The rough lumber package costs $300 before our Guild discount. You can check the kits out here. The wood is Fiji-grown Genuine Mahogany and its absolutely beautiful stock. The widest board in the project is 10 3/4″ and with this kit, I won’t need to do any glueups! Even in their rough state, the boards look clean and clear. Should make for a great chair! And how does it compare to the material purchased locally? All I can say is so far so good. I’ll know more as I begin to mill the stock and reveal the grain under the surface.

I started to do some initial layout and noticed that Bell was pretty generous in terms of what they placed in the kit. If I’m really careful with my cuts and conservative in my usage, I’m going to have quite a bit of stock left over. Hmm…footrest anyone?

If you’ve never tried mail-ordering wood, I highly recommend it. Just be sure to use a high quality dealer that stands behind their product. Bell Forest Products has never disappointed me. You also might want to check out Horizon Wood Products and CR Muterspaw. For full disclosure, both of those companies are advertisers but I have had the good fortune of sampling their products and I really liked what I saw.

For folks who live in remote areas or simply don’t have access to a wide variety of species, mail-ordering is a great way to get some quality lumber delivered to your doorstep. The more I do it, the more confidence I have in the process. Of course its always better to pick out the boards yourself when grain and color matching is a big concern, but some folks just don’t have that option. I know many of you are mail ordering wood quite frequently. So what dealers have you had success with?

And please excuse the camera work. I pretty much did the best I could by myself. You should notice much improved video and audio though, so that’s a good thing. If you want to attend future Demo Nights, just check the Calendar periodically for updates.