I’m new at it- How come nobody talks about building with fir? Or even finished surfaces of fir? Is it appearance, workability, or what? Thanks-
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Several reasons, but many of them are due to a single cause, the very high difference in hardness between the early wood and the late wood.
This makes it difficult (or at least tedious) to make very clean end grain cuts, so dovetail joints or through tenons take a lot more effort in fir than they do in some other wood.
Another result of the difference in hardness is that it's easy to erode the soft earlywood while sanding, so you get ripples or waves with the hard parts of the grain standing proud.
Fir is also rather splintery, which I thing is also a result of the softness of the early wood. Plus there's some sort of low level toxin in the wood that makes the splinters especially painful, compared to some other wood.
Also, everything I've said here is about Douglas fir. I don't know much about other kinds of fir.
FWW did an article 12 or 15 years ago about Douglas fir furniture. It had pictures of some very good looking pieces.
Edited 1/4/2005 9:58 pm ET by Uncle Dunc
I appreciate the insight- What's "early" vs "late" wood?
http://woodmagic.forprod.vt.edu/Kids/anatomy/img/EarlyLat.gif
I really like fir, but the fir you'll want to use isn't 2x4s. You need clear or near clear fir and you should look for straight close grained wood. Any good hardwood dealer can also get straight grained doug fir plywood. It looks like boards when finished - not like rotary cut plywood.
I've done a set of family room cabinets in doug fir and vertical grain fir plywood and then my kitchen cabinet doors and drawer fronts with fir to match the old fir cabinets. I like the fir because it has an interesting grain contrast and because it ages to a rich light orange brown. It looks much better in the kitchen than dark cherry or walnut, it's warm and not dark (as in "cave").
People don't use it much for a number of reasons. First is just prejudice - fir is for 2x4s, not fine woodworking. Wrong, but you can't buy 2x4s and make fine furniture unless you get some really really good 2x4s. Woodwork with fine finished fir looks every bit as special as any hardwood and better than many.
Another reason why people don't use fir for fine woodworking is that it is a bit of a pain to work. It has a tendancy to split off spinters where the grain runs out. When sanding, I wear leather work gloves. One time a huge spear-shaped splinter went all the way through my palm and out the other side. Needless to say, it HURT!! The late and greatly missed wood expert, Jon Arno, said that the turpenes in fir are very irritating and make splinters very painful. When splinters separate, I use a wood chip to work titebond underneath the splinter, then use masking tape to hold it down until it drys. This works quite well if you can wait for an hour or two. Cyanoacrylate works OK too if you don't want to wait.
Also, fir can be hard to sand to an even surface. It has great contrast between earlywood and late wood - one is very soft and the other very hard. If there is wide grain, say on cathedrals on a rift sawn board, sanding eats away the soft wood leaving the hard wood standing proud of the surface. That's why you want to use only tight grained fir if possible.
Lastly, 2x4s notwithstanding, clear tight grained fir costs as much as maple or white oak, if you can find it.
Recently a huge gift to U.C. Davis went into building a state-of-the art theatre, the "Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts". Yes, Mondavi as in wine. The interior is paneled with gorgeous tight-grained doug fir from the bottom of a reservoir in British Colombia. It sank while being floated to the saw mill and was rescued by a timber salvor. It's a world class hall with world class paneling. You can see pictures by googling "mondavi center" and going to the main website. I'd give you the URL, but it takes to long to find it using this #$$%*%& dial up connection.
I knew there was a reason.......... Thanks!
Dave ,
Here in Oregon with the revival of Craftsman / Arts n Crafts styles Fir is commonly used in many high end jobs . Perhaps because it may be slightly more available here. Telemiketoo has hit it right on the head , when used it will be primarily CVG grade , Clear Vertical Grain . CVG boards along with matching grades of veneers is truly beautiful , typically it is finished natural or a very light colored stain. The cost is outrageous but the results are phenomenal . Since not much logging is going on in the Pacific North West the supply is poor , yet demand is high , hence skyrocketing prices consistent with the theory of supply and demand .I have studied many old original Craftsman homes and it was used extensively in the early 1900s say from 1905 - 1930 . Most people think of the standard Fir plywood with the football patches and 2x4s when they think of Fir. Fir , Cedar , Redwood and Alder in the better grades are all scarce due to the lack of logging in the North West. The finest Alder logs are called export quality and primarily shipped to Japan , get this , they say it makes the finest fax paper in the world.Much of the Alder comes from British Columbia. Port Orford Cedar logs are being hoarded and stored under water in Japan also , as it is treasured almost with a religious reverence. Japan may not have been able to beat us in the war , but some day they very well may own us. Also I would totally agree about the nasty awful splinters from Fir , a lot of pitch in the wood is probably the culprit of the painful splinters.
dusty
Living in N Idaho I'm somewhat familiar with the lumber situation- What I'm not familiar with is best woods for what purpose, and the poor man's choice thereof- I'm unhappy with the notion of screwing up suitable (more expensive) material while learning the basics- But then, why make learning more difficult by using unsuitable material? Kind of like spending an evening in a singles bar, y' know? Thanks for your thoughts- Dave
>> ... screwing up suitable (more expensive) material while learning the basics ...Think about recycling pallets. You can get a variety of woods, including oak and maple. (I've never come across any walnut pallets, more's the pity.) The boards are rough sawn, so you get to learn all about surfacing. And they don't use the long, straight stuff for pallets, so you're likely to find some remarkably figured pieces. The downside is small pieces, you're not going to make desks and dining tables with pallet wood.
"Think about pallets..."- Think is a good idea- I should do it more- There's a fellow in town runs a little pallet operation- I'll go talk to him- Again, thanks for your thought- Dave
I think I've said so before on this forum, but in New Zealand, douglas fir is called New Zealand Oregon (NZO) and is extensively plantation grown. It's used for house framing, external (deck) framing, and in general construction, as well as for pulp (paper and MDF). I keep my eyes open, and whenerver I spot nice tight-grained pieces I grab them (including recycled).
MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking
Hi, Unc. I was walking through the lower level of Boulder Community Hospital the other day, and found no less than FIVE pallets made from 100% black cherry. Security OK'd it and I grabbed them. While I'm thrilled to have all that cherry--anywhere from 3/4 to 16/4--the pallets are built with coated nails, spiraled nails with an adhesive coating that heats as they're driven and glues the nail into the hole. They are a nightmare to remove. A three foot crowbar just snaps the heads off. If you have a trick for getting pallets apart, I'd sure like to hear it...CharlieI tell you, we are here to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. --K Vonnegut
Hi Charlie,Excuse my jumping in, but you might try warming the nail heads with a hight wattage, instant heat, soldering gun. You'll have to take care not to over heat the nail, and sorch the wood, but it should loosend the thermoplastic resin that coats the nails.Tom
Saw them apart and salvage what you can between the nails, which means it may not be worth it, since you are going to end up with short lengths of 1x, the 4x4 crosswise pieces usually aren't salvageable at all, too loaded up with gravel and nail fragments.
Also, the nails were held together in strips for the nail guns with several lengths of wire that were welded crosswise to the nail shanks. When the nails were driven, each nail had a piece or two of the wire still attached and the wire pieces usually wind up left behind, buried deeply in the wood after the nail is extracted.
Salvage wood from pallets is usually incredibly dirty, you need to thoroughly scrub down the faces of the wood with a wire brush to clean them up or you'll trash your planer and jointer blades in short order.
Another thing working against you is that the wood was almost certainly green when it was nailed up, this is part of the reason the nails are so tight, the wood has shrunk around the nail shanks. The green wood usually has severe checking, mold stains and fairly often can be infested with beetles.
My opinion, after several attempts at salvaging wood over the years, is that it is rarely worth it, because of the time and wear and tear involved in cleaning up the wood and the generally poor condition of what is finally salvaged after much effort
John W.
Unfortunately, John W. is probably about 80 or 90% correct about the difficulty of salvage and the condition of the salvaged wood. The only real reason to go through all that, IMO, is that you can find some remarkably figured wood.I've had some pallets that were old and tired enough that I could just pound them apart, or at least move the boards far enough that I could get a pry bar between the deck and the rails. If that doesn't work, probably the next easiest way is to just cut the decking off flush with the rails so you end up with two pieces 20 or so inches long, with no nails. You do this with a Sawzall or equivalent, with an aggressive HSS blade, not with a circular saw or hand saw. If you can't bear to give up the length, another approach is put a metal cutting blade in the Sawzall and cut the nails between the decking and the rails. Then you can probably punch the nails out from the back or at least get them up to where you can get a pry bar under them. You could also get one of those screw extractors that looks like a miniature hole saw and core around the nails.Sounds like getting the nails out of the rails is going to be really tough, and I don't have any advice. If the wood looks interesting enough to repay the effort, you might want to just cut out what you can between the nails. Pretty short blocks. Or just cut them up for stove wood.Most of the pallets I'm familiar with have decking top and bottom. The boards on the bottom have a lot more of the dirt and grit John was talking about, and I probably wouldn't bother with them unless I saw something really spectacular.Once you have boards in hand, you might do your initial cleanup with a belt sander or drum sander and then brush carefully before going on to cutting tools. (In fact, you might want to preview the boards with a belt sander before you even start disassembly, to see which ones are worth fighting with.) I've heard conflicting reports as to whether brushing after sanding removes grit from the wood to prevent undue wear of bladed tools. My own experience is yes, but that's based on a pretty small sample.
At Home Depot the lumber guy didn't know what quarter sawn is, nor did his superior, who took me to Contractor Sales where "they know everything" and they didn't know either but Called Boise Cascade because THEY'D know but they didn't know either but referred us to a molding operation of some kind who said: When the squared log "cant" is run through the mill, the blade cuts off of center- Everybody nodded, so I left- The dictionary says, "...to saw lumber from quarter sections of logs so that the annual growth rings in any board form at least a 45 degree angle with the face of the board..." Is that what you guys said?
Dave ,
Most true Quarter sawn has the growth rings more vertical to the face . Rift sawn has up to a 22 1/2 degree angle to the face the closer to vertical it gets the more the grain will display it . The lumber yard folks may not specialize in woods sold for figure and grain patterns , thus have little knowledge on the subject .
dusty
I have a hard time getting lots of good fir to work with in my area. Sometimes when they tear down an older home I can find and salvage some from the old frame work. It certainly is pretty wood in the right application.
Salvage is probably a good idea, though I'm not much at identifying wood without the bark on it- Recently I r&r'ed a couple of closets in a home, circa 1910, and couldn't help but notice how clear the old wood was- Thanks for your thoughts- Dave
I buy vertical grain fir at a most unlikely place - the hated orange trimmed store (Home Depot). Lowe's also has clear fir. Every time I'm in there I go in and look at their hardwoods and fir and occasionally buy a good looking piece of hardwood or some especially tight grained fir. Sometimes the wider boards yield two good vertical grain boards from each edge and a middle that is good for secondary wood.Once, I walked in looking for 2x4s and found the usual dogstuff knotty wet twisted buidling studs for $2.79. Disgusted I took a look at the kiln dried 2x4s and found 20 tight grained clear dry fir studs for $1.99!! There was a tremendous demand for the building studs because that's what gets specified for interior walls and little demand for the KD stuff - it ended up cheaper!
Is CVD (clear vertical grain) another of those mystery north American terms (like 8/4)? It seems a nonsense - how can grain be anything else? I always assumed it meant quarter-sawn (with the growth lines normal to the face of the board).
MalcolmNew Zealand | New Thinking
>> I always assumed it meant quarter-sawn (with the growth lines
>> normal to the face of the board.Yep. So if the board is lying flat on your bench, the growth lines are vertical.
> So if the board is lying flat on your bench, the growth lines are vertical <
But what if the board is standing in edge? Horizontal grain? CVG really is a silly term! Quarter-sawn exactly describes it.New Zealand | New Thinking
kiwimac mate ,
Quarter sawn actually describes the growth ring orientation when a log is quarterd , then sawn into boards . In Oak the Q sawn produces a wide fleck grain with rays a plenty and is quite obvious . In Fir Q sawn produces a straight tight grain deemed to be desireable for interior works .Q sawn may not always acurately describe a particular grain pattern in different types of wood. When framing lumber is cut into 2x4s , and most 1x Fir boards they are generally what is called flat sawn , this is where fir raises its ugly properties with the early and late grain that can make it next to impossible to sand perfectly flat , hence the desireability of CVG , at least you can get it to sand flat. Perhaps in the states we have some different nomenclature or terms that may desribe the same things. In Oak I use a lot of Rift Sawn which is sort of like vertical grain Oak with some small flecks in it , but not nearly as vivid as Q sawn Oak. We have never heard some of the terms that are standard to you ,such as the (New Zealand Oregon ) that you call Fir, to us that does not exist , nor can I find it in any reference. Together we can learn and share much to increase our base of knowledge.
good day dusty
Clear, vertical grain is something I've only heard referred to in doulas fir, and then mostly here in the Pacific Northwest. I kind of think it's a regional thing. Everywhere else, it's quarter sawn. Please allow us our foibles. Alan & Lynette Mikkelsen, Mountain View Farm, est. 1934, Gardens & Fine Woodworking, St. Ignatius, MT
> Clear, vertical grain is something I've only heard referred to in doulas fir, and then mostly here in the Pacific Northwest. I kind of think it's a regional thing. Everywhere else, it's quarter sawn. Please allow us our foibles <
Yeah. Point taken. I guess the lesson here is that there are no hard and fast rules in woodworking.
But. 'Quarter sawn' is a very old and venerable sawyers' term. It dates back hundreds of years. If you understand what it means from a sawyer's perspective, it explains very clearly what the characteristics of the timber will be. Vertical grain does not, unless maybe you happen to live in the Pacific Northwet.
For example - I'm currently using a New Zealand native timber called kauri. Boards with quarter sawn faces - with the growth rings at 90 degrees to the face - have a distinctive fleck that is uniquely well developed in kauri. It looks almost irredessant. I have a truck load of this stuff, recycled floor boards, and only about 4 or 5 boards in the whole pile (of maybe 200) are quarter sawn. I've gone looking for them, because I prize their appearance. I'd have no chance of spotting them if I didn't know what quarter sawn means.
Malcolm
New Zealand | New Thinking
I look at the sawn ends of the boards. If the grain is parallel to the edge (90 degrees to the face) of the board, I've got a quarter sawn board, worth the cost and risk of denailing and cleaning up
Edited 1/8/2005 5:44 am ET by kiwimac
Edited 1/8/2005 5:46 am ET by kiwimac
Fir is a local wood for me, but I haven't used it for furniture. I've built my work bench with clear, vertigal grain (quartersawn) fir. I just trimmed out my daughters house in cvg fir. I think it's a beautiful wood for trim and timbers in houses. It's pretty splintery to work with for furniture.
Alan & Lynette Mikkelsen, Mountain View Farm, est. 1934, Gardens & Fine Woodworking, St. Ignatius, MT
Splintery- That's the word that keeps cropping up- Thanks for your thought!
Dave,
Douglas fir is regularly used for furniture making in Europe.
"Solid Wood Cabinet Construction" by Franz Karg has a number of photos of very high end work made from fir, and also larch, spruce, tamarack and even yellow pine. The Karg book is a photo book, no details of construction methods and little text, but it a book that is well worth having just for the beauty of the work and the unique details of the furniture making as it is practiced in Bavaria. The book certainly proves that Douglas fir is a cabinet wood.
To minimize soft and hard grain problems, it is best to use quarter sawn stock, which has a beautiful grain, as much as possible.
Working with fir is primarily a power tool endeavor and "fussy" joints, especially dovetails, aren't well adapted to the wood. Chiseling out shallow pockets for hinge leaves can also be a challenge, I use a trim router to remove most of the waste and then just clean up with a chisel.
A source for good quality Douglas fir, at a reasonable price, is to go through the 10 and 12 inch wide 2x's at the lumber yard. The wide boards usually come from the largest, oldest, and tightest grained trees. With luck, you can find wide boards with 4 to 5 inch wide strips of perfectly clear quarter sawn down one or both edges. The construction grade stuff will need to be stickered and dried properly to be used for furniture making, so you have to plan ahead. Don't forget to seal the ends of the boards, the wood end checks easily, but is very stable once it is dried, more stable in fact than many traditional cabinet woods.
Douglas fir is a challenging wood to work with but you can make beautiful furniture out of it.
Hope this helps, John W.
Edited 1/5/2005 1:21 pm ET by JohnW
It "helps" a great deal, thanks- There's hope! But I should probably know what "quarter sawn" means before I bought any fir- Uh.........
Dave,
Some of the questions you are asking suggest that you lack the basic knowledge about how wood works. I'd suggest that you get a copy of "Understanding Wood" by Bruce Hoadley, it contains information that anyone who intends to make furniture must know. If you don't understand the basics, you will have a lot of frustrating experiences as you try to make furniture.
John W.
"...lack a basic understanding..." I'd say that sums it up- Thanks for the reference- I'll start with it- Dave
Dave, my daughter works at this hotel in Tofino, British Columbia so I thought I'd give them a plug. All their woodwork is edge grain Douglas Fir. Beautful work.
http://www.longbeachlodgeresort.com/photogallery1.html
Lovely place, and thank you- What is "edge grain"?
It's the same as CVG- clear vertical grain. I think that's also another way of saying quarter sawn?
I hope you weren't directing a question to me there- Think I'd better get a book on woodworking vocabulary if there's such a thing- Thank you-
the stuff don't grow around here (minnesota) we have walnut and cherry and plenty of other great woods so why should we truck the stuff in .
Fir has a great deal of srength and other features that make it a wonderful wood to build houses from while not offering the figure or color that some of our native woods offer!
A little late here, but all I can say is I built a 24 foot boat from nothing but straight grain Douglas Fir and some water proof glue and bronze screws. That was 20 years ago. The boat still floats!
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