Hearne Hardwoods

Yesterday I visited Hearne Hardwoods for the first time and wow, was I impressed. My Dad has been talking about this place for a few years now and invited me to come to their annual open house. We had a a lot of fun. A band was playing all day and despite the bad weather many, many people came out. Lots of vendors of fine and custom tools, a tour of the grounds and a demonstration of the massive band saw they use to cut trees up to 67″ thick. It’s quite a spectacle and a feat of engineering to cut and handle such massive logs. Quite a thing to see in person.
However for me all of that paled against being able to handle over 200 kinds of wood from all over the world. If you are even moderately interested in trees how they grow this place is like a library. Dozens of domestic and exotic cuts of wood from all over the world. You can buy anything from an entire tree down to a little piece of something interesting from their $ 1 per lb. bin. Instrument makers, furniture builders and woodworkers will find something beautiful to build with here.
It’s about an hour from Philadelphia and a lovely drive through Amish farm country. It’s worth a visit just to look around and see so many different kinds of woods big and small from all over the globe. I bought my first slab of cherry which will keep me busy for quite some time. I’m looking forward to going back and getting some more raw material in the future.
Oh, you can also shop online if you are strapped for time or have something specific you need. They photograph all of their slabs and flitches so you can see their inventory before making the drive.
Really special place. Glad to have it so close to home.

I had the opportunity to visit Hearne last week after having only come across them on the web. It looked like they had some nice stuff, so I said what the heck. It’s about 1 hour away from Baltimore, but do yourself a favor and plan a route that misses the $ 8 toll going north. The drive on rte 1 is actually rather pleasant outside 695.
The place is sprawling, larger than I would have thought. Make sure you don’t miss anything as there are multiple rooms holding lumber on multiple levels. I only had an hour or so to spend there, but was able to find some lumber I didn’t need to buy. If I’d have had more time, I’m sure I would have found a lot more.
My impression is that they do have a nice, wide selection, and some of it is reasonably priced. There are some species there that I have not seen elsewhere. Some species are pricey compared to other sellers. Those pieces selected out and moved into the «show room» will invariable run you an arm and a leg, but many of them are quite nice specimens.
Once complaint I have is that many of the exotics are inexplicably stored in the upper bays, out of reach. Why they would store expensive, heavy species like morado and padauk and bubinga well above eye-​level is beyond me, but I basically did not look at those woods, which is a shame.
Overall, worth a visit. You are likely to find what you need there, as well as some stuff you didn’t need but will buy anyway.