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A few weeks back gssixgun called us up looking for some wood scales. I mentioned we were about ready to stock 1" x 1" x 12" pieces in a variety of species. Well, that time has come. Our new site is www.bellforestproducts.com and we have over 60 species of wood available online.
Hope this helps! Happy shaving.
Mod edit: Changed name to SRP username.
This is just about totally awesome! :y
Amazing! thanks mucho :bow
Great selection! Thanks.
Thanks for the praise! In another post, concern about sizes was brought up. We are a small company and try to stock common sizes that work for a variety of woodworkers. The sizes we stock that may work for razor restorers are:
1/4" x 1-1/2" x 9" (inlay slabs)
1" x 1" x 12" (point stock)
1-1/2" x 1-1/2" x 6" (butt sleeves)
I realize that you need to use thinner stock with your razors. I have two questions. 1) What would be the "ideal" size and 2) If we didn't offer a thinner size (we are trying to build our inventory but the process is slow), would the sizes we currently offer work for you? Let me know what you think. Thanks!
-Adam.
Thanks so much for the awsome communication on this.
I think Ideally two 1/8" x 1 1/2" x 6" pieces (one per side) would be the best size for making a set of scales. The only problem with your other sizes is that one needs larger tools to reduce the stock to the appropriate 1/8" thickness. For myself, this is not a problem. I have a tablesaw, bandsaw and planer. There are many restorers, however, that do not have these tools and are forced to find 1/8" stock from places like Rockler.
Least amount of cuts for most restores and you guys would be the
1/8" x 1 1/2" x 12"
Those of us that have the tools will most likely order the 1x1x12 or the 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 6 since we can do our own rip cuts...
If you don't want to carry extra stock, is there a way you could cut down the size of the 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 6 to 1/8 slabs prior to shipping?
Bob
In response to both of your questions:
1) 1/8" thickness no matter what. I'd prefer 3" x 12" or 24" personally rather than smaller 1-1/2" x 6" pieces (which are probably more expensive since you buy smaller quantities).
2) no the sizes you currently have would not work for me. If I can't get it at 1/8" thick (or maybe 3/16 at the thickest), I would not bother ordering online. With that said, I'd love to see you carry 1/8" x 3" x 24" in all your woods. I would buy most likely.
Razor scales are usually +/- 6" long. So your 9" long pieces would create a lot of waste. Personally, I hate getting sizes that will not minimize waste.
the only thing I worry about with wood scales, is getting them wet.
Thanks for all the great input! If we were to consider 1/8" thick stock, would 1/8" x 1-1/2" x 7" be a good size, pleasing to most?? Any other thoughts about sizes would be great. If one size came out as the optimum, both for you and us, I think we could justify machining them and offering them. Please let me know. Thanks. -Adam.
Hey Adam! As I already said for my personal preference- it is 1/8" x 3" x 24".Quote:
Originally Posted by szym9341
Here's my thinking- Usually I get my wood at Woodcraft which is luckily local to me. I get this size there in a lot of exotics. Now they don't have some of the more obscure stuff which I'd of course like to get, but for me to place an online order, the sizes and at least the prices need to be competitive (obviously some woods are more). So if I can get a piece of Purpleheart at the size I listed at woodcraft for like $8 and other woods there for similar prices, unless the prices for the same woods at the same sizes are competitive through a website (where I pay to ship) I probably will stick to woodcraft and sacrifice getting some nicer woods. Obviously this is only MY opinion.
As for the size you listed- 1/8" x 1-1/2" x 7" - it is decent. I personally think sizes in increments of 6" long are most ideal. To be sure to get 2 scales out of a piece that small, you might want the width to be 2" for some of the larger or more ornamented scale designs. 7" long would not be so bad though since it would offer some extra wood for spacers.
Not a bad size. As Alex said, it's a little long on length and a little short on width to get a whole set of scales out of one piece. I'd be VERY interested if you could offer pieces of the size you mentioned in more or less bookmatched pairs, especially in your burls and spalted stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by szym9341
my perference is to buy wood that is in multiples of 3 x 6 x 1/8th with my best choice being 3 x 12-13 x 1/8th .. i think that is a great piece of wood that will allow the person more then 1 set of scales (incase of a mistake). you will get 2 sets of scales out of that piece of wood. which also will help to justify the price. i'd hope you'd be able to make them cheap enough so that someone would buy 2 boards of 3x12x1/8 for 10-15$
all of us here thank you for your open communication with the community in working to come to a usefull product for all.
~J
Okay, thanks again for the input. We have to be quite creative in order to keep costs down. 3" wide stock is something we do not normally carry, yet. Making the 1/8" x 3" wide will be a bit difficult right now, but if your market is big enough, I don't think it will be a problem in the months to come. I'd like to throw another size out there (just to consider) We can offer the following size for a very reasonable price: 1/8" x 1" x 12". For example, we sell Bloodwood in 1" x 1" x 12" for $3.25. We could make (4) 1/8" x 1" x 12" pieces from that stock fairly easily and quickly. Each piece in this example would be about $1.31. Another example: Birdseye 1" x 1" x 12" = $5.25, 1/8" x 1" x 12" = $1.81. Would that size/price be of any interest? Thanks again for all your input.
The fact that a vendor is actually trying to help fit their product to our hobby tells me that there is hope out there :D
Myself I will not be voting on a size, your sizes work for me the way they are.
Fortunatly for some of us out in the boonies, we have companies like yours out there otherwise, I would have the huge luxury of buying plain old oak up here, or driving on a 200 mile round trip to pick up a few exotics in the nearest city....
Thanks again
1/8" X 1" X 12" Could work. The 1" is on the low side of the spectrum. Ideally you'd want to make the 1"x12" face a radial section for woods with a normal grain. Tangential cuts have much less character in most cases.Quote:
Originally Posted by szym9341
Let's say we started with 1/8" x 3" x 24". If we were to stock 12 species in that size, which 12 are most preferred? In cue building we offer many species as options, but when it comes down to it, most builders only buy a handful of what we offer. If we started with the most popular species for razor scales that would give us a chance to "test the waters" without too much investment.
Thanks.
-Adam.
I think it would be tough to pick out 12 that everyone would want to buy. I do think it is a great idea to test out though! To make people most happy I think that the 12 should maybe run the spectrum from something that a lot of guys use to something very exotic.Quote:
Originally Posted by szym9341
About the 1 x 12" size, I prefer wider for another reason- It gives me more grain variety to pick from. If I get a 1 x 12" piece, it will only yield (hopefully!) one set of scales. Both the size and the output both limit the choice of where you cut.
Anyway, thanks again for reaching out to us. Anyone have wood choices? I'd personally want to buy some Olivewood, Amboyna Burl, Pink Ivory, and maybe B&W Ebony among other things. Those top my list.
the types of woods for scales that most people want are very similar in characteristics.
- highly figured
- multi-coloured *******this is probably most highly desired *******
- highly grained woods
examples being all spalted woods, burls of almost any type, B/W ebony, Masaccar ebony, olivewood, quilted woods work well if they have smaller more quantity of quilts, and ofcourse the old standards such as - yellowheart, purpleheart, zebrawood.
also, just as an fyi but im sure your team already knows. don't cut the burls less then 1/8 and probably 3/16th is better as they have a very high tendancy to be very weak at the curves of the figure and a breaks in the wood makes it basically useless.
all the best,
~J
ps. i think 1" wide is not enough. if you are rescaling a 7/8th blade or larger (which is what alot of people want), you need more then 1" of wood. usually 1.5" will be sufficient
I think to reduce competition you should provide woods that other suppliers don't carry in 1/8". Rockler and Woodcraft seem to the the current favored suppliers, but neither of them carry any type of burl or the curly and bird's eye maple you guys specialize in. If you guys could offer something "new" in 1/8" you'd have a corner on the market for those species (at least for anyone who doesn't have a table saw or band saw).
Hell, I even have all the tools but would be willing to buy 1/8" curly maple from you if you could plane it flat for me. Seems every time I try to plane culy maple it tears out on me. I've resorted to sanding it flat after using the table saw.
Anyone know if anything is going on with this supplier? No new sizes on the site yet.
My order arrived today 13 day’s from ordering to receiving in the UK that includes a 1 day national holiday over here more than pleased with the service and the wood 6 different [FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']exotics[/FONT]
1/8x1x6 or x12 would be cool if you could offer leaf cuts. That way we'd order 2 pieces of guaranteed matching grain. Worth a small bump in price, I'd think.Quote:
Originally Posted by szym9341