Wood Deal... Should I have Any Concerns?

[bob blakeborough]

Hey All,

New to the woodworking hobby and one of my customers came to be with an offer and I want to make sure that there is nothing about using this wood that I should be concerned about? I can imagine why but I figure it is better to ask now as opposed to later...

I own a wheel/tire store and one of my clients owns a hardwood flooring store. He has a variety of brand new, unfinished solid hardwood flooring boards that are leftovers from jobs etc that have been piling up. He said it is mostly cherry, walnut and maple with a bit of other stuff mixed in, totalling around 1100sf. All are full length flooring boards and most are 3/4" thick.

He is offering to trade all of it for a set of rims I can pick up for around $300/$400 bucks...

First off, is there anything about flooring specific wood (different grade or the like?) that makes it not very good for woodworking? As I said, all of it is brand new and completely unfinished...

Secondly, if usuable, is this a reasonable deal for this type of wood? Seems pretty cheap for these types of hardwood to me but I don't have a lot of experience buying yet...

Thanks for any input!

[Chris Padilla]

Address of your buddy...I'd like to pay him a visit. ;)

If it is all 3/4" solid hardwood (not engineered flooring), it sounds like a pretty good deal.

What kind of widths are we talking? Mostly 4" likely? How about lengths? If you get a bunch of 3" wide short pieces, it might not be so great but if you have 2-3-4 footers in there, that would be pretty decent.

These will all have tongue and grooves that will further shrink the widths because to use them, you'll likely need to rip that off.

Finally, do you have storage room for all this? It is a lot of wood.

[bob blakeborough]

Address of your buddy...I'd like to pay him a visit. ;)

If it is all 3/4" solid hardwood (not engineered flooring), it sounds like a pretty good deal.

What kind of widths are we talking? Mostly 4" likely? How about lengths? If you get a bunch of 3" wide short pieces, it might not be so great but if you have 2-3-4 footers in there, that would be pretty decent.

These will all have tongue and grooves that will further shrink the widths because to use them, you'll likely need to rip that off.

Finally, do you have storage room for all this? It is a lot of wood.

Solid hardwood for sure... That was my first question. He said there are a variety of widths with some wider plank styles in there as well. None of the pieces are cuts... Just extra's from orders that were not completely used up. I was thinking about the tongue in groove aspect and figured that the wider board I can cut it off, but the narrower ones I could actually use put together into wider pieces no? I was also thinking I could use some of it to help me make a cheaper starter bench. Plywood under with wood on top or something... Sound crazy?

Oh... I have lots of storage... 2.5 car garage with no car in it! lol

[Eiji Fuller]

You are most likely only to get 1/2 or 5/8" thickness out of those boards once you plane the finish and grooves off. The unders sides of flooring is moulded and not flat. I would pass on this. Not a good deal as it would be too much work to make anything but the smallist projects.

FIREWOOD

[bob blakeborough]

You are most likely only to get 1/2 or 5/8" thickness out of those boards once you plane the finish and grooves off. The unders sides of flooring is moulded and not flat. I would pass on this. Not a good deal as it would be too much work to make anything but the smallist projects.

FIREWOODIt is completely unfinished wood. He said most of his wood is 3/4"... I am going to verify it today...

I should maybe point out too that other than thinking of a cheap bench top, I am mostly interested in making small boxes etc for now, and I thought that smaller wood for this might work out well. I also need to finish the stairs to my basement so if there is enough of one type to salvage for this job it could save me a bit of money...

[Cary Falk]

I would pass also. They are most likely to be narrow pieces. By the time you glue them together and plane them down you will have less then 3/4.

[Matt Day]

I think what Eiji was getting at is that to bring the "completely unfinished" flooring boards up to furniture grade standards of flat and square, you're going to have to joint and plane each piece again. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but who knows when you check it out.

It would be great for making a workbench, but I'd turn the wood on it's side and laminate them together (ie do not use the T&G) to make a 3" thick top super heavy and stable, that would be a great bench top.

Good luck!

[bob blakeborough]

It would be great for making a workbench, but I'd turn the wood on it's side and laminate them together (ie do not use the T&G) to make a 3" thick top super heavy and stable, that would be a great bench top.

Good luck!

Now there is an idea!

[Gary Hodgin]

I can't add anything to what has been said in the other posts except that I bought about 150 bf of cherry from a small mill about 10 years ago. The boards were left over from a flooring job. I had just bought a thickness planer and a jointer. I got the boards at a good price (for cherry) but by the time I'd jointed and planed the boards they were just a little thicker than one-half inch. I hadn't anticipated that. I've used part of the stuff for some small boxes and such but I was disappointed in the final thickness of the boards.

[Jim Rimmer]

It is completely unfinished wood. He said most of his wood is 3/4"... I am going to verify it today...

I should maybe point out too that other than thinking of a cheap bench top, I am mostly interested in making small boxes etc for now, and I thought that smaller wood for this might work out well. I also need to finish the stairs to my basement so if there is enough of one type to salvage for this job it could save me a bit of money...
It will be interesting to hear what you find out after you lay eyes on it. If it is, indeed, 3/4" unfinished lumber it might be a good deal. But if it is unfinished flooring, I tend to go with Eiji.

[Van Huskey]

If it is FLOORING it will have a relief milled in the back as Eiji mentioned and results in thinner than 3/4" board once jointed and faced. If it is not then you have a different story...possibly.

For boxes you may be able to get some decent stock. For the bench I agree turn it on edge and make a real bench.

[Chris Kennedy]

You could use it to make a floor for your shop . . . .

Chris

[Chris Padilla]

You could use it to make a floor for your shop . . . .

Chris

Flooring used for a floor? Now that is just crazy enough that it might work!! :p

I had forgotten about the back relief in solid hardwood flooring. It still might be worth it. For someone starting out new, it would be good practice ripping, planing, jointing, etc. and it would be good stock to make smallish things from or a bench top.

I think I would still do it.

[Greg Portland]

There is a place locally that sells cut-offs from flooring. These are cutoffs -before- any milling is done (typically 4/4 & 4"-5" wide) & the wood tends to be clear (that is what the clients want in their floors). Go check out the wood, it may be a great deal. If it's got the grooves and everything then it's probably not as good a deal unless you're making a ton of drawers or doing a bunch of small floors.

[Joe Chritz]

I have enough uses for panels that are 5/8" thick or less that I would probably take it. Unless you have a lot of use for thinner panels it may not be worthwhile for you. The relief cuts will eat a lot of thickness for most things since it will need to be milled off.

If it was all maple I would grab it up in a hurry as it would make great glue ups for drawer sides.

The good news is that flooring is usually pretty good stock.

Joe

[bob blakeborough]

Went and looked at it and there is a lot of really nice, solid hardwood. Mostly walnut, and cherry with a bit of maple and oak. It is grooved and tongued in a variety of widths and lengths. I talked it over and settled on a $200.00 "value" against the purchase. He also added in a bunch of really nice bundles of exotic woods like Olive, Jatoba, Tigerwood and a bit of Purpleheart...

I figure I will cherry pick the stuff I want to play with, the stuff I want to use to finish my stairs, and the stuff to laminate a bench top and the rest I will deal with... Probably not the best deal I have made but it will be good practice for me!

[Neil Brooks]

I think you got a lot of great advice.

On looking at the wood on MY living room floor, the T&G leaves noticeable "seams --" seams that -- if I were using it, in glue-ups, on its flat face -- I'd want to joint out to eliminate.

It sounds like ... in either case ... you should prepare yourself for a fair amount of milling, and a rather low % yield.

But ... good wood is good wood :)

[Dan Hintz]

Bob,

Whatever you don't think you'll use, consider putting it up here for sale. Once every few weeks someone will post deals for flat-rate shipments of various wood pieces they have on hand. Not sure it would be cheap sending to the States, but maybe someone in CA will get a good deal, and it may just pay for the entire lot if you sell enough.

[Van Messner]

The price is low but you will need to put in a lot of labor to end up with a lot of small thin pieces. Will you really need 1000 square feet of this stuff to make boxes?