Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 27

Thread: Best practice wood

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2018
    Location
    Hilo, Hawaii
    Posts
    208
    Blog Entries
    1

    Best practice wood

    What do you think is the best wood species to practice hand tool work with?

    I’ve had very frustrating experiences in the past trying to say, plane figured/curly wood or chiseling really soft wood or wood like pine with varying latewood and earlywood and not understanding why I was just butchering it and having massive tear out etc.. I’ve read up a later and learned why I had such a hard time and have been able to correct.

    I also learned that sometimes to get past the hump, sometimes things go well and you do a good job once. You gain confidence and are more likely to practice something you are not good at more, and when you try agin to work with a less than ideal situation you have a better understanding how to adapt and do a good job.

    I am thinking walnut. What do you all think?? I may just buy a board that will be totally scarified to practicing dovetails and cut away after each set or may make boxes or trays that I will probably be embarrassed of that will hold fishing gear or something and hidden away and not really looked at.

  2. #2
    poplar isn't soft, nor is it hard..cheaper than walnut. But if you have walnut or cherry lying around, good to practice on that too.
    Be the kind of woman that when your feet hit the ground each morning, the devil says, "oh crap she's up!"


    Tolerance is giving every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

    "What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts are gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts will happen to man. All things are connected. " Chief Seattle Duwamish Tribe

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    SE Michigan
    Posts
    3,222
    Zac, if you’re having trouble with pine, it is probably due more to the sharpness of your tools. It takes very sharp tools to work pine end grain (when chiseling out tail and pin sockets, for example). Same can be said for curly/figured wood. As I’m sure you’ve read here before, sharp solves lots of problems.

    But if you’re looking for more forgiving wood to practice on, I agree with Michelle...straight grained walnut, cherry, poplar, as well as basswood would be good choices.
    Last edited by Phil Mueller; 01-10-2019 at 9:34 AM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Location
    Virginia
    Posts
    1,209
    Look at what you have in the local lumberyard. Around here walnut is not cheap. But prices vary around the country.

  5. #5
    My advice is make projects with wood that you want to have in furniture you would use.

    Just buy a little extra for each project so you can practice a little before you start.

    That’s a fancy way of saying practice on all woods. Each situation has its challenges including grain direction and drying.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    2,151
    Poplar is probably good. Diversity is your friend however. Learning to read the wood is far more important. A board can be far different on one end than the other. Looking at the grain and being able to say “I have a good idea of what is going to happen when I cut dovetails in this end of the board” is far more valuable. Try a little of each if you can.
    Jim
    Forgot to say make a little something out of each you try, a small box a sheif or something.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Pueblo, CO
    Posts
    328
    I needed several drawers for the shop and all I had on hand was 1/2" CDX plywood. I decided it would be a good opportunity to practice hand cutting dovetails on all four corners of the drawers. It was a miserable task at first, but it got better with practice. I learned a lot and the drawers are still in use in the shop.

  8. #8
    I would definitely avoid figured wood or wood with knots when learning. Don't beat yourself up, tho. Figured wood is a challenge for anyone. Often I won't even try a hand plane and use a scraper or sandpaper instead.

    Then again, sometimes it has more to do with reading the board than the wood. Sometimes a board just won't plane in the direction you read the grain, sometimes the grain goes both ways in a board.

    An extremely sharp iron and well adjusted plane are key. So you might want to review your techniques.

    As mentioned poplar is a good choice. Soft maple too. Walnut planes very nicely, too.

    For joinery, I keep a couple extra chisels ground to 20° for soft woods. Keep strop or stone handy, touch up edges frequently.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Longview WA
    Posts
    27,347
    Blog Entries
    1
    Every project starts with the selection of wood. For me it is often the least expensive wood. In the Pacific Northwest that is usually pine or some other kind of fir.

    As others have said sharp can cure a lot of problems. Learning to take lesser cuts can also help in avoiding tear out.

    If pine or fir is the inexpensive choice in your area, buy a 1X4 and cut it to 2' lengths. Then practice dovetailing two pieces together. Then practice sawing them off about a 1/2" from the dovetail. Number and date each one and toss them in a box. This way you will be able to study your mistakes and hopefully correct for them as you go.

    If you chop out your waste instead of using a fret or coping saw you will quickly learn how far from the base line to chop before paring away the last bits of waste. The tear out of end grain doesn't show on the inside of dovetails. The goal is to learn how to cut them while leaving a smooth surface inside the joint.

    My paring chisels are different than my chopping chisels. Parers have a 15-20º bevel and the choppers are at 30º. This makes a difference in soft woods, especially the firs that have a lot of pitch pockets.

    Take note of the wood you are using. It will help you to see what pieces of lumber may be a problem before buying it.

    Sometimes the hardest part of doing a good job is paying attention. If your mind wanders, give yourself a break. Get up and sharpen a few tools or work on something else for a while.

    There are many simple things to make for practice. Just about everyone can use a tool tote or boxes to hold small parts.

    Most of all have fun and continue to learn as you go.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Dickinson, Texas
    Posts
    7,655
    Blog Entries
    1
    I could not have said it better than you did Jim.
    I totally agree.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    2,151
    Sometimes wood does not cooperate. The first is qs sycamore shreds like paper. The 2nd is hickory, hard not easy on tools. 3rd is borg pine, watch those corners maybe an issue. 4th is wonderful walnut, no telling what issues may be with this. 5th is qswo, pretty good, but watch the corners. 6th is qs sycamore, look out, flecks will fall out at slightest provocation. All wood can display all of the things. Try it all so you learn what to expect.
    Jim

  12. #12
    In general, species good to practice hand tool skills on (and build furniture with hand tools out of):
    • are uniform grained
    • are knot, burl, wave, and curl free
    • have little hardness differentiation between early and late wood
    • are not overly hard in general
    • do not crush easily
    • are not prone to tear out
    • are relatively cheap
    • are easily available


    Examples of these in no particular order are:
    • Cherry
    • Walnut
    • Butternut
    • Sugar Pine
    • White Pine (usually)
    • Soft Maple
    • Poplar (usually)
    • softer versions of Ponderosa & Idaho Pine
    • various locally available woods that are nice to work with

    However, note that in every one of these species, I have found individual pieces of wood that were absolutely unworkable, so take the list with a grain of salt.

    It will depend a lot on where you are and what is available to you. What is easily and inexpensively available in the west will differ from the east, midwest, and south. For example, Walnut is quite expensive here, while Cherry is fairly cheap.

    Also note that most people often refer to generic-softwood-that-is-cheap-at-Home-Depot as pine. Actual species can vary from:

    • Spruces, hard to work with hand tools, although sometimes Sitka is ok
    • Ponderosa Pine, sometimes good sometimes bad with hand tools
    • Hemlock, yuck!!!
    • White Pine, very nice with hand tools
    • Sugar Pine, a dream to work with but I rarely see it
    • Fir, usually unpleasant
    • Southern Yellow Pine, the softwood equivalent of concrete
    • various other less common softwood species, can be good, can be bad


    Really, anything that doesn't make you want to quit will work.
    Last edited by Andrew Seemann; 01-10-2019 at 1:22 PM.

  13. #13
    Some have recommended woods that are not at all easy for a beginner because they require good technique to work successfully. Here are two woods that are quite forgiving and are satisfying for a beginner: soft maple and black walnut. These are high quality cabinet woods.

    For practice purposes you can buy lower grades of timber and cut out pieces between knots and defects. You probably will want to use smaller pieces for practice and experience anyway. Above all, avoid the notion that you are going to make museum pieces with your early efforts.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Missouri
    Posts
    2,151
    Quote Originally Posted by Warren Mickley View Post
    Some have recommended woods that are not at all easy for a beginner because they require good technique to work successfully. Here are two woods that are quite forgiving and are satisfying for a beginner: soft maple and black walnut. These are high quality cabinet woods.

    For practice purposes you can buy lower grades of timber and cut out pieces between knots and defects. You probably will want to use smaller pieces for practice and experience anyway. Above all, avoid the notion that you are going to make museum pieces with your early efforts.
    100% agree with you Warren. I do think one has to approach it paying attention to “Why did it do that?”
    Jim

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Lubbock, Tx
    Posts
    1,490
    Kirby recommended genuine mahogany. Of course all the reasons that it is such a wonderful wood to practice and work is why it’s now protected and expensive.

    do you have Beeksvoort’s ‘With the Grain’ or similar book on wood? Lots of great answers but the bottom line is that boards of any species can be gnarly but a few species are in the primo position of hardness for handtools.*

    *there is also a section on good hand tool woods in Jim Toplin’s New Traditional Woodworker. A good clue is the woods used in your area before power tools became prevalent.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •