Best practice wood

[David Myers]

Pick some small projects for the shop (box to hold glue, wall shelf with housing dadoes for finishing supplies, small cabinet with dovetailed sides), use one of the woods noted above and finish to your taste (my saw till is painted pine, for walnut I'd use shellac, etc).

You can keep things simple and still have useful items, and the act of finishing will let you see where surface defects telegraph through (even with paint).

You'll also see that imperfect dovetails can still be perfectly adequate to hold something together.

[steven c newman]

Walk into a Lowes store, they have a few racks of "Project wood" Pine, Oak, Poplar.....might check out a few such boards...as for Poplar..
front view.jpg
The wood for this came from the Poplar bin at Lowes
end view.jpg
and
back view.jpg
Just so my Stanley No. 45 would have a decent place to call home..
two boxes.jpg
As the USPS had almost destroyed the original Roxton Pond box.

[Zac wingert]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have some extra poplar.

[Tate Harmann]

Go to the bargain bin at home improvement stores - Menards has a great one.

Other than that I think the best wood to practice on is free wood. Get your hands on all kinds of species because if you perfect dovetailing in poplar you will probably have some issues doing them in white oak or other tough wood.

You can often get free wood from craigslist.

[Jim Foster]

Walnut works very nice, if it's not full of knots and changing grain. Cherry seems to work very nice, the few boards I've had were very pleasant. The easiest wood I've had to practice on were Poplar, and it's easy to get. Pine can be a little frustrating in my opinion because it can be so soft and easy to dent or crush just handling it a little rough, even if your tools are sharp. We do not have Southern Yellow Pine locally in New England, which I think has better characteristics when working it by hand.

[Mike Kreinhop]

This is a timely thread, as I have been looking for practice pieces as well. Trying to find decent furniture grade wood in Germany is not easy, as construction lumber seems to be the most commonly available type. I am back in the States for two weeks and found what I wanted at Home Depot. I bought one 9-foot length each of poplar, maple, and oak in 1 x 6 inch (actually 3/4 x 5-1/2 inch), and had them cut into 3-foot lengths so I can mail them back. I also bought a 9-foot piece of 1 x 3 inch poplar to start with and had it cut into 3-foot lengths. It was a bit expensive, but less than a quarter of the cost for similar wood in Germany, even with the USPS postage.

[Jim Koepke]

Pine can be a little frustrating in my opinion because it can be so soft and easy to dent or crush just handling it a little rough, even if your tools are sharp.

Pine can also be frustrating if you live in an area where the humidity is always changing. Pine can swell and contract between when time when the tails and pins are cut and give a person fits trying to get them to go together.

jtk

[Jake Rothermel]

I don't think I'm going to do anything except echo other people's already good advice:

I'd throw in my predictable +1 for poplar but almost more than that, find the cheap(er) wood in your area and practice on that. Practice projects are like cash you take to Las Vegas - don't plan on keeping any of it, and you'll enjoy yourself so much more in the process. Even if you're using reclaimed, pallet, or construction wood from the home center, you can find the "good bits" within larger boards. Don't expect to plane through those knots without trouble like I did on my first projects. Not all wood is precious, especially if it's riddled with knots and checks and other crud. It's tempting to use the "bad" wood to practice and save the "good" wood for heirloom projects but that's a road to frustration, i think.

Above all, enjoy it as much as you can!

[Brandon Speaks]

I have a local 1 man saw mill where I can get great deals on walnut and cherry shorts, they are great for small projects. I use quite a bit of poplar from HD as well. Poplar makes for good cheap practice wood, the walnut is a real treat though and I get get a ton of small projects out of $40 worth of wood.

[Steven Mikes]

• Southern Yellow Pine, the softwood equivalent of concrete

Haha this made me laugh. I'm on my second bookcase build from SYP, this is so true. There are stripes of almost mineral-hard resinous wood through some boards (looks beautiful though!). Gotta keep the tools extra sharp for working, but the edges nick easily on the hard bits.

Zac if you put your location in your profile people could give location-specific answers too. I know here in central NC poplar is basically as cheap as yellow pine and makes a nice practice wood as everyone else suggested. Cherry is really nice too, I made a couple small boxes from it and it's a real treat to work, can easily get full-blade-width transparent shavings.

[lowell holmes]

Why don't you buy an eight foot length of three different species of wood and try them.
I bet you fin one you like.

[steven c newman]

Except....OP has to ship it back home to Germany....I don't think UPS does boxes that long....