Phil,

I really appreciate the insights...those are precisely the "gotchas" I knew people had but aren't typically documented in the build manuals. I'll spend some time absorbing your documentation but thank you so much for putting that all together and making it available to the world.

I have a small update. I caught a free block of time and realized it was now or never, so I took a ride from Boston to West Kingston Rhode Island and paid a visit to Liberty Cedar.

I got a tour of their stock, and gave the woman a lot of blank stares in response to a lot of her questions. I knew she was speaking english, but not a damn thing she said made any sense to me. When you work around dimensional lumber all day, you inevitably talk in those dimensions. So where your normal person says 3/4 of an inch...she comes back with "4/4 nominal which comes in a hair under at 11/16ths". I'm familiar with the dimensional lumber system, I just wasn't prepared to be quizzed on them.

My head nearly exploded from the barrage of 5th grade math questions also...but I digress..

Problem #1: They charge in linear foot, but all I knew was I needed about 80 board feet. When I worked it out in my head, the price of $5 and $6 per linear foot (of wrc and alaskan yellow) after the conversions 80 board ft came out to roughly $500.

This is where I started to sweat because all the blogs I'd read, people were spending $200 on cedar so I couldn't figure out where the difference was. I was literally about to toss the 3 hour round trip away and walk off, when I realized I needed some professional help and put a call into Rob Macks.

I explained the situation, offering that the tip to ignore board thickness was a great one as it opened up the options for boards, so instead of 3/4" to 1" of 8" wide boards, I ended up with 8 boards of 5/4 1x6 9ft stock. and 2 boards 1x6 of 5/4 8ft stock, along with 2 5/4 stock 1x8 Alaskan yellow.

What I couldn't work out was whether or not I bought too much wood...going on what I'd read, I figured I could afford a few extra boards - turns out I was dead wrong. After helping me with some quick calculations, I discarded the 2 8ft boards and 1 of the alaskan boards and with those changes, the total bill dropped to $378. Almost double what I was budgeting to pay but worst comes to worst, I can always go back for more.

I was really unprepared for this part of the process, I'm not even sure I even know what a "good board" looks like, so I opted to match the shades as much as possible and look for anything that looked like pleasing grain to the eye. I'm sure it won't matter in the end, but it was beyond frustrating not having any context for what is arguably the most important part of the process.

Anyway, the fact that they had exactly 9ft long boards was the best part since most retail lumber places around here only sell boards in 8ft lengths. At 9 ft, I was able to stuff all the boards into my Jetta without too much grief, but it made for an exciting ride home (especially around the right hand turns).

Updates on my current set of challenges...

* I stopped off at Woodcraft in CT on my way back from NYC to look at block planes, but like Phil, I'm leaning towards towards Lie Nielsen after a bad experience at the Hartford shop...I've been thinking about the bead/cove versus hand plane debate, and after doing a little soul searching, I'm leaning back to hand planing.

* I was originally going to scarf the 9ft boards then rip a single 18ft board, but I'm not sure that's wise given the space I have to work with and 2 rollers...so I'll probably stick to 9ft strips and just scarf as I go...it will take more time but I think it will make for a less miserable experience.

* the basement's nearly cleared...the new shelves are up and after knocking down that wall and discovering we had termites (hello one solution leading to 3 more problems), I'm at least making progress, not to mention the basement looks great now that it's opened up.

* next mini project is cut up some featherboards...Part of me is considering just popping them out on the 3d printer, but some part of me feels like that's cheating.

I have a few questions if I could ask of you...

1) The only plane I have is some gigantic plane from woodcraft that weighs like 5lbs...the block planes I saw, seem a little too big for a surface that's only 3/16's wide...wouldn't something like this make more sense?
http://www.leevalley.com/US/Wood/page.aspx?p=70138&cat=1,41182

(veritas miniature block plane)

Not to mention it's cheaper too.

2) Comparing notes - what did you guys pay for your wood?

3) do you guys have any pictures of your initial wood purchases? or put another way - what qualities do you look for in the wood when you're selecting...it's a moot point for me now considering the wood's already purchased, but it's never too late to exchange notes.

Next few weeks will be dedicated to setting up the strong back and when I find a free day, I'll spend it ripping strips. I'll set up a blog in a few so I can start dumping photos to augment the collection you guys have amassed.

Thanks in advance gents.