Is "Southern Yellow Pine" the same as "Yellow Pine"?

[Greg L. Brown]

I'm planning to build a workbench from Chris Schwarz's "Workbench book" and he recommends using Southern Yellow Pine (specifically 2X12's). One of the Home Depot's around here has 2X12 in "Yellow Pine." Is that that same thing as Southern Yellow Pine?

Thanks,
Greg

[Dave Lehnert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Yellow_Pine

http://www.bchardwood.com/images/olympia_southern_yellow_pine_natural.jpg

[William M Johnson]

Just built the Roubo bench in the book. If that is the one you are building a word of warning. Plane the boards that are to be glued up for the top. I didn't the first time:mad:. After cutting them apart I did plane them. I think he also talked about using Acetone to wipe the faces before gluing. I didn't but would next time.

I would up with a very poor glue job, and had to do over.

I used 1/2" dowels for the drawbore pins, don't be scared of them. They worked great and are easy.

Bill

[Bill Rhodus]

I ran a SYP mill in the SE for 17 years and have sawn it all at one time or another - In the SE, Yellow pine is a catch all phrase; SYP generally refers to Loblolly or Longleaf pine which are the prevalent varieties I believe you would want. Look for very numerous, small growth rings and avoid those boards that have wide growth rings.

[Greg L. Brown]

I'll pick through the stack of Yellow Pine at HD and look for the smaller rings. Thanks for the help.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Where are you located?

[dan sherman]

Adding to what other said.

When you get the boards home, rip them 1/2" over sized, & then sticker them for a few weeks, so they can move and dry out. As others have said make sure you plain both face before glue up.

[John Thompson]

Having built 5 WB tops from SYP over the last 10 years.. I will offer a couple of suggestions also. The first is to pick through the boards on the shelf and get the about straightest and least cupped you can. If the board has lots of tension on the shelf as most is probably at least 16%-18% moisture content there.. the tension won't go away as you let them acclimate at home.

Second... try to pick boards with the pith as close to center as possible. I use 3" tops so I chose 2 x 10 which are actually 9 1/2" wide on the shelf. If you use 2" wide top slats for the glue-up you can get the 2 x 12 with my method. The boards will look like this using my approach.. (((((((O))))))) The O is the pith!

Now... when you get them home rip the roundover on each outside edge off. At that point rip 3 1/4" off each side if you are going to have a 3" top. You will be left with a middle piece that looks like this: ((O)).. Throw it away or store it for use on some outside utility project. Using the pith for the top is not good from my experience as the pith is unstable.

Now what you have is the two outside cuts that will look like the following coming from your original board... (((((( on one and ))))))) on the other after discarding the center pith. So.. what do we have left... Quarter Sawn pieces for your top basically but not a true QS in the sense of how you arrived at it.

As far as not using the center pith piece on your top.. SYP is cheap and you will discover that the remaining QS pieces won't need flattening after glue up near as often as if you use that center pith in it... ;)

Good luck and go have some fun....

[Greg L. Brown]

Where are you located?

I live in the western burbs of Chicago. Not sure if Yellow Pine is easy to get around here.

[Greg L. Brown]

I will eventually be building Schwarz's Roubo bench (it's really appealing to me for both looks and function), but first I'm building Josh Finn's simple "Torsion box" workbench (FWW Issue 202). I love Finn's design and it's the perfect bench for a beginner (I need a bench to build a bench).

Even though Finn's design calls for simple 2X4's, I want to use SYP just for practice (and to make sure I can get the stuff around here).

Thanks,
Greg

[Scott T Smith]

Keep in mind also that framing lumber has an average moisture content of 16%, so expect some shrinkage over a few months as your bench acclimates to your shop.

John's advice re using the quartersawn boards is spot on - you will have much less shrinkage across the width of the board (as opposed to flat or rift sawn lumber), but more across the thickness.

[Mike Heidrick]

I live in the western burbs of Chicago. Not sure if Yellow Pine is easy to get around here.

Find a Menards. They have it. I am only about 150 miles south of you.

[dan sherman]

I'm in Champaign, Menards has it here.

[Steve Bishop]

Greg,

Check out the Lowe's in Schaumburg (Barrington and Schaumburg). They normally have a shelf of 2X12X8 SYP. I have seen 2X12X10 there, but its been a couple of months. this is construction lumber so be prepared to pick and choose your boards. The good news is they seem to keep restocking instead of just running out. So someone must be buying it :)

I've also heard that the local Menards will special order SYP, but it comes sight unseen.


John/Bill
Great info, thanks!

Steve

[Kent A Bathurst]

I live in the western burbs of Chicago. Not sure if Yellow Pine is easy to get around here.

Well - this is what I can tell you - you are near the intersection of two overlapping circles (remember Venn diagrams from 7th grade?), but more in the SYP circle than the others. The SYP is No FLA up to No NC, across and down to E TX. I'm pretty doggone sure that what you have in the Chicago BORGs is the SYP. All of the pressure treated lumber you have there is SYP from that region. I'm sure they leave it vague like that so they can get the best deal from wherever/whomever as the market and freight rates change. Menard's owns their own treating plants, so they are supplying stuff they already have in their yards (which is SYP because it treats well v. the others), and any cost/freight advantages at HD would be matched by Lowe's - same product in the race for the front page of the Sunday supplement pricing. It could conceivably be other regional upper Midwest species like Red Pine - but all of those have densities and structural properties basically equivalent to SYP. It is unlikely you are getting the pines from the PNW like Pondy. What you have there will be just fine, IMO, for what you plan to do.

Tee it up!!

[Chuck Isaacson]

Check out this website. It has a SYP locator.

http://www.southernpine.com/cgi-bin/sopinesrch

[Robby Tacheny]

Do what John Thompson recommended and you'll have much more stable wood! I also get 2x12's as much as possible so that I can get grain that is quarter sawn or close. As he mentioned, don't use the center pith. Also look at the free Popular Woodworking article's that Chris Schwarz did a few years ago on workbenches. He recommends storing pine on its side. That's also how I store mine so that each of the faces are at a similar humidity. It will help to prevent cupping and twisting.

They sell cans of sap remover at hardware stores too. Its highly flammable and fumes, but it is great for cleaning the sap off if you happen to hit a pocket. Its called M1 paint remover or something similar.

-R

[Jacob Reverb]

In your area of the country, if given the choice, I think I would prefer longleaf SYP to loblolly SYP, because it is harder and stronger.

You can tell them apart by looking – longleaf SYP has wilder grain and more contrast between the light and dark parts of the growth rings. It's also appreciably denser/heavier than loblolly SYP.

On the other hand, I can buy loblolly SYP from local sawmills for maybe 60¢/bf which is a fraction of the price we pay locally for longleaf SYP, so I would use that. But I suspect there's not much difference in price between the sub-species where you live (if you can even get loblolly).

[Rob Parsons]

I built a trestle table base out of SYP from the borg. I used the same technique as explained by John Thompson and ended up with rift and quarter sawn stock. Here are a few pictures of the resulting stock.

http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd313/jp4_photos/Trestle%20table/DSCN0750.jpg



http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd313/jp4_photos/Trestle%20table/DSCN0821.jpg
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/%3Ca%20href=%22http://s223.photobucket.com/albums/dd313/jp4_photos/Trestle%20table/?action=view&current=DSCN0750.jpg%22%20target=%22_blank%22%3E%3 Cimg%20src=%22http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd313/jp4_photos/Trestle%20table/DSCN0750.jpg%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22Photobuc ket%22%3E%3C/a%3E

[John Thompson]

Clean job on those mortices.. tenons.. bridles and laps Rob.. I've heard you Georgia boy's just l-o-v-e joinery.. ha.. ha..

[Robby Tacheny]

Let me get this straight. You build your workbench from curly maple and your furniture from "yella" pine from the Borg? I think you have things confused! :p J/K! Thats a good looking start on that table indeed.

-R