what a shame

[Stephen Pereira]

Hi everyone,

I called a guy who advertised"rough cut red oak lumber for sale" in my local paper. He said he wanted $.80bd/ft for mill run and $1.00 bdft for the "premium" lumber. In effect he would let you sort though his pile for an extra 20 cents bd/ft. When I arrived at his place I saw three or four big stacks of stickered lumber.. about 3000 bdft all told. The owner wasn't around and his girlfriend told me to help myself just as long as I restacked the pile when I was done.

I immediately saw a problem.. the stacks were neatly stickered but we not covered with plywood or sheetmetal. I removed the top 3 or 4 layers till I got down to the good stuff. The 1x6's were beautiful.. most clear and without knots.. fairly straight and without bow or twist BUT they had quite a few surface checks. Apparently the pile dried too quickly without benefit of a top cover. I bought 25 boards or so hoping the surface checks would plane out.. they didn't.

It is shame this beautiful lumber was dried incorrectly. Are they any finishing techniques to hide this checking?

[frank shic]

wood filler? :(

[Todd Burch]

Hi everyone,
Are they any finishing techniques to hide this checking?

Yes. It's called veneer. :rolleyes:

Todd

[Mitchell Andrus]

Save it for very special projects where "Checked Oak" adds to the patina. Charge extra for it.

Kinda like when mold gets into maple. "Spalted", not moldy.

Americans will buy almost anything.

[Matt Meiser]

I've had oak pieces develop checks after assembly but before I got the project finished. I've found that stainable filler (I use Minwax from the BORG) rubbed into the checks hides them completely and I haven't had any problems later with that approach. Now I'm not talking about an excessive amount of checking, more like one or two places on a piece that I can't or don't want to redo.