Ok -- rigth offI NEVER go to sales. However this one advertised
"woodworking tools". Went in to look on Friday and was amazed. On a 1/2
acre lot the family had dragged out this guys 'stuff'. There were
pallets and pallets of mechanical / electical stuff motors of all types,
parts of motors, parts of parts. Enough for a tinkerer to keep occupied
for 40 years.

He also had a 50 x 80 shop that had a monster 30" 3 phase
surfacer/planer, a 28" band saw, a stroke sander, table saw, and every
other major power tool you could ever want.

He must've also been a hoarder because he had commercial quanities of
any kind of fastener and abrasive you could imangine, boxes and boxes of
wood and metal rasps and files. It took two auctioneers the majority of
the afternoon to sell off all this stuff -- even though they were going
whole lots based on the type of material.

The best was ~17 stacks of mostly walnut, some oak, and a bit of pecan
and hickory that he had cut, dried, and stored in sheds for over 20
years. Each stack had a minimum of 200 bd. ft. of wood. The stacks were
covered by tarps and I couldn't really look at it Fri. but decided that
on Sat. I'd be there.

So I go back on Saturday and now it gets fun.

Tarps are off the lumber - 1 stack had 6 pieces of 5/4 oak, 28 - 36"
wide (yes I did measure it) 12' long. After I picked up my eyes and put
my tounge back in my mouth I realized that if I bought it: 1. Where
would I store them? My puny lumber rack is 13" wide max. They'd have to
go on the garage floor. 2. What in the world would I actually do with
boards that wide?and 3. how exactly would I cut it? I'm sure I could've
found something. But those boards were monsters.

I went to look at the walnut and decided that I could use some of that.
They finally got around to them. Score #1 - 2 stacks of 4/4 and 5/4 x 6-
15" x 12' long black walnut some S3S but mostly S2s for $400 ($1 bd.ft.)

There was a 7 shelf unit inside with mostly molding, scraps, thin stock,
cutoffs... On the bottom shelf 6 pieces of red oak full 5/4 thick, 13 -
15" wide, 10-12'long. 2nd score $40!

Other stuff: 1 box-o-files (probably ~50 files and rasps in it mostly
new) $10, 12 deep throat Jorgensen bar clamps 18"-36" long $8 a piece,
24 drawer 8' long shop chest-$25 (I cut off the top row of drawers, and
put in a chop saw station in the middle of it).

I am still jazzed by what I got andvI'll pay more attention to
'woodworking' sales from now on.
Thanks for putting up with this long post.