Advice for buying Oak for a project

[big soft moose]

I agree - many thanks aswell for the info.

One thing I don't understand is 120% waste. Doesn't that mean you left with 20% less than you started with?

Please advise how I am misunderstanding this.

Cheers, Andrew

i think it means that you should build in 120% of the final boarding as waste - ie if you wanted 10 cu ft you should order 22 - to my mind that factor is unacceptably high , when i order from vasterns i normally factor about 40% (ie for 10 cu ft i'd order 14 )

on the issue of letting them select the boards that is my usual practice - I find that if i call first and tell them what i want they can have it ready to load when i arrive - and ive never been had over with split or poor quality wood - that said vasterns are a very good yard and value repeat buisness , not everyone is so competent otr honest.

 

[OPJ]

The whole '100% Wastage' thing can be confusing. What it basically means is aim to buy double the amount you think you need - not to throw all of it on the fire!! This is to take in to account the two waney-edges and additional sapwood on most English timber stock (as described by Stig above). Some boards may only have one waney-edge, the other having been sawn or ripped straight. In which case, I'd personally lower the wastage factor.

You can get away with a smaller allowance for wastage on English timber; it partly depends on what you are building... For a small box where you require short and narrow components, you may be able to work around the common defects which would otherwise render certain parts of a board as 'no good' for a large dining table.

 

[The_Stig]

Wastage is a funny thing to describe, as a general rule on 1/SE stock you'd work on a 70% waste factor which is somewhere in the middle of the square-edge and waney edged waste allowance.

Some people will talk about recovery factors instead of waste factors but let's not confuse it anymore.

The 120% waste might seem a little extreme but most larger sections like 150mm stock will be milled into 6" x 6" sections or 6" x 8" sections therefore by the time you've taken onto account ripping off the two waney edges and the heart you soon start building up the waste, however like Olly says if your cutting small sections then your overall waste will be smaller as you can rip more between the heart and the sap.

The thing to remember is that I'm talking about wastage factors as rule of thumbs and every cutting list will be different just like every log, set or pack will have better or worse yielding boards.

 

[big soft moose]

fair enough - thinking about when using english hardwoods i have a zero wastage factor as the bits that cant be used fo furniture are turned , and the completely redundant bits go in the log burner

 

[fobos8]

hi guys

got my oak, got it under the bed with strips of ply between them. Makes the room smell lovely!!!

The guy at the timber yard suggested putting some weights on top of them.

Is is this is good idea? Do any of you put weights on your wood.

Cheers, Andrew

 

[head clansman]

hi

i used to when i had the weights , difficult getting any blocks of metal heavy enough to be of use . hc

 

[Doug B]

Andrew,

The wood yard i use put strap banding round their sticked timber, you could probably simulate this with a couple of cheap ratchet straps.

 

[head clansman]

hi doug b

bloody good idea that. hc

 

[fobos8]

hi

after stacking them under my bed there's no room for any weights.

Don't really want to strap them cos they've been straight edged by the timber supplier.

There's not many other places in the house where i can put them.

I could put some wedges between the timber and the underside of the bed...

Is the idea of the weights to stop the wood bending. Won't its own weight do this. This oak weighs a heck of a lot.

Andrew

 

[Ironballs]

The ones lower down the stack will be weighted, the ones on the top won't be. You don't necessarily need to the weights if the conditions and timber are good, but sometimes it does need a little help to keep straight.

I've been maching A LOT of oak for a chair project, all rough sawn boards and some waney. I had one board that went through the pith with sapwood on either side, it also had a few knots and checks, the wastage on that one must have been around 100% before taking into account wastage through planing/thicknessing

 

[The_Stig]

The wood yard i use put strap banding round their sticked timber, you could probably simulate this with a couple of cheap ratchet straps.

The strapping on logs, packs and sets is for health and safety, after use a packs must be strapped once (twice is very large) to ensure that they don't move on the forklifts or when stacking.

The same goes with bearers, although the positioning of bearers is a part of good stock control it also ensures that stacks do not move when they are built. You will often see groups of cut logs in yards with 8' bearers running between them to ensure that the weight of the stack is evenly distributed to prevent a stack from tipping over, where as packs usually have 4' bearers between them.

There are even rules for the use of sticks between layers and with some timbers only certain types of sticks can be used to try and remove the chances of stick marks appearing on boards. When air-dried stock is delivered from the mill it is sticked to allow air to flow between the boards, it isn't usually sticked at the mill as stick take up valuable room on a lorry. When the stock is kilned the stick are removed, a layer might be placed back in if logs are made into sets or packs purely to ensure that the packs do not part when they are moved.