Wide Lumber

[Lisa Starr]

I hauled some of my reclaimed lumber into my shop this morning for an upcoming project. These are boards they deemed "good enough" to make flooring in the eave spaces of our circa 1838 home. It currently varies from 1.25 to 1.125 thick. I won't know the wood type until I start cleaning it up, but most likely it will turn out to be virgin growth softwood of some type. Wouldn't it be great to have lumber this width readily available today? The chalk markings are the usable width and length of each piece.
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[Frederick Skelly]

Wow. 20" wide? That would be great.
Be sure to let us know what it looks like cleaned up!

[Mark Bolton]

Super wide stuff like that is still common but the standard markets dont really appreciate it any more or use it in practice. It not uncommon in packs of #1 common and FAS to have a lot of 13"-20" wide boards in most any domestic hardwoods. The sad part is they then just get chopped up into small face frame, rail and stile, components. I try as hard as I can to cull anything over 13" and set it back but unfortunately there are very often times when your using every foot out of a pack and as much as it breaks your heart you just have to chop it up.

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[Stewart Lang]

Super wide stuff like that is still common but the standard markets dont really appreciate it any more or use it in practice. It not uncommon in packs of #1 common and FAS to have a lot of 13"-20" wide boards in most any domestic hardwoods. The sad part is they then just get chopped up into small face frame, rail and stile, components. I try as hard as I can to cull anything over 13" and set it back but unfortunately there are very often times when your using every foot out of a pack and as much as it breaks your heart you just have to chop it up.

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This.

Most woodworkers today only want lumber that's less than the width of their jointer. 6-8". Maybe 12". If it's wider it gets ripped. I am a fan of wide lumber myself, but I do acknowledge it's difficult to use and flatten.

[mike stenson]

Location is part of it too, IME. It's much harder to get wider boards here, where everything is pretty much shipped in, than it is where you have mills. Ok, we do have mills but that limits the species. Since I pretty much hand flatten and joint, I prefer a wider board. Doing panel glue ups is more of a pain that way. If I can just flatten, joint an edge and then rip to width I am a happy camper (rare).

[Mark Bolton]

Location is part of it too, IME. It's much harder to get wider boards here, where everything is pretty much shipped in, than it is where you have mills. Ok, we do have mills but that limits the species. Since I pretty much hand flatten and joint, I prefer a wider board. Doing panel glue ups is more of a pain that way. If I can just flatten, joint an edge and then rip to width I am a happy camper (rare).

Wide boards are welcomed here even green/rough sawn for that reason. I use to have a band mill and a long time ago I saw'd a bunch of poplar on shares for a local farmer and some of these poplar trees yielded 18"-19" wide beautiful boards. They wanted their share all sawn 4/4 for barn/building siding. I tried and tried and tried to trade them out of the 19" boards for narrower material in my share and they refused because "you can wall up a building real fast with those real wide boards" lol. I kept trying but couldnt pry any of those wide boards off them no matter how hard I tried. They went up as sheathing on pole buildings and Im sure likely split down the center and were re-nailed down the road on either side of the split.

[Bill Dufour]

Quick search found this one. I have seen pictures of dance halls on one stump etc.
Bill D.
https://inspiredimperfection.com/adventures/one-log-house/

[Jack Frederick]

Flooring? Could be a nice 6 board chest.

[Mike Wilkins]

Nice looking boards. Don't forget to check for nails; they are not kind to jointer and planer blades.
May be time to tune up those hand planes.

[Jim Becker]

Flooring? Could be a nice 6 board chest.

Exactly :)

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Lisa, that's nice stuff. Now if you're using it to replace similar wide material that's degraded or missing in the house, go for it. But if not and the area isn't a public area, keep that beautiful wide stuff for a nice furniture project!!

[Randall J Cox]

Nice looking boards. Don't forget to check for nails; they are not kind to jointer and planer blades.
May be time to tune up those hand planes.


I was helping my son with a very large table project for the fire dept he works for, jointing and planing his old used lumber that he wanted to use for "character". You guesseed it, he and I both missed a couple of nails. I just today finished replacing my jointer and planer blades. Planer blades I had just sharpened last year, but jointer blades were something like 7 years old, they were overdue anyway. Anyway, that's a lot of work, spent a full day with a dial indicator setting up my jointer as we broke a bolt holding the infeed table. I have an 8" powermatic jointer and his 2" thick, 8" wide, 10' long boards were just to heavy for it as we were also pressing down on them. Moral of this story, be especially careful looking for nails. Randy

[Al Weber]

There are several companies in NH that market wide plank flooring in various species. I bought wide plant Eastern White Pine to use in a 1810 farm house several years ago. I limited my purchases at the time to about 27" wide for cost containment reasons but I think you could go as wide as 36" if I remember correctly. Very high quality products but also very costly. The original flooring in the house was as wide as 30 inches but most was in the 15-20 inch range.

[John K Jordan]

I hauled some of my reclaimed lumber into my shop this morning for an upcoming project. These are boards they deemed "good enough" to make flooring in the eave spaces of our circa 1838 home. It currently varies from 1.25 to 1.125 thick. I won't know the wood type until I start cleaning it up, but most likely it will turn out to be virgin growth softwood of some type. Wouldn't it be great to have lumber this width readily available today? ...

Great find! If you want narrower "barn wood" to go through come visit. I think much is oak and poplar but I've found a few pieces of walnut, cherry, and others.

I love wide wood, especially when 8/4 and thicker. They make great platters and smaller woodturnings. (I don't usually do furniture)

You might check with local independent sawmills. It's easier to saw clear narrow stuff but some may be willing to cut wide boards from domestic lumber for you to stack and air dry.
When I get big logs I like to saw 8/4 slabs on my Woodmizer and let them dry. I currently have some air-dried walnut and cedar up to 22" and some thick cherry a little narrower. I often cut a few wide slabs out of the center of the log and narrower boards and blocks above and below. When flat sawn like this cedar not every square foot is perfect but it usually provides some good wood in useful lengths, some with "character". :)

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Some exotics are available in wide pieces from dealers - I have several 8/4 Saple boards about 19" wide, and a supply of 10/4 Honduran Mahogany 11" planks. All this is earmarked for woodturning.
But the prize is an 16"+ board of 4/4 genuine American Chestnut about 8' long, a gift from a friend. It's thinner than I usually save but hey, I might be talked into making some things for the house. I have other Am. Chestnut boards but none wider than about 8".

I still have an amount of an 6/4 Olivewood slab that started out over 6' long and 14" wide - wider than I imagined Olive can get. Wonderful wood.

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But I know what you mean by "old wood". When going through the old barn and other outbuildings on farm we bought I found a number of good pieces of wood 14-20" wide. Some was used for roofing and siding. I don't know how old these buildings are but I found hay in loft that was cut with a sythe and put up by hand. The barn was built by cedar trees as posts and all the rough-sawn support wood was well over 2" thick. Still in use daily.

JKJ

[Warren Lake]

hopefully the boards are not dirty if so barn wood will trash knives. Wind blows sand into it or if its on a floor feet grind grit into it.

[Alex Zeller]

A lot of woodworkers have no way of flattening a wide board so they aren't as popular. Most have never used a hand plane so if their machine can't do it they have to rip it down. Why pay extra for a wide board that you'll rip down? That leaves people with wide jointers and those who can use a hand plane. Depending on the species it's not hard to get wide planks. In fact my local guy only had a couple QSWO under 10" wide. Half was around 12" and the rest was 14"+.

Then there's the kiln drying. Just like very long boards if the wood moves during the drying process trying to get a 3/4" board out of 4/4 could be impossible. So not only do you pay a higher price for the wide boards you may also have to pay extra and get 5/4 or even 6/4.

[Mark Bolton]

Why pay extra for a wide board that you'll rip down? I dont pay any extra for wide or minimum width for grade. The wide's are just in the pack. There is no premium (though there most definitely should be). Someone in a market that would reward it would cull the wide material out of bread and butter packs and sell it on the open market. There is no demand/reward for that here. So ultra wide's either sit on the racks until they can either be used at their premium OR a demand comes for what you paid for the material and you just chop it up. I unfortunately just did a job where we chopped up a bunch or 13"-16" wide clear Cherry that I'd posted on local sales sites a few times at uber low prices and it never moved so it got chopped up into small parts and we still made money.

[Prashun Patel]

The longer I do this, the less wide boards impress me. They may have defects, are often expensive, and always hard to work with.

I admire your old growth boards for their antiquity and stability.

But wide for wide’s sake doesn’t impress me like it once did.

[Ron Citerone]

"I like big boards and I cannot lie." :)

Especially for door panels and drawer fronts. Ripping a wide board to make a front frame or drawer frame form the same color wood is nice, I would pay a little more, but some vendors get crazy about it.

Without a wide jointer, but acces to a wide planer, I would hand plane one side flat enough and then run it through the planer.

[Scott Bernstein]

Used to be limited to narrower boards with a 6" jointer. Made a slight upgrade to a 16" machine and now I love the wide pieces!

[John K Jordan]

Used to be limited to narrower boards with a 6" jointer. Made a slight upgrade to a 16" machine and now I love the wide pieces!

"Slight upgrade"???
Ha!

[Lisa Starr]

I while ago, I posted a photo of some wide, reclaimed lumber I intended to use for a project. Well, I'm finally finished!

Here's a photo of the lumber again:

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And here are photos of the finished product:
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This involved a couple of new processes/technics for me and I'm pleased with the outcome. The last photo shows a shelf that I used dyed epoxy to stabilize and fill the giant knot. That was new, and I have to say I'll be using that again. My other new technic was utilizing haunched, sliding dovetails for attaching the shelves in the carcase. I had a little bit of a learning curve, but I think they came out just fine.

All and all, I'm happy with the outcome.

[Steve Jenkins]

You should be happy. They look great

[Paul F Franklin]

Very nice Lisa! A lot of folks would have tossed those boards but you put them to good use.

[Patrick Kane]

Super wide stuff like that is still common but the standard markets dont really appreciate it any more or use it in practice. It not uncommon in packs of #1 common and FAS to have a lot of 13"-20" wide boards in most any domestic hardwoods. The sad part is they then just get chopped up into small face frame, rail and stile, components. I try as hard as I can to cull anything over 13" and set it back but unfortunately there are very often times when your using every foot out of a pack and as much as it breaks your heart you just have to chop it up.

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Ive had two 1com packs of walnut that were very very wide. 17-24" wide 8/4. And i remember them being pretty long too, 12' or greater. The first time i called my wholesaler and asked him if he was trying to give me a hernia. He laughed and said he had tried to sell that 1500-2000 bdft pack for 4-6 months and nobody wanted the very wide material. I am ashamed, but i didnt personally use too much of it. I flipped out of the wide boards for 2-3x what i paid for the material so guys could make large table tops. Wide material is amazing, but a 20" wide 8/4 board of any length almost becomes unmanageable.

[Anuj Prateek]

Wide boards are available here in few species. Though I never saw one in maple in last few months. Was looking for > 12" wide 4/4 boards but didn't find any.

[Alan Lightstone]

Wide boards are available here in few species. Though I never saw one in maple in last few months. Was looking for > 12" wide 4/4 boards but didn't find any.

Sounds interesting, but it's a 49 hr drive from my house each way. :) :eek:

Really haven't noticed any really wide lumber around here, but frankly haven't been looking for it lately.

[Mike Kees]

Wide boards are available here in few species. Though I never saw one in maple in last few months. Was looking for > 12" wide 4/4 boards but didn't find any.
I just took delivery of 100 bdft of maple that is all 10'' to 12'' wide .

[Bill Dufour]

Not uncommon to see old 2x boards for sale. redwood used for wine or pickle vats.
Bill D