Replies

1. 
   Alan | Jun 12, 2004 02:10am | #1

   Jay,

   Is there a cabinet shop or mill around your place where you could have that board re-sawn?  If so, you could have both the same pretty wood on both sides.

   If the stock isn't thick enough to make two correctly dimensioned sides, you could still split it and use it like a veneer.  That way you'd still get the pretty stuff on both sides and have a little wood left over to make something else--like a dinner tray.

   Alan

1. 
   JayS | Jun 12, 2004 06:07am | #2

   Great idea, although I've never heard of a bandsaw with a 21 inch resaw capability.  I can't imagine the size of that machine.  Does it even exist?  It was obviously too big to fit on a jointer or in a planer, and I had to had plane it flat, mark around the edge with a marking guage and plane it to the line to achieve a uniform thickness of 7/8 inch. (It started off as 5/4)  Lots of work, since the grain direction is constantly shifting.

2. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 13, 2004 03:23am | #6

   If you do your case joinery properly I don't see why you would have a problem using the two different peices for the sides. Your case joinery should allow for movement to occur (be noticeable) at the rear of the case. The difference from one side to the other should be minimal since it is of the same species. If it stays flat after you have dimensioned it then it has probably been dried and acclimated properly to your shop.

   And don't worry about what you paid for the wood. Frenchy loves to brag about the bargain basement prices he gets lumber for but many of us aren't interested in stacking and drying lumber. I'd bet few here get lumber at the prices he pays. I have had the opportunity a few times and I still prefer to buy kiln dry stock. It all depends on what you want to do with your ime. I know stacking and stickering green mill run lumber isn't on my top 10 list of things to do. Of course if I were building a timber frame and neede the quantities Frenchy does that might be a different story.Tom

   Douglasville, GA

1. 
   MichaelPB | Jun 13, 2004 04:42am | #7

   I live in Northern California and get good deals on walnut but nothing like what Frenchy is quoting.  Also, green is a gamble, heck even dried thick stuff is a gamble.  It checks and is then firewood often enough to be a serious expense.

   Also, I bet if you sawed into that log and found a huge defect, something that happens with walnut, the place you bought  your lumber would take care of you.

   I cut up 20 large rifle blanks this week, all fancy, some crotch others with lots of fiddleback figure and 2 were all checked inside and another had an inclusion that ruined it for what I wanted. 

   Never hurts to shop around but some places there are just not deals.  Like machinery, it is cheap on the east coast but vastly more on the west.  All the mills and furniture places closeing dump cheap tools on the east coast.  Does that mean I am a fool for paying three times what the tool would cost on the east coast? 

   Glad you got beautiful lumber...

2. 
   MichaelPB | Jun 13, 2004 04:43am | #9

   I had to add, I hate kiln dried stock, it is lifeless compared to air dryed stock.  However, not everyone has access to it.  I can only get air dryed walnut but the colors are so much more vivid and varied.

1. 
   kiwimac21 | Jun 13, 2004 05:21am | #10

   If you haven't already made a start, think about using your figured wood as feature panels and use the plain stuff as frames. Resaw the figured wood into two matching panels.

   Years ago, I came across some spectacularly figured ash under a firewood pile at a sawmill. I got the mill to cut the one 2" board into 4 panels and used them bookmatched on the ends and doors of a sideboard.

   I was just beginning then, and had to hand-plane the panels. It was an exhibition/experimental piece and I still own it (about to remake it to remove a couple of amateur-hour cockups).

   Good luck.

   Oh - by the way, in my experience, strongly-figured wallnut will tend to move unpredictably. You'll need to design for that. Using it as panels in a frame is one solution.

1. 
   milegu | Jun 13, 2004 09:06pm | #12

   Resawing for panels, as someone else suggested, would be the route I'd take and use the frame and panel construction. Actually, for highly figured wood, wouldn't it make sense to use them as door and drawer fronts?.

2. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 13, 2004 10:40pm | #14

   I'd agree that air dried walnut has a nicer appearance than most kiln dried stock but for most of the hardwood species I work with there just isn't enough difference to worry about. Tom

   Douglasville, GA

3. 
   fdampier5 | Jun 13, 2004 08:29pm | #11

   Tom,

     Thank you for bring up a reason not to buy green wood.  The stacking and stickering..   as you know I have plenty of experiance doing it and I found fat old out of shape me can stack and sticker about a thousand bd. ft. an hour.  Not very good admittedly but I have to work for 5 minutes and rest the same.  Also I'm very carefull of my back and position myself with each board to do a minimum of reaching twisting and turning even if I walk a few extra steps on each piece..

     Young kids of 30 or 40 could easily do 2 or three times the amount I do! 

     I do check the wood weekly but that really isn't work.  I mean I might click the straps on a couple of piles if it's still in it's early stages. Mainly it's a chance to wander around and seem to have something that needs doing..

     There is certainly an element of work in the planing but I always look forward to that..  I've never planed a stack of wood and failed to find something that is interesting..

     If you plane as much as I do you figure out methods to minimise the effort.  I bought rollers to infeed and out feed wood so I can do the work myself.  I start a piece on one end and then walk around and pick off a  piece from the other end.  The feeding stack and the recieving stack stay in the same place, all I do is spin the planer around to do the opposite side rather than move the whole stack of wood. 

      Tigerstrip,  zebra wood,  a piece that has neat figure or a piece that has wierd color etc..  One side can be boring while the opposite side is wonderful.

     It takes me about three hours to plane a thousand bd.ft. of wood.  both sides!

     I then roll the planer away and replace it with the joiner and about two hours later I've got everything planed and edge jointed..

1. 
   TomMGTC | Jun 13, 2004 10:35pm | #13

   I'd imagine planing 1000 bd ft of lumber goes pretty quick when you are planing beams. A 24" planer running full width 4/4 stock at 20 fpm nonstop can only plane 2400 board feet in an hour in 4/4 stock. I seriously doubt you are running anything that wide through. You also didn't mention if you are jointing you lumber prior to planing. If you making furniture you had better be of you not going to have very flat stock. Your a funny guy. You love to talk in thousands of bd feet. My guess is that most people here are lucky to go through 5-600 bd ft in a year. I built between 30-40 pieces of furniture last year and didn't go through a thousand bd ft. We don't all plane 8x8 beams.  

   I have bought walnut for under 40 cents a bd ft and there was some great figured wood in there. There was also a lot of crap and it takes time to sort through it all and select boards for projects. For the time spent I can buy high quality dried stock and get a far higher yield. If you like to stack and sticker lumber and have room to do it, good for you. I'm not saying what you are doing is wrong but it certainly isn't for everyone. Tom

   Douglasville, GA

1. 
   fdampier5 | Jun 14, 2004 12:31am | #15

   Yeh, I know That I could plane much faster.   I mean I said it takes me three hours to plane  a thousand bd.ft.  while you claim I should be able to do 2400 bd.ft. in just an hour..

    My only excuse is that I'm fat and out of shape and can no longer do physical work the way I used to..

     I joint edges after I plane , I'm not certain what you are saying, should I be jointing before I plane?

     Regarding the process of sorting out wood.  Isn't it fun?   It seems that piece with the great charcter is either too short or too narrow for the place it should go.  but the piece that also has great figure is so long that much of it will be wasted if I use it there..

     To me that is much of the artistry of working with wood and why it excites me so much..

     What I fail to understand is why it is somehow easier to sort thru stacks  at the lumberyard when you pay their prices but so much harder to do at your house when the wood is so much cheaper..

     As for crap.. you bet, sometime there is as much as 5% scrap!  Crap that I can't use and just winds up in my fireplace..I suppose that when  you buy from a store or a lumberyard you don't waste as much on scrap but at the modest prices I pay at a sawmill I really can afford the scrap issue..

    If I were to have the time it takes to make little boxes and such I'm certain that I could cut down on that scrap a lot.. but to me the space that small pieces take up is space where I can store more wood.

     On the other hand a board at my sawmill is 8 foot 6 to 9 inches long which leaves me plenty for snipe and other such problems. They don't count the odd inches but rather figure it at 8 feet when doing the bill..  I suppose that since I get the same 6 to 9 inches on 18 foot long boards, they aren't as good a deal but then he doesn't have a surcharge for the extra length  so I suppose it all evens out..

     You do also bring up a valid point!   The difficulty some have in using a whole bunker of hardwood..   I thought I addressed that issue earlier,  several wood workers could go together and split the bunker between themselves..

     My buddy did that.  He got together with friends and they ordered a whole semi load hauled out to San Diego.

      To keep arguements out of the distribution, each took  the wood in the order it was in the bundle. Afterwards those who wanted the more figured wood traded with others who wanted more straight grained wood..

     Everyone went home happy..

     I do agree that what I do isn't for everyone, but if the  potential savings are as large as they are and you require a few hundred bd.ft. a year  why not go together with a few wood workers and buy your needs in advance?

2. 
   GHR | Jun 12, 2004 10:22am | #3

   $1700 for wood and you are here asking for advice.

   First: You should have bought 8/4 and planned on resawing it. Your supplier could have done the resawing for you.

   Second: I can resaw to 12" on my bandsaw but I often get 18" (8/4) wide wood. I bandsaw it in half, resaw it, thickness it, glue it back together.

1. 
   JayS | Jun 12, 2004 11:00pm | #4

   I look at the money as two to three years worth of entertainment, which is how long this project will take, doing it a few hours at a time, on the weekend.  Forget about what I should have done.  I would appreciate some constructive advice.  Thanks.

   Jay

1. 
   fdampier5 | Jun 13, 2004 01:05am | #5

   Jay,

       I hate to do this man but I buy beautifully figured wood all of the time for next to nothing.  You didn't say what kind of wood that was but If I bought crotch wood in Black walnut that was 22 inches wide by 10 feet long and 1 inch thick my cost would be $29.00

       I drive to the sawmill, select the board and bring it home so my "shipping" costs would be about a half a tank a gas (figure $25.00)   Since I can haul about 500 bd.ft. comfortably for the same price my cost per bd.ft. is around 2 1/2 cents.. (and a little time) 

     Now the differance is my wood is green and rough..

     Air drying can produce better and more vibrant color than kiln drying with similar results..  so figure the cost of drying at close to nothing (except 2 to3 months in the winter and a little more in the summer with either the A/C running or a dehumidifier on)

    Buy a planer if you don't have one with the savings..  

3. 
   joinerswork | Jun 13, 2004 04:43am | #8

   JAYST,

   If you dovetail a solid (secondary wood) bottom to the ends, that should keep them from warping or twisting enough to interfere with drawer operation.  If you are really concerned with keeping things flat, you could attach the desk's interior bottom/writing surface with a sliding dovetail, although 2-3" of dovetail at the front, and a dado the rest of the way back will be easier to assemble, and do almost the same thing.  I'm assuming the desk's top board will be dovetailed in place also?  If you use this construction, your case will be very sturdy, and should hold itself flat.  Just allow for seasonal movement when placing the drawer bearers.

   Sounds like you have some prime lumber, enjoy yourself!

   Cheers,

   Ray