3/4″ finished stock — what’s realistic?
OK, I’m goin’ semi-nuts here. When a person needs nice flat 3/4″ stock, say 6.5″ to 8″ wide, is it realistic to start with 4/4 lumber, or are the odds simply stacked to the point it’s better to start with 5/4???
I’m on my second and third shelf/cubbie/coat-hanging units, which require nice flat boards up to 10-1/2″ wide. Since they’re painted, yes I can rip and glue for the wide ones. But honestly, it seems like getting an 8.25″ wide flat board from one piece of stock shouldn’t be that hard. Not to mention a piece that’s only 6.5″ wide. Am really being as careful as possible selecting the poplar for these, but too much of it’s turning into expensive kindling. A 4/4 piece doesn’t leave much room for taking out twist or cup.
Any words of wisdom?
Replies
FG,
I generally find it is easier to get good flat 3/4 stock if I buy it in the rough, then joint 1 face and plane the opposite face. I would agree it can be hard to get stock flat if your supplier has already surfaced it to 13/16ths or 7/8ths. It usually moves a little after they do the surfacing, and before you do your cutting.
Lee
>> When a person needs nice flat 3/4" stock, say 6.5" to 8" wide, is it realistic to start with 4/4 lumber,
Are you referring to 4/4 rough or 4/4 S2S? If you get roughsawn, you can generally be more sure of getting to 3/4" when surfaced. However, if you get 4/4 S2S, which is 13/16", you better get almost perfect boards. As you say, you will have virtually no room for any warpage remediation.
For these 3 units, I've bought both rough and S2S -- the best boards I could find out of those two piles. When I got the order for #2 and #3 units and took the first trip to the lumber yard, I tried to get as much from the Rough pile as I could, as the S2S is just too darned close to my final thickness. I bought 2 5/4 boards that time. Ended up having to make another trip, got all 4/4 rough boards, ignored the S2S.
Monday, I hated woodworking (jointer problems, dull planer blades). Tuesday, I was enjoying it again -- perfectly calibrated Wixey planer gauge, nice flat boards so far. Today is 50/50 at best. Is it always such a rollercoaster?!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FG,
Whenever possible I go with quarter sawn or rift sawn lumber. Yes it's more expensive but not when you consider all the issues; gas, waste, etc. Sometimes the quarter sawn will quickly go flat sawn in parts and I select out for that occurance.
I also believe the wood gods are a crafty lot. When we were young and rich they suckered us into this hobby with well behaved wood. Now that were old and poor...
"When we were young and rich they suckered us into this hobby with well behaved wood. Now that were old and poor..." LOL! There ya go, BG!
I do try for rift sawn usually, but there's not much rift-sawn poplar around...funny thing.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"Is it always such a rollercoaster?!"
Enjoy the ride! We know that you love it, you're not fooling us. Hang in there! Also, good luck with your lumber. I like buying 4/4 rough and can usually surface it down to 3/4 with no problem, although the wider stock does have to be pretty flat.Woody
Hiya Forestgirl ,
It may depend on the source you buy your Poplar from , but usually lumber suppliers handle 4/4 that is surfaced to 13/16" . Some abrasive surfacers , it makes for uniform thickness stock , some cup may be removed in the process .
If you are going to glue them up and them surface them to end up with 3/4" ask for 7/8" hit and miss , may be a downfall of 5/4 stock . You should be able to net what you need if you use rough sawn .
good luck dusty
For FF stock, I usually buy S2S in 15/16", 7/8" if I can't find that. Take your thickness caliper along with you next time you go and check the thicknesses. I've bought 15/16" that's 13/16"! Poplar is getting bad because of over demand, according to my two suppliers. Try soft Maple. Little more expensive, but I don't find it warps after rippping like Poplar.
If you don't mind a question, I'd like to know why you don't use hardwood banded ply, since these are going to be painted?
When these are done (am trying to make an extra for an auction donation), I'm gonna go back and look at the total $$ for stock, what percentage was waste, and see how that would compare to purchasing a different wood such as the soft maple you suggest. This item could be a good seller here in an area that has at least one "mud room" per house.
As to the use of ply, this thing just demands solid wood. I don't think I could get anywhere close to my current price if I used ply. The two boards (sides, main top and door) that present the biggest challenge would not work if in ply, and the case top and bottom, back and hanging cleat aren't much of a problem. I could use ply for them, it might take a little aggravation out of the process. Will think about it.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I guess I misread the post. I thought it was just shelves for the piece. Paint grade Maple is about $34 a sheet here in Texas.
Okay, I'll stop with the nosey Parker routine...
No problem with "nosey Parker" -- a friend asked the same question when I made the first one, for our house. It's something like the pic below, but larger, with a fancier shape to the sides, better joinery, and none of that fake-antique finishing approach:
View Image forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Thanks for the visual. IMHO, the sides and FF need to be solid, but the back and top can be ply, banded for the bottom, and banded and profiled for the top. If you want more bang for the $ you could paint the carcase, and make the drawer faces of solid wood, like M'pale. Sounds African don't it....(maple). Love to pull that on people. Haven't figured Oak and Walnut yet...
Fooled ya....the "drawers" are a drop-down door to interior storage, with an upsidedown rule joint and 2 hinges (just kidding about the "fooled ya").
I ran into my house-designer friend tonight (he sets up models for several developers in the area) and he wants 2 or 3 in some upcoming homes. I asked him about color, and he's leaning toward....[are you ready?] black! Whoa. Anyway, I told him to pick a color and leave it under my name at the local customer paint store.
I like the idea of a combination of paint and natural. Have to think on that one!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I do paint-grade cabs with natural (maple and oak) doors and drawer faces. You can vary the stain on either to get a more harmonious effect if you wish. This is a pic of my kitchen that I did years ago with stain-grade Maple shot with nitro. Drawer fronts are solid, doors are banded with hard Maple.
I see the subject has changed a bit, but I will throw my $.02 in for the heck of it, since I own a saw mill and do nothing but make 4/4 rough boards into S4S lumber several days a week to sell on the Internet.
Most of the time rough 4/4 can be made into S4S 3/4" even 13/16". I suggest against purchasing skip planed lumber as it does nothing to help square a board and leaves you less material to work with when you actually start squaring the board. (Planing 2 sides of a board is not making it square!) One Must face joint one side, joint one edge, plane the other face to the required thickness and rip and joint the last edge to width to make a square board.
So IMO only buy rough 4/4 boards locally or buy S4S that is 1/16+ thicker than your final dimension so you can "ease" it down to size you need and correct any movement from environmental changes. If you get your lumber shipped I suggest buying S4S as close to the size as you need to reduce weight and waste and save $ on shipping.
Just my opinion and observations...
Max
"I own a saw mill and do nothing but make 4/4 rough boards into S4S lumber several days a week...." Wish you were in my area. All our portable mill people seem to have disappeared!
I rarely see skip-planed at the place I shop anyway. I don't think I'd mind too much if it saved money. I can always rip off a waney edge and go from there. It would depend on how muich faster the jointer and planer blades wore out I gues, LOL.
It's been so long since I've bought any S4S, can't remember if it was actually flat. forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
forestgirl,I spent a lot of years doing architectural woodwork, cabinets and built in stuff. I learned very quickly, that S2S/S4S wouldn't yield the thickness I needed. I'm with Max but my feeling is that your whole stock preparation system could use looking at. In fact, I suggest you go to traditional techniques. Start by rough cutting your material before flattening straightening and thicknessing.Seeing grain and defects in rough cut stock is actually pretty easy. You shouldn't have any trouble selecting grain patterns for stability or appearance in rough cut lumber. Only begin to flatten, straighten and surface stock after it's to rough length and width. This, when done properly will give you straight, true and square parts to work from. Properly prepared stock is the key to accurate work and it's a lot easier to work with true stock. It doesn't matter if you're working by machine or hand, the steps and sequence are the same. If you start with S2S or S4S you'll be lucky to end up with 5/8 finish dimension in your longer pieces should you try to start by properly preparing your material. If you find a piece goes squirrelly between thicknessing and joinery or assembly, replace it. Don't introduce stress and/or movement into your finished pieces.Final thickness is one of the key ingredients of proper stock preparation and, for some reason, authors and editors of woodworking publications chose to ignore it. A good example is a recent article in one of the other magazines. An author is working on a relatively small project using hand tools; not only does he have the steps and the sequence wrong, he's shown hand planing a full width (about 12") board as long as his bench.
I do rough-cut my stock before setting about to milling it. Leaves me with an interesting array of pieces headed for the jointer and planer, but I'm developing a system to keep track of them. As this thread goes forward, I'm thinking that a goodly percentage of the problem is the fact that for this project, I'm working with poplar, which isn't the most stable of woods to begin with, and not offered in anything but plainsawn boards for the most part.
I gave up on S4S stock ages ago -- all that money paid, and the boards still aren't flat. I usually look through rough first, and S2S if I'm not finding what I want in the rough.
Still developing an eye as far as getting a feel for the whole board, what parts to cut how, and all that. Nothing to do but keep at it! Funny, the first batch of boards I got, one of them was really ugly -- split on one end badly, planing on one side seriously skippy. They discounted it close to their price, and it turned out to be a darned good board. One of the others, which looked great coming out of the stack, pinched the saw blade snuggly as I was ripping it, had to put a wedge in to get it finished.
I suspect all of this will be easier as I get more proficient with hand planes and can adjust some of the twist out of these wider boards. Yep, a 6" jointer has its limits!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Forestgirl,
Where you getting your lumber at?
Compton had 15/16" h&m poplar that was pretty good the last time I got some there.
And also there is Edensaw in Kent that has some excellent 13/16" poplar.
Hi, John. 13/16" is way to thin. The darned stuff moves, as mentioned above, after ripping. I don't have to stick with exactly 3/4" but I like to be as close as possible, so 4/4 is the minimum starting point.
Next time I go over to Seattle, I'll stop at Compton. I've been a pretty faithful Crosscut Hardwoods person, they're very helpful and give me a good discount for resale lumber. Haven't been to Compton in a couple years.
Did you go to the grand opening of Edensaw's new warehouse in Kent? Nick and I went with Tom and his wife. The veneers are incredible! It's a bit of a drive (depending on traffic of course), whereas Crosscut is so close to the ferry docks. Pricier too (they don't give any discount), but I like the selection in Kent better than in Port Townsend. Last time I went to PT, the poplar selection was quite limited unless you went to the horizontal stacks in the big shed, and those are all banded on pallets. Nice drive though, breakfast at the Spruce Goose, yummmmm!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Seems like most 4/4 rough I get is somewhere around 1 and an eighth, to 1 and three sixteenths. What you end up with also depends on the length and width you start with, as you know. I've been running a lot of rough cherry into molding, and I can get 7/8 finished with a 3" wide piece, but not with a 5", or not usually.
Forestgirl,
Yep, went to Edensaw's grand opening, I'm pretty lucky since they are only about 2 miles from me. And they're just up the street from Boeing Surplus.
Don't get much better than that.
John
I have a woodmizer sawmill and I saw to 1 and 1/16" rough. Easy to plane to 3/4. However, since you are on the west coast, it is not easy for you to get the species you want from local sawyers, I suspect. When you can, that is the best way to get really high quality wood at a decent price. You might have to do a little drying (taking it from air dry down to final in-use moisture content), but it can be well worth the trouble.
Edited 5/10/2007 11:44 pm ET by DHAM
Lucky....hmmmm....could be trouble if ya ask me. We went to Boing surplus for the first time, the day we went to the grand opening for Edensaw. Wow, lots o' stuff!forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
I deal with Edensaw in Kent myself. I consider them one of my go to resources. One of these days I'm gonna make a day trip out to Port Townsend to see their mill. Good people, I highly recommend them....
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