Replies

1. 
   Napie | Mar 09, 2010 09:08pm | #1

   Well I understand it was/is used a lot for Taos style furniture in New Mexico.

2. 
   jphelps7 | Mar 09, 2010 09:46pm | #2

   You will find Ponderosa pine to be a very stable wood and works easily.  Durability in use is the problem.

3. 
   JohnWW | Mar 10, 2010 07:08am | #3

   Early on in my career I built a desk out of Ponderosa Pine, and it proved to be a poor choice for the application.  The wood is very soft, just a few notches harder than balsa wood, and within a few months the edges of the base were badly chewed up from ordinary wear and tear and where the wheeled desk chair hit the edges the damage was extensive. 

   I would only use Ponderosa Pine in an application where there was little chance of damage and that is hard to guarantee.  Another problem is that you have to be very careful with it in the shop and when you deliver it or the piece will be dinged up before you even get it to the customer.

4. 
   AZMO | Mar 12, 2010 08:13am | #4

   Ponderosa

   I built several items years ago with it, Taos style furniture, and it worked fine for this use. I distressed it with spokeshaves, chains, etc for that rustic look. Way WAY to soft for serious surface, but for that pioneer look it is fine. The saddle joints I used on 4"by6" arms shrank something fierce. They swell and move to this day where my mother in law uses it as a potting bench..

5. 
   RalphBarker | Mar 12, 2010 07:13pm | #5

   You could always make little garden wheelbarrows of Ponderosa Pine, and call yourself a cart wright. ;-)

1. 
   AZMO | Mar 12, 2010 09:23pm | #6

   Puntastic Boy Vunder

   Ralph, here you are pondering the futcha....and in the end.... just pining away....

6. 
   gdblake | Mar 12, 2010 10:34pm | #7

   I've built lots of furniture out of Ponderosa pine.  None of it is keepsake stuff, but it met the need at the time.  Ponderosa pine is cheap and easy to work. If you are just learning woodworking it is an economical way to get started.  I preferred to paint it, but my wife insisted on the pieces I made with the stuff being stained and varnished.  I used it to build bunk beds, desks, chests of drawers, book shelves, tables, an armoire, and cabinets for my two sons.  I grew up with four brothers and know from experience boys don't take care of the furniture in their rooms.  So when my two boys beat the living daylights out of the stuff it didn't matter (at least not to me or the boys, my wife on the other hand seems to think the pine furniture has value because I made it).  Now that the boys are grown and gone I'm doing my best to get them to take the beat up pine furniture with them so I have an excuse to make my wife some nice furniture out of quality hardwoods.

   gdblake

   P.S.  If the finished pieces get any sunlight the resin just seems to keep rising to the surface even after twenty plus years.

7. 
   bduffin104 | Mar 13, 2010 01:55am | #8

   Pine is cheap and sometimes cheap is good.

   Sugar Pine is much prettier IMHO but of course is more costly. I've done a couple of kitchens in S. P. and they are quite striking. But as previously noted, soft. I think S.P. is more stable.

   Bret