I’m about to start building a big dining room table out of dogwood. I’ve turned a little chunk of dogwood, but have never built furniture with it. I am aware that it is very dense.
If anyone has much experience working with dogwood, I’d be interested in knowing how it cuts, glues, finishes… how it is to work with.
Chris @ flairwoodworks
Replies
Chris,
Where will you get the boards to make a "big" dining room table from? I have dogwoods all over my property (13 acres) and the biggest one I've seen yet is about 12" diameter at the ground. They grow twisted and seem to reach a certain size and then die off. And there are not many that big here. I have never seen it available commercially, maybe from a local sawyer? To date I have only seen small items made of dogwood.
Lee
Hmmm. I knew that dogwood wasn't readily available in large boards, but didn't know that it was that unavailable. I know a guy, Dave K, who uses a chainsaw to mill lumber. He uses a 72" bar to cut full slabs of whatever he can get his hands on. Not that this stuff is 72". He's having it dried in a kiln right now, so I haven't actually seen it. I'm told that there's a lot of it. I need 160 bdft and there's lots to spare. I believe that the longest boards are no longer than 6' and the widest might be 8 or 9". The thicknesses are 2" and up. When I get my hands on it, I'll take a picture.
Dave has been bragging that he'll have the only Dogwood table in BC, Canada, but judging by what you have to say, maybe the only one in North America.
I'll keep you all posted.Chris @ flairwoodworks
That would be awesome if you had enough to actually make a piece of furniture with. I had a real big tree on my property get knocked over by hurricane Ivan a few years ago but all I made out of it was small boxes, tool handles, etc. I wish I had had a sawmill to cut boards out of it, but all I had was a chainsaw.
It is very dense and heavy, of course. It moves around a lot while drying. It planes well and carves well. I once set some on fire in the microwave trying to speed up the drying process. Not too good for the microwave....
Please post pictures if you build something as big as a table out of it. THAT will be something to see. Good luck, Ed
Edit to add: When making chisel handles out of it, I've found that it is kind of self-polishing - a little bit like ebony. You can make a deep and lustrous finish with just a little bit of oil-varnish and some wax - you probably know that already from turning it.
Edited 7/10/2007 12:33 pm by EdHarrison
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled