Wood Question for Distortion, Skip, and you other woodfreaks

[skyboltone]

There is a 1" X 10" by 10' hunk of birch at my local lumber yard.

<edit! My problem board was beech not birch, sheesh> This is a nice piece. Never mind. Ignore me. Have I ever shown you pictures of my surgery scars.......Wanna buy a duck?

(Omar and HeeBGB, if we don't like this here jump it over to Garage or Tech. Whichever. Or delete altogether. Thanks)

Thanks in advance
Dan

[Distortion]

There is a 1" X 10" by 10' hunk of birch at my local lumber yard.

<edit! My problem board was beech not birch, sheesh> This is a nice piece. Never mind. Ignore me. Have I ever shown you pictures of my surgery scars.......Wanna buy a duck?

(Omar and HeeBGB, if we don't like this here jump it over to Garage or Tech. Whichever. Or delete altogether. Thanks)

Thanks in advance
Dan

Well... I am not exactly sure how to answer your question..
In fact I am not sure what the question is

Shoot me an email if that helps...

[RHGraham]

How much for the duck...

[dBe]

Those duck bites will leave nasty scars.

If it is domestic beech it 'may' check and warp in a few months. If it is steamed europen (SE) beech, it is a joy to work with, stains beautifully and is hard enough (actually harder than soft maple @ 1300 janka) to take some abuse on the road. SE beech is an architectural appearance equivalent to clear alder but is much harder - it is used for stair treads with alder handrail and casework because it accepts stain much like alder.

SE Beech is a wood that I use a lot in cabinet work.

Why don't you just eat the duck?

Dave

[skyboltone]

Those duck bites will leave nasty scars.

If it is domestic beech it 'may' check and warp in a few months. If it is steamed europen (SE) beech, it is a joy to work with, stains beautifully and is hard enough (actually harder than soft maple @ 1300 janka) to take some abuse on the road. SE beech is an architectural appearance equivalent to clear alder but is much harder - it is used for stair treads with alder handrail and casework because it accepts stain much like alder.

SE Beech is a wood that I use a lot in cabinet work.

Why don't you just eat the duck?

Dave

Thanks Dave. To make a long story as short as possible; these fellers at the lumber yard are in an argument whether it's red oak or Birch. If it's red oak, I'll eat the whole board without tarter sauce, and I told them so. Anyway, I guess I shouldn't have won that arguement because birch is twiced as much as oak. Anyway, I don't think these fellers know SE birch from red oak, you know? I'm gonna go back and ask the yard guy how long it's been leaning up against the wall. The thing is, it may not even be birch. It's got waaaaay more figure than any hunk o birch I ever saw. It's pretty straight now but being stored like it is we'll know shortly if it's gonna twist and shout. Anyway, the Beech reference is to a 12 quarters hunk of beech I tried to make a wing rib buck out of once upon a time and the dang stuff shattered like saftey glass every time you got near it. I had to beltsand the thing to shape. I don't like it.

[dBe]

"Anyway, the Beech reference is to a 12 quarters hunk of beech I tried to make a wing rib buck out of once upon a time and the dang stuff shattered like saftey glass every time you got near it. I had to beltsand the thing to shape. I don't like it."

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The brittle stuff that you had was domestic beech, I'm sure... I hate it, too. Finiky as hell and then not very stable.

If the guys don't know if it is birch or oak, it is probably red birch. Usually has nice figure and color. I like it 'cuz it finishes purty.

Yellow birch SUX!!!

What kind of wing ribs? Homebuilder? Let me guess... a Steen Skybolt?

Dave

[RockinLocken]

The main question is "is it reeel purdy?". To me morning wood is the best. Down at the local spot out west here, being totally ignorant and an all up cheap guy. They always frown at me when I ask stupid questions. Same thing would happen when I would questions about amplifiers at repair shops. Now I've built 5 and have stashed enough iron for 3 more, I don't go to those guys anymore. And the wood projects are getting better all the time. I had vicious duck once, they taste better twice cooked. Thanks guys for all your help.

[CaseyJones]

Good God y'all what a bizarre thread. How come I miss all the good ones? That's what I say about NOS tubes...

Beech is similar enough to oak in that it has giant ray flecks. So does sycamore. That's where the similarity ends. Both beech and sycamore tend to be white wood. So does white oak but white oak is heavy. Engineering's Handbook used to have a section on the relative densities of wood, I'm not sure if it's in the 50th-plus edition and in any case I don't have my various copies close at hand. One could in fact with data available on density per cubic foot figure out what species one has at hand by density... weight per cubic foot.

Beech is gettin' rare because a fungus put paid to much of the North American timber. Best save what's left for conditioning lager.

There's nothing wrong with nice yellow birch. Properly sawn, dried and stored it's on my Top Five list of useful hardwood. I wouldn't touch oak with the proverbial sharpened stick unless I was in the mood for Victorian reproductions.

[dBe]

"There's nothing wrong with nice yellow birch. Properly sawn, dried and stored it's on my Top Five list of useful hardwood."

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i live in an area (New Mexico) where I've never been fortunate enough to get "properly sawn and dried" yellow birch. I love the way it looks as veneer on ply and the like, but native stock here has always been nasty: checked, warped and brittle. I don't know why the red birch is so much more available???...........................

Oak is so 20 minutes ago and I'm allergic to the splinters

Dave

[skyboltone]

What kind of wing ribs? Homebuilder? Let me guess... a Steen Skybolt?

Dave

Naw, you don't buck skybolt ribs you build them up from 1/4" X 1/4" spruce cap strip and 1/16" hog ply. I got a full set of those in storage. The buck was to hammer out aluminum ribs for a bush plane called the bearhawk. I dropped both projects and just bought an airplane. Too many irons in the fire. If I build again it'll be a Pitts S1C with an 85 in it. As lite as possible. No lectrics. If you've not flown a Pitts you need to. It's like having Keef ask you to build him a trainwreck.

Dan

[CaseyJones]

i live in an area (New Mexico) where I've never been fortunate enough to get "properly sawn and dried" yellow birch. I love the way it looks as veneer on ply and the like, but native stock here has always been nasty: checked, warped and brittle. I don't know why the red birch is so much more available???...........................

Oak is so 20 minutes ago and I'm allergic to the splinters

Ah. There you have it. New Mexico is so damn dry you'd be better off makin' mummies than you would doin' any kind of woodwork. "Checked, warped and brittle" is what happens when your wood is too damn dry or if it's been dried too fast.

Most of the hardwood mills in these parts hose down their timber with water until it's ready to saw. Then it goes off to the kiln, it may be hot in there but it's still pretty moist due to all the moisture bakin' off the lumber.

I scrapped out a factory that used to make croquet balls and bowling pins. They had their own kilns on-site, they'd dip the ends of the boards in parrafin to keep the moisture from bakin' off too quickly. Parrafin dipped maple cutoffs have to be the ultimate campfire wood!

What kind of wing ribs? Homebuilder? Let me guess... a Steen Skybolt?

Dave

Naw, you don't buck skybolt ribs you build them up from 1/4" X 1/4" spruce cao strip and 1/16" hog ply. I got a full set of those in storage. The buck was to hammer out aluminum ribs for a bush plane called the bearhawk. I dropped both projects and just bought an airplane. Too many irons in the fire. If I build again it'll be a Pitts S1C with an 85 in it. As lite as possible. No lectrics. If you've not flown a Pitts you need to. It's like having Keef ask you to build him a trainwreck.

Just my opinion but you ought to sell that boat and buy someplace that will accomodate all yer interests. I drive by a place that has a hangar on the end of the driveway, the strip is a little narrow but there's enough room to get in and out. An afternoon with a chainsaw would take care of it. Other assets... it's 20 minutes inland in case you decide to keep the boat. You can't buy an outhouse in Kalifornia for what you could buy this place for. There's a nudist colony between there and the beach in case you're interested.

[declan]

I wouldn't touch oak with the proverbial sharpened stick unless I was in the mood for Victorian reproductions.

What dont you like about Oak?. The most exotic wood i trust myself working with is ply so im just interested in this comment as i have just got an inexpensive piece of oak for my wreck cab. Bad choice ?????

[CaseyJones]

I wouldn't touch oak with the proverbial sharpened stick unless I was in the mood for Victorian reproductions.

What dont you like about Oak?. The most exotic wood i trust myself working with is ply so im just interested in this comment as i have just got an inexpensive piece of oak for my wreck cab. Bad choice ?????

My top three reasons why I don't like oak:

1) Worst wood ever for tone. Ever seen an oak guitar? I rest my case. The rest of my reasons are redundant.

2) Weighs a ton. I've packed enough pig-ass heavy gear into gigs for one lifetime thank you very much!

3) Very coarse grain. Sure, it looks pretty... if you want to go for a proper Victorian vibe for the panelling and floor in yer study. I suggest opium, absynthe and perhaps some bootleg Cuban cigars once you get in there to take yer mind off the dark depressing wood. Actually it's not dark and depressing until you put stain and finish on it, then you'll be depressed tryin' to finish that coarse grain. It's like tryin' to fill washouts in a dirt road it is.

4) Oh yeah, we got more reasons than the top three. The stuff is a little rough on tooling. If you want prettier wood that's harder on tooling try jatoba. Jatoba is about as heavy and has similar long sinister spinters.

Cherry is worth the price of admission.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I have an idea that I'd like to do a post and beam house using white oak for framing. Strength-wise the stuff is about as strong as steel pound for pound. Oak frame and rafters to support my slate roof. Yeah, I know... too much opium and absynthe!

[Tubetwang]

Gary Rossington knows about Oak...