you just buy this piece of pine and spray it with flat black rustoleum?” I was a young salesman then, and a little rough around the edges. Dave, my boss, took over, sold the guy some cherry and patted him on the back as he scurried out the door.

I believe that at the beginning, before God created the Heavens and the Earth, He established some basic universal laws. One of them is “Thou shalt not apply stains to expensive woods to make them look like less expensive woods.” God does not close a door without opening another. He also added the clause “Lesser woods shalt thou freely stain.”

Some wood stain well. Poplar, beech, red maple, and birch can look nice with a rich cherry color added. The difficulty is finding the right stain. I bought two brands off the hardware store shelf to stain poplar. Neither resembled cherry at all. Since then, in discussions with many professional cabinetmakers, I believe it’s less trouble to learn to love wood with clear finishes. Every wood is beautiful, in its own way.

Friday, October 14, 2005

The price of popularity

You can buy 18 wildly popular essays by Peter Sieling on Amazon for $10 each. They are offered by Proquest Information and Learning. Proquest just lost a class action lawsuit because they are selling articles they don’t own(the Thompson group was also among the defendants). I could have been part of the settlement except that the deadline for filing was three weeks ago and I found this out last week.

It might be a compliment that someone thought my stuff was good enough to steal. Here’s some other articles you can buy from Proquest on Amazon, just to give you an idea of the caliber of my writing:

Manitoba Tire Stewardship Board celebrates 5th anniversary

Award recipients: Burnaby Business Excellence Awards 2000

WEspeak; Together We Stand: Resisting and Rebuilding for Peace : An article from: Women & Environments International Magazine

Industry poised to capitalize on upturn : An article from: Saskatchewan Business from 2000

Swine industry asserting research priority: An article from: Saskatchewan Business <>
So like other great writers of great literature, my works have been stolen by unscrupulous pirates.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Amish Craftsmanship


Told by an Amish guy:

There were a girl and a boy that were going with each other and the boy asked the girl if she wanted to marry to him.

She asked him, “Do you have any money laid up?”

“No.” he said.

“Well I think you ought to lay up some money first, don’t you think?”

“How much do you think I ought to lay up?”

“Probably $3000 ought to be enough.”

Nothing more was said about the matter until a couple months later when the girl asked, “Did you get any money laid up yet?”

“No.”

“Well, how much to you have?”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and pulled out $1.59.

The girl thought for half a second and said, “I think that ought to be enough.”

What has:

Four stiff standers

Four down hangers

Two lookers

Two hookers

One wiggly waggly?

We are surrounded by Amish settlements. If your knowledge of Amish comes from the movie The Witness, the documentary The Devil’s Playground and reality shows, you know as much as a Tibetan knows about American Baptists based on Hollywood movies.

“Amish furniture” is not a style like Shaker furniture. One Amish cabinetmaker invited me into his showroom. Most of the pieces were manufactured in Amish factories in either Ohio or Lancaster County. It was very nice and perfectly finished. In fact it looked just like factory furniture. The prices were quite reasonable.

One woman visited another Amish shop nearby. “I’d like an Amish Chest of Drawers,” she said.

“I’d be glad to build you an Amish chest of drawers,” said the Amish cabinetmaker. “But I have one question,” he continued. “Just what does an Amish chest of drawers look like?”

Amish, unlike the Shakers are more like Ayn Randian capitalists. They may approve or disapprove of your tastes, but they are happy to make whatever you’ll pay for. One guy complained to me that he used to buy Amish pies at a stand. Then he found out they were buying 5 gallon buckets of pie filling and mass producing their pies.

If there is an Amish furniture style, it would have to be furniture that the Amish make for and sell to other Amish. Amish house interiors are strikingly different than English households—big rooms, a coal stove in a large kitchen, big plain functional desks, cupboards and bentwood chairs and rockers and no fancy edges or ornamentation.

If you are interested in real Amish stuff rather than what people write about them, you won’t find it on google. It’s more interesting to read them than about them.

The Budget, P.O. Box 249, Sugarcreek, OH 44681 ph. 330-852-4634 publishes a weekly newspaper format “gossip” paper with news from hundreds of communities, plus ads, recipes, and information column. It’s worth subscribing for awhile. While most of the news isn’t that interesting, the contributors often write about amusing occurrences.

Pathway Papers publishes monthly and include Blackboard Bulletin for teachers and students, Young Companion for teenagers, and Family Life for Adults. You can subscribe to all three for $17.00 at Pathway Publishers, Route 4, Aylmer, Ont N5H 2R3. They’re short and contain moral true stories and fiction. Some of the writing isn’t that good, some is quite entertaining. Any of them are good for young readers.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Who Handles hand held handle holders?

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Handel, Ancel and Hansel’s Handy Hand Held Handle Holders Co. handle both hand held handle holders and hands free handle holders. I hold that the Handy brand hand held handle holders aren’t as handy as Handel, Ancel and Hansel’s Handy Hand Held Handle Holders hold, but that’s just my opinion.

Friday, October 07, 2005

It really wasn't funny

We knew he was an art student from the local university by the Goth clothes. Most woodworkers wear flannel shirts. He was walking back and forth in front of the warehouse. I finally went out and asked him if I could help. He explained that he was looking for the door. We have two doors—one has a regular doorknob with an open sign. The other can be tricky if you’ve never seen a barn door. It slides sideways.

We helped him find lumber for his art project. He needed pretty long lengths. I always let customers arrange the lumber in their vehicles so we’re not liable for any damage. He managed to fit the boards into the new SUV by angling them up through the seats and on to the dashboard. When finished, the rear door didn’t quite latch. He pulled it back about six inches and shut the door firmly. One board shifted ahead one inch…right through the windshield.

He let out an oath that would make a logger blush, then added, “It’s not my car! I borrowed it.”

Why does the misfortune of one member of the human species strike others as funny? It has to be related to the doctrine of Original Sin. Does an ape make grimmacy faces when another ape, swinging from tree to tree accidentally grabs a loose vine and hurtles to earth, landing on an elephant’s back and the elephant picks him up with his trunk and tosses him into the muddy water hole? Of course not.

I did not laugh. One of my guys involuntarily snorted but I gave him “the Look”. At Garreson Lumber we have a rule call the Statute of Limitations. We do not laugh at this sort of thing for a period of time. For small situations it’s when the person has turned the corner and is out of sight. For truly unfortunate events, it’s four years: enough time for the student to graduate, move one with his life and hopefully look back and laugh himself.

Only three days left.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

What did we sell today?

Enough lumber for:

Approximately 200 canoe paddles

3 or 4 atylatyl darts (I used to know how to spell atylatyl when I was a kid)

2 planters

1 fireplace mantle

I’ve been trying to come up with an effective slogan for Garreson Lumber Company. We can’t afford to pay a high priced PR firm, so I thought I’d borrow the research done for other companies and try their slogans. For example:

Garreson Lumber—it’s the real thing

Or Garreson Lumber—a little dab’ll do ya

Garreson Lumber—alive with pleasure!

Got Garreson Lumber?

What would happen if the PR firm executive dropped the folder and had to quickly scoop it all back up just before a big presentation and the companies and slogans got mixed up?

Graves Funeral Home—For the Rest of your Life

Kevis Hair restorer—It’s the Real Thing!

Preparation H—It’s everywhere you want to be.

Crystal Cathedral—Try our convenient drive-thru window

Mary Kay Cosmetics—Manly, yes, but I like it too.

Otis Elevator or the U.S. General Parachute Co.—Good to the last drop.

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

A new thumb print

A customer came today. He’d had an accident with his planer. “I told the Doctor to just stitch it up, but he said, ‘there’s nothing to stitch,’ so he took a piece off my leg and did a skin graft.” He showed me the wound on the tip of his thumb. The patch looked good, a nice healthy pink color. The question I didn’t dare ask him: Will he have hair growing out of his thumb?

Monday, October 03, 2005

Alfred University Lecture

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About a dozen sophomores visited the shop Saturday morning. The professor brings one class per semester. The art program includes using lumber. I gave them a tour and talked about the species Garreson Lumber sells, their cost and how to figure out what to buy. Then the professor picked out some basswood for carving projects. Some of the students bought honey and peacock feathers.

The best part about art students: they see the world differently than engineering students. They’ll buy a piece of lumber for a particular knot hole or crack. Once I had to run up to the field and saw off the end of a fence post for a girl. I tell them the more lumber they use, the higher the grade they get. It’s a little inside tip—I want them to do well. In the spring I can attend the open house and see what they’ve made.