Wood selection

Eric Eckman

Member
Messages
20
Location
Brunswick, ME
Hello all,

I'm preparing to start work on an office furniture set. I have decided on the design that I like and have found a set of plans to use as a guideline. http://www.woodstore.net/sesedesy.html

I am ready to start on the project, but I'm at the point where I need to choose a wood. I'm new to this whole thing, so I'm looking for a good entry-level hardwood to use for this project. Without having a lot of experience in working with different types of wood, I just don't have enough background knowledge to know what the appropriate material would be. I had been planning to use Oak, but I just found that the lumberyard where I'm going to buy my materials has a special for the month of November on 4/4 Birch for $1.75 bd/ft. Oak will be about $2.30 a bd/ft. I obviously know what Oak looks like in it's finished state because it's so common, but I'm not sure if I have any idea how Birch looks when it's finished. Is this an appropriate wood to use for furniture, and how does it look when it's finished? If birch is good for a piece of furniture like this, how should I go about finishing it? I don't need an extremely durable finish because the actual table surfaces of this piece are made of two layers of MDF covered in laminate.

Thanks for the help guys.
 
Hi Eric,

I can't speak to the appropriateness of birch having never worked with it. However, I would encourage you to stay away from the oak for exactly the reason you mention - it is so common. If you want a piece of furniture that say's, "custom" and, "I made this" you don't want to make it look like something you picked up at the local Oak Warehouse. Look at other woods that speak more to the custome made piece like hickory, maple, cherry, etc.

I'm sure someone else here can address the birch issue.
 
The advantage of birch is that it will put you to sleep just looking at it.
Oak is used for a lot of fine furniture. There is disagreement on this but it's finished beauty speaks for itself.
But, for office furniture, personally, I would opt for the elegance and luxury of walnut. Figured if you can get it. If the customer is paying, price is not really a consideration.
 
No doubt, I'd go with Walnut if I could. I'm the customer on this one though, I'm just a beginner looking to build my skills by making furniture that I need at home before I find some paying victi . . . I mean customers. Cost of the wood is definitely a concern for me at this point.
 
Hello all,

I'm preparing to start work on an office furniture set. I have decided on the design that I like and have found a set of plans to use as a guideline. http://www.woodstore.net/sesedesy.html

I am ready to start on the project, but I'm at the point where I need to choose a wood. I'm new to this whole thing, so I'm looking for a good entry-level hardwood to use for this project. Without having a lot of experience in working with different types of wood, I just don't have enough background knowledge to know what the appropriate material would be. I had been planning to use Oak, but I just found that the lumberyard where I'm going to buy my materials has a special for the month of November on 4/4 Birch for $1.75 bd/ft. Oak will be about $2.30 a bd/ft. I obviously know what Oak looks like in it's finished state because it's so common, but I'm not sure if I have any idea how Birch looks when it's finished. Is this an appropriate wood to use for furniture, and how does it look when it's finished? If birch is good for a piece of furniture like this, how should I go about finishing it? I don't need an extremely durable finish because the actual table surfaces of this piece are made of two layers of MDF covered in laminate.

Thanks for the help guys.

Eric, birch will look a LOT like maple when it's finished, except that very often it'll have more (dark) heartwood and it'll often have a long, rippling curl to it. Slab doors are commonly made with birch veneer - not the pine panel doors, and not the coarse lauan hollow-core "slab" doors, but the fine-surfaced slab doors.

It's not commonly used for office furniture, but once in a while you see some used that way. It kinda' stands out as unusual; oak is the de facto standard for office stuff. There's... a "smooth" look to it in an office, a kinda' "modern" look.

Birch, if you decide to go that way, takes polyurethane very well - wiped or brushed or sprayed. If you decide you like the look of raw birch, use water-based poly. If you want it a little darker, use an oil-based poly; that'll yellow the color somewhat. Poly's hard to beat unless you go for the full wet look of lacquer... you even have the option of going with a matte finish if you buy "flat" polyurethane.

If you want it darker than oil-based poly will get it, you could hit it first with one shade or another of the tinted Watco. Birch isn't super-easy to stain, but the tinted Watco works pretty well on it. If you go that route, though, WAIT until the Watco is FULLY CURED (the smell is gone) before you cover it with poly. If you don't, the poly won't ever set up right.

In general... an entry-level hardwood would be pretty much anything domestic. I'd hesitate to suggest kingwood or muninga or pink ivory for any first-time-with-hardwood projects, but most domestic hardwoods work pretty similarly except for their quirks: Maple & cherry are both prone to caramelizing if you don't keep a cutter moving along, and ash is WICKEDLY hard after it's fully dry, and butternut will make anybody nuts 'cause softer than a lot of softwoods. Cherry & oak (especially red oak) develop dark marks if you leave iron in contact with 'em in the presence of any moisture. Cherry is prone to gumming up your blades & bits. Poplar CAN (with extra work) be brought to a nice surface (and is really really cheap). Oak makes your shop smell REALLY STRONGLY of... oak... which is a kinda' vinegary smell. Walnut does the same, but smells strongly of... walnut. :)

Birch ain't bad. It's just not "normal" for office furniture. :)
 
for you to get an idea of what birch looks like with a little poly on it, this is a birch top I made for a small table. Its not totally finished in the picture, but I put a bit of one of the minwax maple stains on it, and then rub on poly.wood stuff 850 (Medium).jpg

Ash is a cheap wood, cheaper than oak, and you can finish it to look exactly like oak, stain it any color you want, and it takes finish nice.wood stuff 1166 (Medium).jpg

this is another top I made of ash, golden oak minwax stain.

just giving you an idea of these light woods with light stain. I hope this is a tiny bit helpful.
 
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Thanks for the info guys, I think I'm gonna go with Ash, I appreciate the help.

I guess I'll chime in. Ash has all the bothers of oak (fibrous and tearout-prone) and the bothers in finishing of maple and cherry (very blotch prone). Ash finishes 'clear' quite nicely

Matchbox-F&M-018-sm.jpg

but I had a real fight to get an even-looking coloring on these.

SU-Compare-002.jpg

It is inexpensive and that is what drew me to it. It machines well with very sharp cutters. It burns easily or suffers blowout with not-so-sharp cutters or not-so-aligned machines or a casual approach.

I still work with it and enjoy the look but I am loath to do another larger scale project with it. All that being said, I have only been doing this a few years and am far from a finishing expert :).

My favored materials right now are walnut and mahogany but the ash, maple, cherry and such all work their way into the mix.
 
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It's very subjective but birch is on the boring side IMHO. Oak is nice, but can be found in just about every dwelling in North America, so it's not very unique. Ash is a nice alternative to oak, and it's even on the cheap side.
 
My wife and I have decided that we'd like this piece to be very dark in color- what a lot of the big furniture stores are now calling the "espresso" finish. It's basically on the dark side of mahogany. I've been researching how to achieve that finish and have found projects posted around the net where guys have used poplar with General Finishes water based espresso stain to good results. I know poplar is not well known for taking stain nicely, but this General Finish product seems to work well on it. Has anyone attempted to give that finish to ash? I may just go with poplar because it's cheap and I've worked with it before and am comfortable with it and know that it's workable. If cost wasn't a real concern, I'd go with a more fancy wood, but this will only be my 4th furniture project and filling our new house with furniture is adding up to be pretty expensive, so I'd like to keep the cost to each piece pretty low. Heirloom pieces will come, but they'll have to wait a while for my skills to develop and for the pressing need for lots of furniture asap to settle down.

So, what's the consensus for an espresso finish? Poplar or Ash? If they both take it pretty well, I'll probably go with whatever is cheaper when I go to buy the materials.
 
Unusual as it is, I've seen a rocking chair (built by a coworker of mine) built entirely of poplar. He stained it dark, and it really looked pretty spectacular. I MAY be able to dredge up some pictures... wait one.

...nope, no pics. :(
 
can yu post us a link to this expresso finish example? as for ash vrs popular the popular is more blotch prone than the ash..and in my opinion the ash will look better than the popular when its done but i like grain and popular doesnt show it well..
 
Poplar and ash are sort of an apples and oranges comparison. Ash has a very distinctive grain. If your look is to feature the darker espresso color as opposed to a distinctive grain, you may want to lean towards poplar. Its grain is not nearly as distinctive.

In between the lines, here is what I am hearing you say. You have chosen the final "look." You have worked with poplar before. You know the "look" you want can be done with poplar. It is inexpensive.

You have not worked with ash before. It has a distinctive grain that may compete with the final "look" you are trying to achieve. It is likewise inexpensive. But inexperience can often make up for inexpensive!

One other thing. Poplar is a closed grain wood. Ash is open-celled. You may very likely have to fill the grain in ash to get a smooth finish as you may envisions. More expensive and more time.

I hear one other thing. You'd like to try something different. So you are considering the ash. Might I suggest a smaller accent piece for a new (to you) wood and finish?

Two cents from a former woodworking instructor who often had reign in her enthusiastic students as they journeyed through the learning curve.
 
Carol,

You totally nailed it, everything that you read into my post is exactly right. I'm interested in playing with new woods just because I want to broaden my horizons and learn more about the characteristics of different woods.

You're right that I'm comfortable with poplar and as long as I can get it to take the dark stain well, it'll give the finished appearance that I'm looking for. I didn't realize that ash had such a different grain pattern, and I'm not looking to feature a really prominent grain pattern, so that might not be for me.

Most of this stems from the fact that I'm a complete newbie to hardwoods, I've made a few very small projects with oak, but everything else has been pine or poplar. I think I'll go ahead and make this project with poplar because I'm comfortable with it and I know it'll give the appearance that I like, your suggestion of experimenting with new woods by doing accent pieces is a really good one and I think I'll go ahead and do that.

For those who asked about a link to the espresso color that I'm looking for, here it is: http://www.target.com/Zuri-TV-Stand-Espresso/dp/B001MS2G06/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&searchView=grid5&frombrowse=0&node=1038576&keywords=furniture%20espresso&field_browse=1038576&searchSize=30&id=Zuri%20TV%20Stand%20Espresso&field_availability=-2&refinementHistory=subjectbin%2Ctarget_com_age%2Ctarget_com_gender-bin%2Ctarget_com_character-bin%2Cprice%2Ctarget_com_primary_color-bin%2Ctarget_com_size-bin%2Ctarget_com_brand-bin&searchNodeID=1038576&field_launch-date=-1y&searchRank=target104545&searchPage=1&field_keywords=furniture%20espresso
 
I was also going to suggest poplar, stained walnut. I've seen this done very successfully and beautifully! Poplar is cheap and easy to work with. Just try to pick some that doesn't have the green cast to it. Poplar is usually considered just a wood to use for a painted project, but it does stain nicely if you use a dark stain.

Jim
 
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