Milling live edge on rough stock

[Ben Hatcher]

I'm getting ready to strait line rip some rough cut walnut that's been air dried for about a year. My goal is to get stable wood for furniture. Is there a rule of thumb on that first rip? Ripping parallel to the centerline would provide the straightest grain but cutting closer to the edges maximizes yield. This log has a bit of a bump at the bottom so I'd get probably 4" wider boards at one end if I cut closer to the edge than parallel to the center. What are the real world tradeoffs? Is getting that extra 3-4" of width at one end but getting grain that isn't perfectly strait along the board a good tradeoff? Should strait grain be the driving factor most of the time?

[Kent A Bathurst]

........My goal is to get stable wood for furniture. Is there a rule of thumb on that first rip? ......... Is getting that extra 3-4" of width at one end but getting grain that isn't perfectly strait along the board a good tradeoff? Should strait grain be the driving factor most of the time?


It all depends on your thinking, to be honest. Without actually seeing the rough stock, my genral approach would be this:
1) You are going to get rid of that rough live edge regardless of the grain orientation of your final cut pieces, so make the first rip so that you keep as much "good wood" as possible.
2) When you have a specific target project in hand, then make the call on the grain orientation. and cuts-and-yields out of the "blank" you have. By way of example: On frame-and-panel larg-ish blanket chest, the frame was walnut. For the frame members on the lid and on the front, grain appearance was important to me, so I made the cuts to get reasonably straight grain - this meant the rough chalk-line layout was "canted" on the blank to align with the grain. On the frame that would be to the wall, I wasn't all that concerned, so I took what I could get.

Full Disclosure: long story on the history of the walnut, but it amounted to a "family heirloom" and I "had to" use it. Some of the pieces on the non-show side I may not have used if I had newer stuff - this had been air-dried in Kansas, Virginia, Phoenix, Detroit, and Atlanta for >30 years - so yield sucked, but I had zero worries that there was still any significant latent "movement".