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The Editors Mailbox

3 exotic woods: English elm, Claro walnut, and English brown oak

Matthew Kenney, senior editor

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I begin filming a video workshop next week on box making, so over the past month or two I've been scouring wood piles at two local lumber yards. I'm very excited about the woods I found. I'll use English elm for the bodies of the boxes and Claro walnut for the top and bottom panels. The trays for the inside will be made from English brown oak. Watch the video to see what I found.

The English brown oak was a real discovery for me. I went to my favorite lumber yard with the intetion of buying some white pine. Before I look through the racks, the guy who runs the yard had to move some big pallets of wood. When he did, I caught a little hand written note out of the corner of my eye. It read "English brown oak." The stack was up high on the racks, but I could see a board that was more than 16 in. wide. I asked about it and when I heard that it was for sale, I found a tall ladder and climbed up. I ended up buying the wide board and 5 boards around 7 in. wide. It is all fantastically beautiful. I love finds like that one.

Use the comments below to tell us about your favorite find at the lumber yard.

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UPDATE: Book Giveaway: Windsor Chairmaking by James Mursell

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Comments (3)

GEide writes: Congrats Matt on your first self-produced video.

To folks out there... this is one of what we're calling "Rough Cut" videos where an editor takes a camera to the shop or on the road just to give folks a peek of what we're working on without the hassle of breaking out all the lights and then sending the tape down to our video department to fine tune the audio, color, compression for Web streaming, etc. -Gina
Posted: 4:48 pm on February 4th

MKenney writes: shrogers4,

Not a bad idea. I'll keep notes on how they work and write up a blog on each one.
Posted: 2:31 pm on February 4th

shrogers4 writes: Looks great Matt, can't wait to see your box design. What a beautiful palette you have to work with though. I hope you will share how each of these woods work too as I have only ever worked with the Claro.
Posted: 1:46 pm on February 4th

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