Need advice on wide pine boards

Bob Gibson

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Merrimack, New Hampshire
I'm making a hope chest for my daughter. In the past I have always used panels. She saw a picture of a chest made of single pieces of wide pine and fell in love with it.
Actually the wood she saw was cherry, but I cant afford cherry right now.


Need some advice:
I do have access to wide pine boards from 12" wide to 24" wide. These were cut 4 or 5 years ago and air dried in a warehouse.
I also have access to 1" antique barn board and floor boards ( 200+ years old).
Note: there is enough of both types of pine to get clear boards.

I'm concerned that the boards will cup over time and ruin the chest. I have heard that if you run several shallow kerfs lengthwise on the back side of the boards they will not cup???

Since my dovetail jig doesnt accommodate boards as wide as I need I may have to try and cut my own. Will dovetails keep the boards from cupping or will they cause it to crack under stress?

Would I be better off gluing up the panels instead of using a single wide board??

If I attempt to make my own dovetails can someone suggest an affordable saw?

I really don't want to screw this up so any help will be really appreciated.
 
Bob,
How are you going to construct the box. What I mean is will the panel be inside a frame. It might be easier to answer your question if we know how you were going to use them. I just did a restoration on a trunion table where the top was made from 8/4 pine. The top was 34" wide and made from wide panels. There was some minor cupping but the table is over 50 years old and had only been finished on 1 side. Funney thing is the joint where the board were oined together should no siges of movement. There were no seperation crack showing.
 
Wow, Bob, you ask tough questions. I'll be interested to see what the experts say.

Any board that is flatsawn will have a tendency to cup...the direction of cupping can be seen by looking at the end of the board...think of the board trying to straighten out the growth rings...that's how it will cup. Don't include any of the core of the tree...guaranteed trouble. Try for quartersawn growth ring direction, even if you have to cut out the core and then glue it back up. Quartersawn won't cup, and it's easier to match quartersawn growth ring pattern in a glue up so it looks like a single board. This pattern is parallel growth rings end to end along the surface of the board. It's not as pretty as the flatsawn pattern, but much less trouble in a wide surface like you're talking about. I haven't heard about the backside kerfs and the idea kind of puts me off so I wouldn't it do it just because...but hey, whatever works.

The dovetails will do an excellent job of keeping the joints together, but if the moisture exchange of the wood is too excessive there will be give somewhere else. So this is more an issue of moisture content and moisture exchange than strength of dovetails. Remember that wood will stabilize over time with its environment, so if you have a piece of wood that was milled 5 years ago and air-dried in a 17% humidity environment, that's what the MC will be. If you move it to an 8% environment, before long it will stabilize to that...and do some moving in the process. Get your hands on a moisture meter so you know what you're working with. NH is one of those northeastern states that tends to be low humidity in the winter (6% or so) and high humidity in the summer. Ongoing wood movement needs to be considered, and there's a little bit of voodoo in that, particularly in wide-board surfaces.

As far as handcutting dovetails...practice, practice, practice. And after you've practiced, practice some more. Which dovetail saw is best?...well, how long is a piece of string?...how high is up? Japanese saws cut on the pull stroke, western saws the opposite. Personally I like the pull stroke...seems easier and the blade can be made thinner, but that's just me. You have to try it. And don't forget to practice. And you will need some chisels...very sharp chisels.

Good luck. Pics please.

Cheers.
 
The barn boards could be an issue. If they came from a barn that had livestock in them, the sweat, urine and manure from the animals can saturate the wood over time even if those three things do not directly land on the wood. All seems well until you finish the project and your daughter brings it into her home and the heat begins to radiate that stench. A few years back, old barn boards were all the rage until some people started finishing their bathrooms with the stuff only to find out this problem.

If the barn has never had livestock in it though, you are good to go and should not have any problems.

As for a cheap dovetail saw...no joking on this...use a hacksaw if you need too. It works just fine, it just cuts slow.
 
Bob,

Yeah - construction is KEY.

I make a chest for my daughter 5-6 years ago.

I used a raised panel construction for the sides and front panels

The sides had 1 raised panel on each side

The front is three raised panels.

The panels are 12" wide +/- 1/2 inch or so, and they are 18 inches tall, and 3/4 thick. Rails and stiles are about 2-2-1/2 wide.

Bottom of the chest is plywood - as well as the back.

I used 3/4 veneer ply bordered with solid wood for the lid.

I lined it with cedar - The stuff you can get at Home Depot for closets.

I used poly - and did not finish the inside

Here we are 5 years later - no problems.
 
real good points, the help is very much appreciated. every chest/toy box that i'vd made so far has been frame and panel. My daughter liked the look of single wide boards so I thought I would give it a try. It just dawned on me that all the wide pine boards are rough sawn and my planer only goes to 12". I'll have to rip the pieces and glue up like Ed suggested.

I never even considered the source of the barn board Travis. Chances are good that the barn used to hold cows. I can picture everyone walking around sniffing the air to figure where the stink is coming from and me blaming the dog:rofl::rofl:

I think that I'm going to try and dovetail the sides and front Don. Gotta try and sharpen the chisels today. You sure do interesting projects. I've never heard of a trunion table before.

Good idea on the cedar lining Leo. I think that she would really like that. I made a cedar box once for my mom when I was a kid, I shellacked the whole thing inside and out. :eek:
She never once mentioned that she couldn't smell the cedar.

Thanks for the help:)
 
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Thats exactly what she wants John, The one she saw was cherry. I'm thinking now about making it from maple with a cedar lining. Maple, like pine is pretty common up here and isn't too expensive. I think that it would give the chest a little classier look than the pine. Lucky for me I live in an area where there are several family lumber mills in every town and have got to know a few pretty well.
 
Settled on this design with a few changes. It will only have 1 drawer and will be about 38" tall instead of 40".
Didn't get to look at wood yesterday, kids and grand kids came over and didn't leave:rolleyes:
I'm heading West today to Greenfield, NH to look at pine and maple.

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Picked up the wood this morning. I found a new place not too far from my house. I got such a good deal on 1x12 x 8's&10's and 1x8 x8 that I decided on white pine. 6-8% on their moisture meter. paid $60.00. I think I'll plane it all down and then let it sit in my basement for a few days before working it. During the summer months I run a dehumidifier down there to help keep everything dry.

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I scanned over most of the responses and did not see one concern you might have. Mixing Old woods with newer woods , and that would be Moisture content. Older wood (although may have been in a barn exposed to elements) will have a lower MC than any new woods (even Kiln dried as the KD wood will re absorb moisture to the ambiant aire after the kiln) The older wood has been sheding the internal moisture while the kiln dried was forced into submission and will attempt to recover... etc. After constructed the movement of the old wood would be less than the movement of the new woods so a constant battle would emerge between the old and new.


My slant on the issue.
 
Got to do some planing today. The rough sawn pine was over 1-1/4" thick. I was able to do about 3/4 of my pile.
This was milled last fall and has been sitting in a warehouse air drying. Moisture content is between 6 and 8 %.
I really have to get a dust collector. I saw one on CL today. Its a 1hp delta. The one with the bag on the bottom and top. They are asking $100. I hope they respond to my emails.
Also, if anyone knows if the dust chute on my Dewalt planer will work efficiently with this DC I would appreciate any opinions.
There was so must dust I had to stop every so often and get fresh air. (I have COPD so breathing is tough enough as is.)
Next is cutting the planks to rough length, jointing one edge, ripping to size, jointing up the cut edge and then glue up my parts.






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Bob- I used to hate the dust too. I learned to wait for a nice day and roll my planer outside (drum sander too). No problems with dust now. My shop isn't is my basement though. Maybe keep your planer in the garage? Just a thought.
 
I wish I could bring it up to the garage Frank but that is full of other stuff . I would have to haul up my jointer as well, but seeing thats part of my million pound Shopsmith it ain't going anywhere:rofl:
I dont know why I always forget about HF, they have a store in Worcester Mass. about 2 hrs. south of me. I will have to pay sales tax though, In NH we have no sales or state income tax. The DC's on CL never contacted me.
Thanks for the heads up Don!
 
Bob: Jugeing from the picture of your Dewalt planer, you have a real pile of shavings on the floor. I have the same planer as you, I just hooked up a Ridgid Shop Vac from Home Depot ($89.00 ) direct to the dust port on the Dewalt Planer. Almost no dust from planing. As long as you dump it regularly and keep the filter clean it should work fine. I'm sure a regular dust colection system would be much better, but this is just an alternative.
Also, have you thought of useing Finger Joints on the corners ...... this can be done on your table saw ......width is not a facter. They make a nice secure corner and are attractive as well.:dunno: Good luck with the chest, I like the design you have chosen.
 
Bob: Jugeing from the picture of your Dewalt planer, you have a real pile of shavings on the floor. I have the same planer as you, I just hooked up a Ridgid Shop Vac from Home Depot ($89.00 ) direct to the dust port on the Dewalt Planer. Almost no dust from planing. As long as you dump it regularly and keep the filter clean it should work fine. I'm sure a regular dust colection system would be much better, but this is just an alternative.
Also, have you thought of useing Finger Joints on the corners ...... this can be done on your table saw ......width is not a facter. They make a nice secure corner and are attractive as well.:dunno: Good luck with the chest, I like the design you have chosen.

I tried my small shop vac but it kept clogging Ron. It works pretty well on most of the other tools though.
I placed an ad on CL this morning for "Wanted DC system" and got 3 emails right away, 1 Jet, 1 Delta, and 1 unknown brand. Hopefully I will get to see them this weekend.

I didn't think about finger joints. Would of been a great idea. Unfortunatly I cut all my pieces today and did a glue up of the 2 sides. Adding finger joints now will mess up my dimensions. Ran out of clamps :(
 
I didn't get as much done this long weekend as I had planned. All panels are glued up, cut to final dimensions and the glue joints scraped and belt sanded.
I promised myself that I would never use my Freud JS102 biscuit joiner again. I hate this thing. It's probably me but every so often it makes one slot a little high causing the boards to be slightly off. The fence (?) just doesn't seem stable or sit flat enough on the board to be 100% consistent with the cuts. Maybe another brand would be better. I never have this problem when I use dowels.
Today I'm going to look at 3 DC's I saw on CL. Plus cut all the dados and rabbets. If I'm lucky I'll get to some assembly by Thursday.

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