Borg lumber shopping: how to select the best Douglas Fir boards for benchtop?

[Mike Allen1010]

I'm in the process of designing/building a Roubo style workbench with a benchtop that is~ 4” thick x 24” wide x 8’ long.

After evaluating various options for workbench top lumber available to me, I'm leaning towards Douglas Fir from the local home center due to cost and ease of workability with hand planes (I will need to prepare/glue up all stock with hand planes. I don't have any stationary power tools).

I would love to hear from anyone who's used commercially available DF (versus reclaimed, old-growth DF) for this kind of benchtop; any regrets about stability, bench dog hole/vice face wear etc.? (This is my last chance to bite the bullet and buy the soft maple, if the DF seems like a bad idea).

I'm looking for some advice about how to select the best pieces of DF lumber at the local home center for the benchtop. I'm looking for lumber that is straight and as clear as possible, but have some questions about other things I should also possibly be looking for:

1. Is there any advantage in using 4”x4”’s, versus 4” x 6” stock? Obviously the 4” x 6” would require fewer glue ups to laminate the top, but I'm wondering if 4 x 6 stock will take longer to dry and therefore have a greater risk of warping as it dries as compared to the 4x4s?

2. My understanding is I should try and select boards that are as close to quarter sawn as possible (vertical growth rings on the end grain?), and boards that don't incorporate the pith or the small growth rings from the center of the tree -- is that right?

3. When I lay up the pieces that I will laminate into my benchtop is there some rule about how best to orient them relative to the grain? I understand I should try to orient the grain on what will become the benchtop in the same direction for ease of planing during flattening, but should I also try and alternate pith side up, versus pith side down?

4. In plain sawn lumber with growth rings generally oriented in a 45° angle across the end grain, should I orient them all in the same direction, alternating opposite directions, does it matter?


I really value the collective knowledge/experience of everyone here on the Creek and very much appreciate any and all advice before I make the big investment of time/$ to build the benchtop.

Thanks, Mike
:confused:

[David Weaver]

I would go for QS, even if it took a few months to get enough of them. Wood that looks QS on the end but that isn't cut vertically in a tree (there shouldn't be much of that in DF, I'd think, it should be pretty straight) will still move, but if you glue it all together, probably not as much.

Just let it dry a few months in your shop, then you can cull the bad stuff and use the shorts of it for something else.

I would think 4x4s would be plenty large for a leg, but if you want to go with 4x6s, any of them may crack as they dry out in the winter.

I think you have a pretty good handle on what you're doing.

Is there any chance you could get soft maple cheaply at a hardwood place? I would much rather have a soft maple top than DF, and though it is more expensive, it's usually pretty cheap here if it's available - like 2/3rd the cost of hard maple, sometimes less.

[lowell holmes]

I used Home Depot fir 4x4 's for the legs on my bench. I put a maple top on it. I've had no problems with the fir legs and stretchers. The bench is about 5 years old.

I live in the Gulf Coast area and we don't have low humidity in the winter.

[Kent A Bathurst]

1. Is there any advantage in using 4”x4”’s, versus 4” x 6” stock? Obviously the 4” x 6” would require fewer glue ups to laminate the top, but I'm wondering if 4 x 6 stock will take longer to dry and therefore have a greater risk of warping as it dries as compared to the 4x4s? I think you've got it figured out. IMO, the 4 x 6 will have more tendency to twist or warp.

2. My understanding is I should try and select boards that are as close to quarter sawn as possible (vertical growth rings on the end grain?), and boards that don't incorporate the pith or the small growth rings from the center of the tree -- is that right? Agree 100% - get as much as you can that is as close as you can to QS. I wouldn't be too obessive about it, but I would do what I could.

3. When I lay up the pieces that I will laminate into my benchtop is there some rule about how best to orient them relative to the grain? I understand I should try to orient the grain on what will become the benchtop in the same direction for ease of planing during flattening, but should I also try and alternate pith side up, versus pith side down? I think you've got this one figgered out as well - worry about the ease of planing. Ignore the orientation.

4. In plain sawn lumber with growth rings generally oriented in a 45° angle across the end grain, should I orient them all in the same direction, alternating opposite directions, does it matter? I would not worry about it - whatever is easier for you in the build process.


I really value the collective knowledge/experience of everyone here on the Creek and very much appreciate any and all advice before I make the big investment of time/$ to build the benchtop.

Thanks, Mike
:confused:

Tee it up. A bench top like the one you are talking about is so massive, that there isn't really much that can go wrong - certainly nothing on a catastrophic scale. Worst case is you want an upper-body workout and grab the plane to smooth it.

[Mark Roderick]

I hope you have better luck than I did with home center lumber. You have to let it dry for a while in your shop, and I've rarely had a piece of home center lumber that didn't cup and/or twist significantly. I've had eight foot 2x4s twist more than 90 degrees from end to end!

For a bench top, any piece of wood that stays flat is good, no matter what the species. If you can buy quartersawn, kiln-dried soft pine at a lumberyard that will work fine.

[Zander Kale]

I made my Roubo top out of garbage fir 4x4s full of knots that had been sitting in a field for several years. Worked fine, still does several years later. Seasoned wood as it were. I made the dog strip out of oak and sandwiched it between two of the 4x4s, no wear there. I paid no attention to grain direction whatsoever, just put the least number of knots on the top. Construction lumber is pain to plane no matter what.

[Tony Shea]

I think df is a good option for a bench top. It will def ding up much easier than a hardwood but should also be a bit easier to flatten than a hardwood, although DF can be a bear to plane. The other advantage of a hardwood such as maple is the light color. Is a very nice background when setting up planes and other tools. But I myself used DF and love it.

The first thing that sticks out blatently about your plans and the choice of the 4x4 stock is your ~4" thickness. That number is long gone as they are only originally 3 1/2 to begin with and you'll need to plan somewhere around another 1/4" gone when you're done truing them up. So you'll prob end up with a thickness of around 3 1/4" to 3".

[Zahid Naqvi]

Mike, I used DF 4x4s from HomeDepot for my bench (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=199649&d=1309279373). Not the prettiest bench you have seen but I am a minimalist when it comes to shop stuff. The biggest problem I found was that 4x4s generally came from smaller trees and I could barely find anything without knots. My solution was to find at least one good face and use that for top. I think I had to make 4 trips to two HDs to get the stock I needed (the frame of my bench is constructed out of Ash only the top is DF). If you are really picky about stock you will struggle with finding good 4x4s, 2x6s have better lumber but they require much more leg work to get a slab built. I didn't have the patience to wait that long, but you might. Also borg lumber is inevitably very wet if you have the time you may want to let it sit in your shop 2-3 months to let them dry out. The top on my bench narrowed almost a quarter of an inch over summer across the width.

[Rob Fisher]

I hope you have better luck than I did with home center lumber. You have to let it dry for a while in your shop...I've had eight foot 2x4s twist more than 90 degrees from end to end!...The problem is they were 2x4's. They are typically made from the lowest grade of wood, when compared to all of the other typical sizes of lumber at the home center. The larger pieces of wood (2x10, 2x12 and 4x4, 4x6 ) are typically a better grade of wood because they are usually required to carry a significantly higher load when used in buildings. Cutting down a 2x12 or using quartersawn 4x4's or 4x6's is a much better way of building a bench top. And yes you need to let it dry a little, but that really is just a planning issue.

[Kent A Bathurst]

On The Left Coast, green douglas fir - aka GDF - is a very common item......used to frame houses, etc. It's not at all the same as softwood species common to other regions - including the SPF lumber many of us know from the home centers and lumber yards. Because it is green, it has more weight than KD, and so does not travel well - extra weight means smaller product volume on a truck or rail car. So - you gotta be out that way to see it, generally speaking.

Zahid's bench looks great, IMO. I'm wondering if that DF was green or KD, being in Texas? I'm guessing the "203 months" drying time is a typo, since he doesn't look old enough to have waited 17 years....:D

In any event, the DF should do fine. It is a softwood, not a hardwood, but it isn't like the east-coast spruce/fir. Actually, a grade-stamp of SPF is eastern Canadian SPF, which is a different critter than western Canadian SPF....forget for a minute what that grade stamp is...............

[Trevor Walsh]

My experience has been that the 4x stock is very much too wet and will move a lot. I'd stick with the 2x10-12s and get them as clear as you can, these widths are almost always rift or quartered with the pith. I'd buy enough to cut the nicest no pith sections out of them, which will still be cheaper than maple. bark side up or down is I think a non issue, the lamination will negate much of the cupping tendency. Buy 'em, dry 'em, and stick 'em together. Don't overthink it, it's just a bench :). I forgot a step, show pictures too.

[Jim Koepke]

A bench is just a bench…

But it will also be your pride and joy when others wander in to your shop.

DF is a good wood for benches. I was even considering it myself but the deal would have been to buy a whole dismantled barn's worth. I didn't want to have to deal with all the left over.

I ended up buying a load of ash from the same person. I still have a long way to go in preparation. Hope to get trough some of that after Christmas.

If there isn't a horrendous price difference, I would think of going with the maple. I would want to look at it and maybe even take a small plane with me to see if it works well.

jtk

[Zahid Naqvi]

Zahid's bench looks great, IMO. I'm wondering if that DF was green or KD, being in Texas? I'm guessing the "203 months" drying time is a typo, since he doesn't look old enough to have waited 17 years....:D


That was just a test to verify if anyone read my posts ;) corrected now.

[Jim Matthews]

Der Schwartz mentions lumber selection in his bench building tome, including the box store sources.

Let us turn now to our missalette, page 14, second column:
"I generally push one of the orange wheeled carts up to the bunk that holds the 2x12x12. These are generally the clearest boards in the store and you realy don't get charged a premium for them.
I never, repeat never, buy 2x4S. These are knotty, twisted, poorly dried and generally nasty." CS, in whom we trust.

In short, the narrower dimension stock are off cuts of the clean material, to get the most yield.

If you can successfully rip material this size, or modify your design to larger stock (fewer boards, less joint work) you may have a "straighter" path to success.

Jim
Westport, MA

[Kent A Bathurst]

Schwartz knows a lot, on a lot of topics. Dimensional framing lumber is not one of the areas in which I cede him expert status, however.

The price for any given dimensional item fluctuates with the market for that exact item. The quality of a 2 x 4 [or any other item] can vary widely by not just supplier, but also the specific mill within that supplier's company that was the source for that unit of lumber.

Two bits of important information that are missing from the excerpt above is: 1] date? and, most important - 2] species? Grading rules are different for 2x4 SYP v SPF v GDF, etc., etc. AND - the length of the board has an effect as well - what you get form an 8' is often different than what you get from a different length. And - the lumber market, in terms of pricing, is dramatically different today than it was pre-housing-bubble-burst.

[john davey]

I purchased my df at the Borg last month. I got 2x12 16 footers and cut them down. It is still drying on my basement shop and I hope to begin work next month. It is cupping a little but not bad. I did take some time and selected the best boards I could but it was a struggle.

[Matthew Dunne]

I think the OP said he was doing everything with handtools. If so, he may be more hesitant to use 2x12s because of all the ripping involved. That would make the 4x4s and 4x6s more attractive.

At my Borg, all the 4x4s are from center of a tree with the pith in the middle. I take it that's not always true.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Again - it all depends on the species. For SYP [treated or not] that is generally true, and I'm guessing that's what you see in The District and environs..........

[Jim Foster]

1) I think it depends on which boards are "better" quality when your making the selection. Most of the 4x4's I've seen were very "pithy," and with very large knots at varying locations. But at one lumberyard the 4x4's looked really NICE, and clear, but I had already bought and cut mine for laminating up the legs.
2) If you get 2x12, you can pick boards that give you some freedom in culling out bad stuff and still getting 2 2x4 or 2 sx4.5 cuts, 4x4 or 4x6 do not give you as much freedom, but the fewer boards in the glue-up will be a nice savings in time and work
3) There is, but I found I impossible to do with my DF boards, grain direction would reverse everywhere, so in the end I glued them up with the best edge on top.
4) Again, for my glue-ups, it ended up being whatever left the best surface on top.

I used green construction fir, 2x12x28' that were full of knots. I cut the boards into 3 equal length pieces and set them in my shop for about a year. (not that long on purpose) and when I milled them up, they were OK and did not twist up.

5) In general hand planing the top after it was all glued up turned out to be a lot easier than I thought it would be, and I completely ignored any attention to grain, etc... I think if you can get nice boards, mine were not, you might have more luck trying to follow the rules about grain direction

Good luck. I always see the grass(lumber) as greener on the west coast, and hope you find really nice construction lumber to work with. In MA, it was not easy IMO to find nice construction lumber. I know as you go South or into Ohio and PA it gets easier. I've mentioned before in other threads that if I built another bench someday, I'd get 4x6 or 6x6 fir from a lumberyard specializing in Fir. It would cost more, but should be a lot easier to pick out and turn into a bench.

Good luck.

[Andrae Covington]

I was at my local HD today, so I took a look at the untreated GDF (Green Douglas-Fir) 4x material. As Kent has said, there are a lot of variables determining what anyone might find in the lumber rack at their local home center or lumberyard. And what you see today might be different from a week or a month from now.

But at any rate, the 4x4x8's virtually all included the pith, and had large checks. The 4x4x12's included at least some that were sawn just outside the pith, effectively riftsawn, and they didn't look too bad. The 4x6x10's were less likely to include pith, also mostly riftsawn-ish with some flatsawn.

Based on what I observed today, I would go with the 4x6's if I were not going to rip some 2x12's. The advantages of the 2x12's are A) there's usually a lot more available to choose from, which means B) you can probably find enough that are pretty close to quartersawn along the edges. The longer 2x12's, at least 10 feet but better 12 or 16, seem to be clearer. Any of these choices though will require digging through the stacks to find the best boards. By the way, the effective boardfoot prices of the 4x4 green were comparable to the 2x12 green, ~$1.10. The 4x6's were ~$1.75.

[Matthew Hills]

I'd try to avoid knots in your top. Especially once petrified, they are really difficult to work with and shred my plane blades for anything but the shallowest of cuts.

If you can get dried doug fir, I'd try to get that.
Or if you can get reclaimed lumber (but gotta watch for nails).

The largest beams you can get will tend to have the best yield of good-quality wood.
If you're stuck going with construction lumber, I'd take a serious look at the really big beams.

IMO, doug fir isn't the prettiest of bench materials, and it is a bit more splintery than lots of other things... but it is strong and it is what I'm now using.

Matt

[Bob Easton]

Borg SPF for my bench worked out just fine. I used 2x8s and 2x10s for the top, and the aprons (It's an English bench). Legs were laminated from 2x6s. I spent a lot of time sorting through the bins to get the clearest available... and unlike "the Schwarz," our 2x12 stuff was far from the best. Maybe that's true for good SYP, but not for DF and SPF in this neighborhood. The Borg 4x4s were all terrible, spindly little trees, some with bark material on the corners.

My prime reason for building the bench was for boat building, and I made it long... 12 feet long. The top and aprons are not laminated, just 2x material edge joined in a single layer. I did use a second layer along the dog row and used doubling blocks in a few other places where I wanted holdfast holes. It's heavy and solid. Yes, it might ding a little easier than tiger maple, but I'm not a bit afraid of actually using it and letting it get beat up. Pictures here (http://www.bob-easton.com/blog/?p=223).

Three years later, no regrets!!!

[Kent A Bathurst]

But at any rate, the 4x4x8's virtually all included the pith, and had large checks. The 4x4x12's included at least some that were sawn just outside the pith, effectively riftsawn, and they didn't look too bad. The 4x6x10's were less likely to include pith, also mostly riftsawn-ish with some flatsawn.

The longer 2x12's, at least 10 feet but better 12 or 16, seem to be clearer.

BORG lumber is like a box of chocolate - you never know what you're gonna get.

The 4x observations make sense - kinda what one would expect. If you envision a log, you can see that logs with smaller-diameter butts would be perfect to yield exactly one 4x4, with chips off the four sides, for 8', but is too narrow beyond that for a 4x4. In fact, the big mills organize their logs accordingly, and would have a 100" +/- chunk sent through a machine called a small log processor...a log goes in, and one 4x4 comes out in one pass. The upper end of that same log might be run to yield a single 2x4. These will be pretty much dead-centered on the pith.

Also - recognize that plywood mills are one source of supply for 4x4 - 8'. They spin the 8' logs to peel off the veneer, and the centers - called "peeler cores" become 4x4 - 8' - centered dead-nuts on the pith by definition.

Then, envision a tree that would yield a 16' 4x4 - it is a bigger diameter log at the butt, and so the 4x4 might not be centered to provide the max yield.

Last is a log that would yield a 4x6 10' or 12' - we are talking a much bigger diameter log, of course, and the max yield can place the 4x6 cut well off-center. These are, relatively speaking, big, long honking logs - and the price reflects the more restricted availability.

And - all of this stuff is computer-controlled in modern mills. Logs are scanned for yield and log orientation, with the cutting schematic driven by potential yield, current on-hand lumber inventory, and current market prices. It's really cool to watch in person. If the market is flooded with long 2 x 12, driving the price down, even though you have a very nice log to make 2 x 12 - 16', you might instead cut it into 2x6 or 4x4 or........

[Mike Allen1010]

Thanks to everyone for your comments and suggestions regarding how to select the best home center lumber for a benchtop. It's great to learn from the insight and experience of everyone here.

Kent, your comments about the largest dimensioned lumber coming from the best trees, and therefore likely to be the most straight, stable etc. and the regional differences in available commercial construction grade lumber were really helpful. What you said makes perfect sense, I just never thought of it that way before.

This weekend I picked up some 12 foot DF 4 x 6"'s and cut/planned them to rough dimensions for bench stretchers. I was surprised by how clear and straight they were. I'll have to see how much they move as they dry.

As I get further along with the bench build I will post some pictures etc. Based on the surprising quality of the 4 x 6 DF lumber currently at my local HD, I'm sure I could use these to build a very usable benchtop. I'm just not sure if I have the patience to wait long enough for them to dry before getting on with gluing up the top. I may have to bite the bullet and go for the kiln dried soft maple just out of sheer impatience.

Again thanks to everyone for your insight and advice.

Best regards, Mike

[Kent A Bathurst]

You could always put together a couple layers of 3/4" plywood, with a sheet of 1/2" mdf on top....use just screws. A bolt-on temp top until your 4x6 are ready to go. Then, use the ply & mdf for stuff, jigs, etc. I always seem to have a need.....I buy a sheet of 1/2" or 1/4" mdf at a time, same with ply, just to chew through for temp jigs & fixtures..............plywood chunks never seem to go wanting around this shop.

'Course - over there in the way-back corner where I'm pointing is a nice pile of one-off jigs and fixtures that some one needs to take apart and reuse. Too bad no one ever labelled them as to what in the heck they were originally built for............

4x6 stretchers is gonna be one honking bench......that shouldn't move around on you!!!

[Jack Curtis]

...This weekend I picked up some 12 foot DF 4 x 6"'s and cut/planned them to rough dimensions for bench stretchers. I was surprised by how clear and straight they were. I'll have to see how much they move as they dry.

As I get further along with the bench build I will post some pictures etc. Based on the surprising quality of the 4 x 6 DF lumber currently at my local HD, I'm sure I could use these to build a very usable benchtop. I'm just not sure if I have the patience to wait long enough for them to dry before getting on with gluing up the top. I may have to bite the bullet and go for the kiln dried soft maple just out of sheer impatience.

Building a bench is more like carpentry than cabinetmaking, unless, of course, you plan to build a cabinet under the bench, then it's half and half. Therefore, there should be no real problem relating to drying because every part will be braced and tenoned and screwed in place. Now the top "may" behave differently, but only if you don't build an undercarriage/frame for it. So the drying wood can dry in a very sturdy place.

Jack

[Matthew Dunne]

Logs are scanned for yield and log orientation, with the cutting schematic driven by potential yield, current on-hand lumber inventory, and current market prices. It's really cool to watch in person. If the market is flooded with long 2 x 12, driving the price down, even though you have a very nice log to make 2 x 12 - 16', you might instead cut it into 2x6 or 4x4 or........

Wow--That's crazy! Thanks Kent.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Matthew - I oversimplified it, actually. The yield, inventory, and market pricing also has other factors in it. Like grade and length. Do I take some 2 x 12 - 8' #2, or do I go for 2 x 6 - 12' #1 plus 2 x 4 - 92-5/8 Studs and a 1 x 4 - 8'? Under both, what comes out in terms of chips, and what is the market rate for chips to the pulp mill?

It comes down to "I can get $100 out of that log, or I can get $101.25 out of that log." The guys that mistakenly go for $100 are the ones that are sitting on closed sawmills. The computerized controls are amazing - scanning the logs on the fly, making the decisions, bumping [rotating] the log for the first cut, for the second cut, sending some slabs left, some right, some straight ahead to the next sawing stations. And the stuff flies - I mean FLIES - through there. 600 fpm on a saw/edger/whatever ain't doodly-squat - that's a 10-foot hunk of lumber per second.

Think about it - the 8' studs in your local Heckinger's [yuk - I used to live in your area] came from eastern Canada, all the way down the coast, freight, handling, a middle man or maybe two in the mix, and you just paid what? Two-fifty? Less? Shoot - I'll take a guess that if you add up all the freight - from the forest to the retail store - that's 50 cents per stick, maybe more. If you ever want to get even with your soon-to-be ex-wife, in the divorce settlement, give her the stock in the airlines or primary lumber producers.

[James Carmichael]

I hope you have better luck than I did with home center lumber. You have to let it dry for a while in your shop
Ditto on that. I've been chided as an idiot on this forum after stating my woes with big box SYP. I'm starting to like it better (how could you not like a 2x12x16 of total qsawn for 70-cents pbf?), but i've had those same boards check big time. An 8' almost split it's whole length after a few months in the shop. Now I think it needs to be sealed and stickered.
I'll pay the extra for kiln-dried when I build a bench