Basswood?

[Al Willits]

Seems in a fit of insanity I picked up a bunch of rough sawn Basswood to practice on, seems easy enough to work on, but its a bit lighter than most woods it seems.

I'm planning on making a tall shoe rack out of some of it and there strength isn't a concern, but I'm also thinking of using it for framing of garage/shop cabinets with 3/4" plywood as the outer skin.
These cabinets will have doors on them

Ya think Basswood will be strong enough for a 4' or 6' wide x 10" deep and 40" high cabinets used for hand tools and related stuff..maybe stains and such?

tia

Al

[Todd Burch]

Too lightweight for that application for my blood.

For the garage cabinets, I would use the plywood for the carcass, and then apply the basswood as faux framing on top of it.

Todd

[Al Willits]

Thanks, may just skip the faux look and go with the pine I have. :)

Al

[Art Mulder]

Al,
Garret Hack talks about basswood in the last issue of FWW (part of the "Five overlooked hardwoods" or something like that)

As I recall, he likened it to Pine, but nicer to work, and he likes using it for drawers and drawer bottoms. I forget what else he said about it, but you might check if you have that issue.

[tod evans]

al, my benchtop is made from 4" thick basswood and it`s holding up fine...02 tod

[Chris Padilla]

Basswood = Walnut's Blonde Cousin :)

[Jim Becker]

Basswood = Walnut's Blonde Cousin

Me things that description falls to butternut... ;)

[tod evans]

Me things that description falls to butternut... ;)

me too, never thought that basswood was in any way similar to walnut as far as workability goes...02 tod

[Al Willits]

Well Todd...I had hoped to make the boards a bit thinner than 4" but if you think that's what it'll take.......:D

OK, all kidding aside..kinda...the one cabinet has 3 or 4 drawers along the bottom and it looks like the whole assembly is just screwed/glued to the bottom of the main cabinet, I'll use Basswood for that...

I need a little rack to put saw blades in too, maybe basswood would be nice for that, ok, its a start..


Al......who's gotta put tung oil on something soon...and would prefer it be wood....er.....lumber

[tod evans]

Al......who's gotta put tung oil on something soon...and would prefer it be wood....er.....lumber

al, although a great carving wood baswood isn`t exactly "fine furniture" material.....save the tung oil for something pretty and paint the basswood...02 tod

[Ken Werner]

I don't know about cabinets, but I've used basswood for a camping saw, and it has held up well for several years, as well as the blades on canoe paddles. Ditto. I like it for its weight/strength ratio. Also - what Tod & Jim said about butternut. I heard it called "white walnut".
Ken

[Chris Padilla]

Me things that description falls to butternut... ;)

Oops! :o I got me B woods mixed up a lil' bit.... :o

[Al Willits]

OK, got it figured out, the cabinet is made out of b/c plywood and will be painted white, the doors will be 1" Basswood with some sort of panel center of basswood.
I'll watco natural coat the door frames and Tung oil the panel, then poly them... if nothing else, it'll be different....plus give me a chance to play with the two oils and poly.

Fired up my newly set up jointer and had fun, followed the suggstions from the forum and between the TS and jointer, I now have some pretty straight Basswood boards to play with, thanks for all the help.

Al .. who is finally making sawdust...:D

[Al Willits]

Ok, got the cabinet built and started on the doors yesterday, decided to make them out of Basswood and went with just shy of one inch thick borders and a bit under 1/2" panels, this was rough sawn lumber and done with a chainsaw mill and the thickness was a bit erratic, so after planning most were about .9" and .7", just planed the .7 down to .5"

Have to say I hate planing basswood, it comes off the planer in long strings that wrap around the cross piece that keeps you from sticking your fingers in the DC I have, and I either get to make very small cuts, or bigger cuts and clean the DC on a regular basis...

Anyway, I know know a lot more about fighting snipe than I did before, seems there's a trick to avoiding it and I'm about half way there, lifting a little on the outboard table does wonders, lifting a little to much and we got snipe.
Lifting on the inboard side...nope, lay it flat on the table and it works well.

I am getting marks from the rollers so they may be a bit tight, but all in all I'm starting to have fun

I was gonna try a raised panel, but the router cutters aren't in the budget right now, so I'll see what other mischief I can try.

Al . who thinks this hobby can be fun..

[Al Willits]

Well, wife let me play in the garage today instead of taking her golfing and I musta been thinking about the planer I won, got the Basswood planks planed down to a 1/2" and cut 1/4" dado's (?) in them, glued enough together to make the door panels and while they set up, I painted the main part of the cabinet.
Once glue was dry I cut them to the require 20x30.5" I needed....then realized something wasn't right, got the plans out again and realized 20x32.5" was what was needed.....grrrrrrrr

To keep the fustration level down a bit, instead of trying to add another 2" to these panels, I have a lenght of 3/4" x 12" wide select Pine I've been saving, I think I'll use that.
So now I'll have a white painted cabinet, with basswood as the door frames and pine as the center panel....thinking what's his name and the coat of many colors here....

If nothing else, it'll give me something to do while I wait for the raised panel router bits I ordered.

Al .... who thinks measure twice and cut once works well....if you can remember the right measurement...:)