Lills Quilt Rack Part III Lumber Selection and Re Selection
Lills Quilt Rack Part III Lumber Selection and Re Selection
With the design finalized and the templates made it was time to choose the lumber I would use.
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| Paduk in my lumber rack. |
Intending to use them on this project, I had picked up two (2) large pieces of 6/4 lumber at the Woodworking Shows when they visited New Jersey in February. One (1) piece of walnut and another of paduk. Yet, when I looked at the boards next to each other in my lumber rack, I couldn’t see the Walnut and paduk playing well together. I decided to reconsider my lumber selection.
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| Which to choose? |
In order to work out the wood types I would use I took a photo of the full sized drawing and made some black and white copies of it. Then I used crayons matching the basic shades to play with different woods and different wood-to-leg combinations. I settled on using walnut for the back and middle legs and a blond wood I believe to be apple for the front legs and the shelf.
With wood selected it was now time to finally start milling. I began with the blond wood. I have a stack of beautiful rough sawn blond wood about 5/4 thick and between 6” and 10” wide which was in the pile Kari Hultman generously gave me a few years ago. I believe it’s apple. I’m no arborist though and to be honest, I really have no idea. I’ve used in the past and found small insect holes in it. I found them to add character and in previous pieces they were always small holes.
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| These large voids were what I uncovered. |
When I began milling this batch, I found the inset holes were much bigger in the pieces I’d selected. Large recess were revealed in a few pieces as I jointed them. I considered these pieces and was disappointed by the size of the insect holes. I was also unsure how the gaps would impact later construction when I needed reference surfaces that might have large voids in them.
I slept on it and ultimately decided to abandon the blond wood. After taking inventory of my lumber rack I settled on tiger maple as a replacement. I had enough of it and it would provide a beautiful contrast to the walnut.
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| Square and ready to go. |
At this point I milled all the tiger maple square using my jointer and planer. The single walnut board I was using for the four (4) walnut legs had been surfaced S2S before I bought it. I hastily examined it, considered that it was wider than my 8” jointer and decided that it was flat enough.
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| Its almost flat and square. |
It was flat “enough” . . . but it should have been flatter.
You can the previous Lills Quilt Rack posts here.
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Lills Quilt Rack Part III Lumber Selection and Re Selection
