The Wood Whisperer is sponsored by Powermatic and Titebond.
Wood. Such a simple thing.
But is it really? I mean the more
I work with wood, the more I realize,
I don't know that much about it.
You know, just trying to predict what wood
will do after it's worked after it's milled
or spotting things in a rough board to
predict what it's going to do after
I actually work it down to the size
that I need. This is stuff
that comes with experience and you can make
a lot of mistakes along the way
and I certainly have. So what I've tried
to collect for you here today is a
bunch of tips that will help you avoid
some mistakes when it comes to lumber
and plywood. Wood moves even after milling.
So after you pass this guy over the
jointer and planer, you've got a perfectly flat
board. If you leave it by itself for
a little while you come back to it,
you're gonna notice that it's not flat anymore.
Some boards certainly do this more than others,
but it's definitely something to look out for.
As a board gets milled down,
it can release internal tension as well as
cause uneven moisture loss, which results in a
board that doesn't stay straight or flat for
long. So how can we stack the cards
in our favor? Buy good quality well dried
material and try to give it time to
acclimate in your shop. When milling,
try to take an even amount off of
each face and that should promote even moisture
loss from both sides. Only mill the parts
that you need immediately. If you won't get
to that part of the project for another
week, don't mill those parts today
and let the pieces sit around.
Try to incorporate your freshly milled stock into
the project as soon as possible.
If there will be a short delay between
milling and usage. Sticker and stack your materials
after milling. Allowing all parts of the board
to access fresh air should help keep them
stable overnight or for a day or two.
Now, if you milled a bunch of stock
and don't plan to use it for an
extended period of time, consider putting the boards
in a plastic bag or even stretch,
wrapping them to slow down
the moisture exchange with the air.
Wood can move during a cut
and the longer and more narrow the board
is the more likely this is to happen.
So let's say you've got a nice straight
one by three and you want to rip
it in half, you hope to get to
straight pieces out of it.
Well, that's very unlikely to happen.
You can see here after the cut,
these pieces are no longer straight.
So what can you do?
Cut your material just a little bit wide
of the target, leaving yourself some room to
joint the board again and then come back
to the table saw for the final cut.
And yeah, it seems a little crazy to
have to go back and forth to the
jointer and the table saw like
that. But if you want perfectly straight narrow
boards, sometimes that's what you have to do.
Thankfully the wood doesn't always misbehave if you
make a few cuts out of a batch
of material and it all seems to be
pretty stable a lot of times you don't
have to go through that step,
but sometimes you do. Solid wood expands
and contracts with changes in humidity.
Think of it like a sponge
that shrinks when it's dry
and expands when it's wet.
Thankfully this happens in a predictable manner.
So you can use online calculators to determine
just how much movement your material might experience
and adjust your measurements accordingly to allow for
that potential movement. Resist the temptation to cheap
out on plywood. Plywood is actually one of
those things where you tend to get what
you pay for. The good stuff is expensive
and the cheap stuff is often not so
great. How's that looking? Pretty nice,
huh? Of course there are always exceptions,
but if you pay 30 bucks for a
sheet of three quarter inch plywood,
I hope your project is a skateboard ramp.
Unfortunately, plywood doesn't always stay flat
and the cheaper it is,
the more likely it is to warp after
the purchase. Always remember. Crap in crap out.
If the material you're looking at is badly
warped, has really loose knots,
bug holes, checks if it's just got a
bunch of problems, you're not really going to
be able to erase those problems unless you
have a specific plan for stabilizing those features
and making it part of your project.
For instance, surface checking is often a sign
of a deeper problem. Those checks tend to
go pretty deep into the board
and boards that start severely twisted sometimes return
to their twisted state shortly after milling
and ripping aboard through a knot will often
cause the board to warp after the cut.
It's a lot like my hair on picture
day in high school. It started off straight
in the morning, but by the afternoon it
looked like this. Now keep in mind we're
not talking about reclaimed stock or even really
rough material. These often look like crap,
but there's good material at the core.
Buying thicker lumber and then re sawing the
boards you need out of it is always
more expensive and that's not the way I
thought of it when I first started,
I just thought if it is closer to
its raw material, I should be able to
save money. But that's not the case.
Now, here's an example. I've got an eight
quarter board here in 24 quarter boards,
but they represent the same amount of board
feet of material. So my four board foot
boards here at $3.75 aboard foot,
it's $15 aboard so I can get both
of these boards for 30 bucks. In this
case, I've got my eight quarter material that's
priced at $4.50 a board foot.
So you do that math
and it's $36. So with the eight quarter
board I could take that re saw it,
get my two boards out of it,
do a whole lot of extra work to
end up with the final product I want
and pay 36 bucks or I could just
by the two boards already split in the
form that I need them
and only pay $30. It's definitely counterintuitive.
But this is the way the lumber industry
works cutting thicker lumber means fewer sellable boards
from each log when you go thicker,
you also have more potential for hitting major
flaws that prevent the board from hitting a
particular grade, thicker boards also take longer to
dry and most importantly, three quarter inch thick
boards generally sell faster than thicker stock.
Always call around to check prices,
lumber prices can vary not only from region
to region, but store to store within the
same city. I remember back in Arizona when
I first tried to start my woodworking business
there, I really struggled because I found a
store that catered to woodworkers
and their prices were just ridiculous
and I didn't know how I was going
to survive like that. Well I talked to
a few locals and found a local place
that generally serves businesses and other pros And
their prices were so much more reasonable,
like on the order of 50% less
and I was able to make a go
of it with those lower prices,
but in the same town,
right? So woodworking stores generally are great for
supplies and tools may not always be the
best choice when it comes to getting your
materials. Finish will not forgive crappy wood.
You know, a lot of times when you're
just starting out, you get inexpensive materials
because that's what you can afford or all
you can find and you're hoping
that the finish will turn it into something
that's durable that will last.
Unfortunately, that generally just doesn't happen in an
effort to make the material more durable,
you'll coat the hell out of it with
polyurethane and just hope for the best.
Unfortunately, most finishes can't make a wood what
it ain't. If the wood underneath the finish
isn't durable, the piece will likely still dent,
scratch and eventually fail. What gives furniture True
durability is the wood itself finish can often
enhance the durability, but polyurethane can't turn pine
into hard maple. If and when the budget
allows, try to pick a species of wood
that gives you an appropriate amount of durability
for the task at hand
and you could worry a lot less about
the finish. Learn to paint with the grain
as soon as possible. I remember when I
first learned about this concept,
I was really frustrated because it was like,
man, I just learned how to make joinery
and now you actually want me to pay
attention to what the grain is doing
and to make it look good next to
other boards. But the sooner you do
that, the better off your work will be
my dining chairs provide some good examples.
Let's take a look at these crest rails.
Each one kind of has its own personality.
I tried to make the grains symmetrical when
possible, but on my prototype here,
I just use whatever I had on hand
and you can see how different it looks
when the grain isn't balanced.
Take a look at the back slats instead
of just picking random boards for these,
I tried to cut them from the same
board to help maintain grain continuity.
A book match would have looked even nicer
here on my media credenza,
you really can't miss the book matched panels
on the doors, they look like owls or
dragons. But the more subtle details are things
like the door rails that were cut from
the same board, the bottom rail
that has a curved grain
that matches the curved shape.
And even these little feet which have grain
that roughly follows the shape.
Of course some people prefer to embrace randomness
in their work and there's absolutely nothing wrong
with that. But paying careful attention to grain
patterns in my opinion, is next level artistry
that really showcases a mastery of the medium
or in my case attempts to master the
medium. So when buying material,
try to buy boards with grain
that would look good as a particular part
of the project, it is always worth the
extra effort. So there you go.
I hope that helps you avoid some mistakes
that I've made in the past
and makes your life a little bit easier
going forward. And of course a lot of
smart people out there, if you guys have
tips on how we can avoid mistakes when
it comes to lumber and plywood,
please feel free to use the comment section
to tell us all about it.
And of course like and subscribe the video
if you enjoy what we've done here.
All right, thank you for watching everybody.
We'll see you next time.
Those prices were incredibly reasonable
and some, you know, asdklfjhaslkjfgb
and I'm still learning about it.
There's always okay back to the table saw
for the final cut. Just to make sure
that my butt doesn't smell.