I wish I had a truck
When it comes to tools and supplies, I havent met a woodworker yet who doesnt look for bargains. Im no different, and boy have I found a bargain. In spite…
When it comes to tools and supplies, I havent met a woodworker yet who doesnt look for bargains. Im no different, and boy have I found a bargain.
In spite of the fact that I live in the middle of nowhere, I have five big-box home centers near me three blue ones and two orange ones and I regularly make the circuit when Im out and about just to see what they have. The other day I went to one specifically to get a couple small pieces of Western red cedar. I generally dont bother looking at anything over 8 long, since thats the limit I can jam into my car. And as Im sifting through the short stuff, a bright yellow CLEARANCE sticker on the 10 rack caught my eye.
For some reason, they were getting rid of the bigger stuff. The 10 1x6s were cheaper than the 8 1x6s. Now I dont mean they were cheaper per foot, which is normal when buying larger sizes, I mean that a 10 board was cheaper than an 8 board about $3.50 cheaper. Same thing for the 1x8s and 1x10s, except the savings were even greater per board. So I did what any self-respecting woodworker would do: I checked my wallet to see how much I could get without having to miss a utility payment.
Unfortunately, what I could get wasnt as much as Id have liked. So I got what I could, had them cut those 10-footers to a size I could get into the car, and headed home with my goodies. (Note: Driving home with a carload of freshly sawn cedar is positively intoxicating.) Unloading my prize and carrying it to the shop (which is now, likewise, aromatically intoxicating), I whined to myself that I couldnt have gotten more.
That was Wednesday. Flash forward to Thursday, when my friendly mailman brought a check Id been waiting for. Now, my mail arrives late in the day, and I unfortunately had too much to do to go running off to the store to buy every piece of cedar they had.
But its Friday, and Ive been a good boy all morning taking care of a lot of work. Last thing on my list is to write a blog. In exactly one more sentence, even that task can be scratched off the to-do list.
So, guess where Im going now.
Till next time,
A.J.
A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.
