I have a suspicion you may have been eyeballing some exotic, pretty woods but you just weren’t sure if you were ready.
Or maybe you thought they were out of your budget.
Well, no longer.
Throughout the month of October, consider yourself out of excuses. 
Red oak and purple heart table by Doug Johnson
This thing’s a beauty!
To help display red oak and purple heart (two featured woods this month) in a finished project, Doug Johnson built a table using both woods together. Doug is the store manager of the Woodworkers Source Tempe location, and you can come by the store to get a look at the table if you want.
When you see it up close, you’ll realize it’s more than a table, it’s more like a 170-pound workbench . . . one that you’d probably consider too nice for a exposing to the rigors of a woodworking shop.
He made the top butcher block style: uniform 2-1/8″ wide strips of lumber turned on edge and glued together to make the full width means it’s super strong and super stable. He also laminated the legs to form 3-inch squares, and included a vented bottom shelf. The overall dimensions came to 36″ tall, 36″ wide, and 72″ long.
Down in the Amazon, we have a long time connection who keeps us informed about interesting woods and timber projects.
Keith Stephens steps off a water taxi after checking out logs in Peru
Before you think that sounds like a great job, consider the heat, the bugs, the bureaucracy, the red tape, the “we’ll get to your requests mañana” culture shock, the joys of long flights, delayed boats, slow buses, and then the half-dozen or so immunizations via needle you need to get before embarking on an Amazon wood expedition. Glamorous? I don’t know about that part.
Thad Trubakoff, Woodworkers Source employee and custom woodworker extraordinaire
When I decided it was finally time to get a small-ish cabinet for organizing my archives of our print promotional materials, I drew a quick stick-figure thing of some cubbies and asked Thad – an employee at our Tempe store – to build it for me.
The inspiration source: my drawing. Perhaps it was the whole "pizza-n-beer-on-me" thing that got his attention?
A week later, he called and said it was finished and ready to be picked up.
Knowing what I told him, and knowing how pathetic my drawing was, and knowing my criteria (“Ummm, I need a thing that holds some stuff . . “), I expected something made of Baltic Birch or maybe just MDF.
You know, something utilitarian; it just made sense to me.
Thad didn’t quite understand my expectations. He built a fine piece of furniture instead. And there’s a good reason for it – building fine furniture is just his style.
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