Welcome to Bow River Specialty Woods Ltd. We are a Mill direct wholesale/retail business specializing in high quality woods. Our specialization is tonewood for luthiers and turning lumber for craftsmen. We have been harvesting, preparing and selling figured and exotic woods since 1981. We strive to develop markets for each and every piece. All of our woods are naturally seasoned.
Our Mission Statement
"To supply woodturners, luthiers, wood carvers and custom furniture builders with beautifully figured specialty wood in sizes, shapes and species that cannot normally be purchased at the local lumber store."
Our goal is to provide the highest quality tonewood and craft lumber available while acting responsibly towards our environment; we believe we have achieved this balance. We have developed new and innovative ways of harvesting, processing and transporting our tonewoods and craft lumber. The harvesting of all our tonewood and lumber is done when the ground is hard, meaning minimal impact to the forest floor. We use NO heavy machinery in the forest and we select cut only.
About Our Wood
We harvest and prepare the highest quality Figured/Curly Maple, Quilted Maple, Spalted Maple, Black Walnut, Engelmann Spruce, Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, Yellow Cedar and supply Exotics such as East Indian Rosewood, PNG Walnut, Cocobolo, Fiddleback Mahogany, Narra, Amboyna Burl, and Bubinga (African Rosewood) for luthiers and craftsmen. The tonewoods are for a wide variety of musical instruments including back and side sets and tops for bowed instruments such as violin to double bass, and for fretted instruments such as all types of guitars, mandolins and smaller instruments.
Our specialty is selling wood native to coastal British Columbia, Canada.
- 90% of our inventory is Figured Western Maple (Acer macrophylum).
- All blocks and blanks are sealed with a safe water-based wax sealer.
- We have the thicker 3" and 4" stock sought by wood turners.
- Instrument wood is air dried with fans and dehumidifiers.
- Digital imaging is available.
Tools and Accessories
We at Bow River Specialty Woods Ltd also carry a wide selection of turning tools and accessories such as P&N Tools, Multistar chucks and live centers. Of course we shouldn’t forget to mention the VB36 Master Bowl Turning Lathe.
Grading
Grade A - figure or spalting present in subtle amount.
Grade AA - highly spalted or figured over part of the block, or good figure over all of the block. Some colour change may be present.
Grade AAA - highly spalted or figured over most of the block. Strong colour changes may be present.
Bow River Specialty Wood's Buying Policy
Buying wood through the mail requires a level of trust on both parts.
If you're not happy with the wood then we're not happy.
We will either work something out until you're satisfied or we will refund your money.Satisfaction Guaranteed! Compare our prices with other competitors; You will find us VERY competitive.
We also grade our figured and spalted wood so you can order the level of figure you want.
Shapes And Sizes
- Bowl blanks are sold in circular form by the board foot (bf) e.g. a 2" X 12" blank would be sold as 2 bf.
- Bowl blank sizes range from 2" to 7" thick and 6" to 24" in diameter.
- Turning squares for hollow forms and spindle sizes range from 2" X 2" to 8" X 8" at various lengths.
- Burl stock is cut in rounds and squares, some with natural edge tops; and slabs from 2" to 6" thick.
- Figured maple is also available in lumber stock for furniture.
- Guitar blanks are 5/4 to 10/4 thick by 6" to 10" wide and 19" to 24" long (premium white wood).
Tip: Our wood is approx. 3.5 lb./BF dry or 4.7 lb./BF green. Most large pieces are somewhere in between.
