Last week I had the great pleasure of calling up forum sponsor Alaska Specialty Woods, speaking with the owner, Brent, and placing an order for a handful of tops.
Some dealers know tonewood inside out and can guide us to the best choices, and Brent is one of them. When I explained that I was looking for some inexpensive tops to do some testing with, he started asking me some really great, thoughtful questions right away. Did I want them all from the same tree? Would comparing different trees be interesting? Did I want them sequentially cut, or maybe get a few that were spaced out from each other in the log. I didn't even know these things were options, but he helped me work out an order and had tracking info emailed to me an hour later. I was impressed. Brent couldn't have been easier to work with. He told me they're a custom shop, and this is the kind of service they like to do.
Yesterday Brent sent me an email asking if they'd arrived (the tracking information hadn't been updated since, oh, I don't know, Friday), and today I got another letting me know they'd gone out for delivery.
Without getting into specifics, I'm the happy new owner of six gorgeous Sitka tops for what I would've paid for two AA grade tops from many of the other great suppliers in the industry. I can't tell you how happy I am to have had the opportunity to work with Brent, and wanted to post this thread as a small measure of thanks for going above and beyond.
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