Dale, I clicked on the QUOTE button for your post, and copy-pasted some of the links. After looking at a few of them and then coming back here, those that I looked at appear in your post, but still not the others. :~
Can the lights be shipped with the clips in a bag or something rather than already clipped on to the light? The first thing I will do is remove mine and I want to avoid any chance of leaving a mark on the body. No biggie if this can’t be done. Just thought I’d ask.
Thank you for posting that info and I’m sad to hear such a sad story. Just to clarify, I too take the preservation of trees and protected resources seriously. Yes, I had to post that box trolls pic just because it was so funny but I did not in anyway mean any disrespect to the concerned parties. I spent much of my childhood paying in the woods. I am most at peace walking through a forest. They are sacred places and should be treated as such.
When I built my house in 2001 I bought my property partly because of a beautiful lone oak that stood roughly 100 feet tall. It was just a field with one giant majestic tree. As I started building I began to have people tell me the tree should come down. I got a second opinion and a third opinion and had a few different certified arborists come out to see what could be done. Sadly I learned that the tree originally stood even taller but had been struck by lightning years ago and the tallest part fell. It was the central trunk and over the years it had started to collect water are rot from the middle. They called it a “coon tree” since raccoons like to find trees like that and use the hollowed out middle as a home for their family. I was told that for $1,500 they would climb up and put cables in the tree to hold it together and I might get another ten years or so but there was a very good chance that when it fell it could fall on my house. Then they told me they could take it down for roughly $5,000. I almost threw up at the available options. I ended up finding a local guy who told me he would take it down for $400 as long as he could keep the wood since he used it to heat his home. With a heavy heart I agreed. Words can hardly explain how I felt when I stood on the stump after he was done. I felt like I had a lump the size of a baseball in my throat and I felt like a monster. The stump I stood on was roughly 6 feet across. Fourteen years later I am still sad that it had to go and wish I could have figured out some other way.
If there is an upside it’s that when the local guy told me it was done he said there was a mulberry tree growing in the shade of the oak that you couldn’t even see previously and that he had saved it. It was a little misshapen as it was growing in the shade but it filled out after a year or two. It’s only grown a few feet taller but it filled out very nicely. To give you an idea of the size of the oak, here is a picture of that mulberry tree this summer with my 10 year old son picking mulberries. It’s only gotten a few feet taller but it filled out very nicely. This previously unseen tree has been the cause of much joy over the years as my young kids come in from playing in the yard with hands and mouths stained purple by mulberry juice.
Bodark, or bois d’ark, or Osage Orange (as I’ve always called it) is an amazing wood. I agree about the smell somewhat but it’s worth it, even the rapid wear on cutting tools, once you finish making something with it. Highly polished it’s got a fantastic iridescent quality, and is amazingly rot and damage resistant. In strength and hardness it’s very similar to Ebony, and with a wipe of a solution of dissolved steel wool in vinegar, it’ll be just as black.
An important thing is to use it sparingly on furniture you like to move around, it’s not an ironwood, but it’s pretty close. Furniture made from it gets heavy FAST!
For people that are on the SS/Cu list.....................
We are trying to finalize the total tally for boxes for the manufacturer. If you want a box, or even sitting on the fence but leaning more towards a box...PLEASE speak up. Once the boxes get made we most likely will not be able to add boxes later.
Not yet. Still finishing up some details but we are almost there.
Nevertheless, we are so close that boxes need to go into production. For $11 I cannot see why we do not have a box for every SS/Cu unit listed so far to date. By the same token I do not understand why all 400 SS/Cu sets are not taken up either. My biggest fear is the procrastinators that all of a sudden will want both the SS/Cu set with the box and they will not be available. I would just like to prevent people missing out on this serialized set.
As I have stated many times, just a custom Copper X5 host would cost much much more than the cost of a complete SS/Cu set. Even just the BLF Ti that Rey put together was almost $100 for the host only and that still was considered an extremely good deal. Add the box and it is one hell of a gift or display piece...even if the light get used and is not a shelf queen.
I know that many were hoping for this light to ready for Christmas but it would not have been the way we want it. Besides, who says gifts have to be given on Christmas only? :)