{"id":161,"date":"2018-03-06T16:01:32","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T15:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/?p=161"},"modified":"2019-01-04T10:19:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T09:19:39","slug":"step-2-wood-preparation-first-rough-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/step-2-wood-preparation-first-rough-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewing Center Part 2 \u2013 Wood Preparation, First Rough Cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ <\/a>

\u00a0 \u00a0 Click on most pictures to see a larger view.<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

This project will begin with a visit to our secondary garage in Wolfensschiesen<\/a>, just up the road from where we live in Dallenwil<\/a>.\u00a0 Even though we have a double garage (Swiss standard, which is equivalent to a single garage in the U.S.), it made sense to rent another one due to the fact that I was given a lot of nice wood from a friend of the family, not to mention storing our tandem bicycle, tandem kayak, snow tires, etc. (who parks a car in a garage anyway?).<\/span><\/p>\n

Since I don\u2019t have my old beast here (a bashed up 1974 Ford F100 that would net me 10 years in prison if I was caught driving it in Switzerland), I have to pick out the slabs I want at the storage garage and then try to see the grain well enough to decide on how I want to use them.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I then cut the slabs with a circular saw into pieces small enough to fit into the car. A \u201cslab\u201d is typically a piece of rough cut lumber straight from the sawmill and still includes the bark. Most of the trees cut in a sawmill are \u201cplainsawn\u201d or sliced from top to bottom.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\n<\/a><\/p>\n

Plainsawn lumber will typically have nicer figure and grain patterns however, it has more of a tendency to move in ways that must be considered carefully before building. Quartersawn lumber will be more stable but in many species of wood, loses the nice grain pattern.\u00a0 One nice exception is quartersawn oak with its rays and flecks.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

What I have is all plainsawn lumber, rough from the sawmill, that has been stored in a barn for many years and is all plenty dry enough to use. The lumber includes mostly Ash, some Walnut and a little bit of Cherry thrown in. I have yet to pick up the final log which is Beech. I like Ash. It works well with handtools and has a nice grain.\u00a0 I built a TV cabinet with it back in Albuquerque and used African Paduak for the top and feet. I used only a clear oil with no pigments and the grain stood out really nice.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a> $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Back to the home garage, I have a chance to further work out rough dimensions for the main parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a> $\"\"$ <\/a> $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

I use a jigsaw to cut the parts down to a more manageable size and then the bandsaw to bring them to just oversize of the final dimensions.\u00a0 This is usually about 2.5cm wider and up to 10cm longer than final.\u00a0 This gives me some flexibility to make a mistake or two\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

The main reason to cut oversize is to allow for wood movement.\u00a0 Even though the tree is not alive anymore it will always move with changes in humidity, even after it is \u201cdry\u201d.\u00a0 It is important to allow time for the wood to acclimate to the environment in my garage before starting to mill it to final dimensions.\u00a0 In this case, it has been in the garage in Wolfenschiessen for a few months which will be close enough in relative humidity to the shop (might as well stop calling it a garage \ud83d\ude42 ). However, once you start cutting into rough lumber, it is almost certain to \u201cmove\u201d again, especially after the first thickness planing.<\/span><\/p>\n

I mill one face of each piece on the jointer to make it nice and flat.\u00a0 After that, it gets flipped over and sent through the thickness planer which not only flattens the other side, but makes it parallel to the first.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

At this point, I only take off enough on each face to reveal fresh wood underneath the weathered, outer layer. $\"\"$ <\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0The oversized pieces get stacked with pieces of wood (\u201cstickers\u201d) in between to allow for even airflow.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

The first set of pieces are for all the rails and stiles.\u00a0 If you look at a typical American cabinet door, the horizontal pieces are the rails and the vertical pieces are the stiles.\u00a0 In the middle will be a \u201cfloating\u201d panel. It\u2019s floating because it doesn\u2019t get glued inside the frame. This is because as the panel expands and contracts with changes in relative humidity (low RH in winter, high in summer), it can move.\u00a0 If the entire panel were glued, it would probably crack during the first seasonal change. Engineered wood like plywood would solve this problem however, I don\u2019t like using it unless it makes sense, like for some shop storage.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as mentioned above, even though the pieces are all flat with parallel faces now<\/u>, in a week or even a day or two, some (or most) of them can warp, bow, cup or twist. Ideally, they\u2019ll have a few weeks to finish any movement before I joint\/plane them again to final thickness and crosscut to final length and rip to final width.<\/span><\/p>\n

Below is a potential piece I\u2019m considering for a door panel.\u00a0 Since the doors are the first things that catch the eye, it makes sense to try and select wood with a nice grain pattern. Luckily, I have pieces that are thick enough to resaw. Resawing means slicing a board through its thickness so that you end up with 2 pieces the same length and width as the original, but only half the thickness. The panels only need to be a third to half the thickness of the rails and stiles (the rails\/stiles will be about 22mm or 7\/8\u201d thick and the panels around 10mm or about 3\/8\u201d). The aesthetic benefit of resawing is to achieve a \u201cbookmatch\u201d.\u00a0 When you resaw a piece of wood and open the halves like a book, the grain pattern is very similar and each half is a mirror image of the other.<\/span> $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a nice example of bookmatching. Not my wood, this is from the internet.<\/span><\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll also joint the faces of these boards and let them acclimate before resawing. Once they are resawn, they\u2019ll have to \u201crest\u201d again.\u00a0 In the case of resawing, tensions inside the wood get released and the two resulting panels will almost always cup inward. After a week or so, they\u2019ll get planed again and then rest a bit more before milling to final dimension.<\/span><\/p>\n

So now that I have the \u201cfirst\u201d cutting done, all the pieces can sit for a few weeks. In the meantime, I\u2019ll finish a couple of smaller projects on my list not to mention some much procrastinated work on the car.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This project will begin with a visit to our secondary garage in Wolfensschiesen, just up the road from where we live in Dallenwil.\u00a0 Even though we have a double garage (Swiss standard, which is equivalent to a single garage in the U.S.), it made sense to rent another one due to the fact that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14,9,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/eastmountainkustom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}