Art Mulder
Member
- Messages
- 3,383
- Location
- London, Ontario
(and I don't mean things like bullets)
I expect to find knots and wild grain inside my lumber. I also expect to sometimes find interesting things -- I haven't found a bullet, but I have encountered nails. I expect to find mineral streaks also. However, I also usually expect to find, well, wood inside my wood! Of course I know that wood isn't a manufactured product, and as a natural growing substance, I should expect to be surprised every now and then.
Like on my current project.
A year or more ago I scored some really nice red oak for a good price. I've used it a few times and always been quite pleased with it. I pulled some more of it inside from the garage a few weeks back for another project, and started dimensioning it.
It's another lovely pile of oak!
However, when I started planing it, some of the boards started showing some cracks inside.
Hmm, Well I was planning to rip them narrower anyway (making rails + stiles for doors) so I went over to the bandsaw and sliced open a couple of them that had these cracks. Look what I found inside.
Those are some big cavities opening up in a few of those boards!
Most of the wood is fine, but some of it is going to force me to be careful and creative as I cut it up further to the finished size!
And a few of those boards are really bad, like this one.
Oh, can't see them all in my photo? Here, I coloured most of them:
Yup, wood is interesting stuff.
I expect to find knots and wild grain inside my lumber. I also expect to sometimes find interesting things -- I haven't found a bullet, but I have encountered nails. I expect to find mineral streaks also. However, I also usually expect to find, well, wood inside my wood! Of course I know that wood isn't a manufactured product, and as a natural growing substance, I should expect to be surprised every now and then.
Like on my current project.
A year or more ago I scored some really nice red oak for a good price. I've used it a few times and always been quite pleased with it. I pulled some more of it inside from the garage a few weeks back for another project, and started dimensioning it.
It's another lovely pile of oak!
However, when I started planing it, some of the boards started showing some cracks inside.
Hmm, Well I was planning to rip them narrower anyway (making rails + stiles for doors) so I went over to the bandsaw and sliced open a couple of them that had these cracks. Look what I found inside.
Those are some big cavities opening up in a few of those boards!
Most of the wood is fine, but some of it is going to force me to be careful and creative as I cut it up further to the finished size!
And a few of those boards are really bad, like this one.
Oh, can't see them all in my photo? Here, I coloured most of them:
Yup, wood is interesting stuff.