On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 21:37:36 -0800, cwdjrxyz wrote:

Geoff Schultz wrote:
I've been planning on building wine racks for my wine cellar. The rack
length will be about 14' and each column will hold 18 bottles with 2
display bins. I enjoy woodworking and have a nice shop, so
construction isn't an issue.

I had assumed that I would be able to build it for cheaper than I could
purchase a unit. I also hoped that it would justify some new tools!
:-) The problem that I just priced out red wood and found that it's
running $3.29-$3.79 per linear foot for 1x6 in New England. When I
look at the pricing for pre-fabbed wine racks built out of red wood, I
can't even buy the wood for what they're selling them for, let alone
justify any new tools! :-(

I'm not fixed on red wood. I want a wood that will withstand the
relative humidity of a cellar and look good. Pine is not an option.
Any suggestions for a nice wood to build this out of?


If you live near a sawmill, you might be able to buy nearly any wood
they process at a much lower price if the wood has flaws. If you can
select what you buy, you might be able to pick out some lumber that
would have a flaw near the end of the board that can be sawed off, etc.
Of course I doubt if there are any redwood sawmills in New England :-).

No redwood, but eastern white cedar, white oak, etc are available.

The best choice I can think of is teak. Garden furniture made from it
can last a very long time without rot in even very moist climates.
England is full of very old teak garden furniture on private estates and
in parks. The teak slowly turns gray as it ages outdoors and often is
not treated. There is a less expensive wood than teak now being used for
outdoor garden furniture. I do not recall the name - it may be from
South America.

While teak is durable in outdoor furniture, it's not the only wood for
which that is the case. Ipe, osage orange (while most Americans think of
this as more or less a shrub, in the tropics it grows to a good size),
jarrah (if you can find it), purpleheart, and a few others are
exceptionally decay resistant, but they'd be overkill for this application
unless one was using them for the appearance.

In practice, anything from the first column of table 3-10 of the FPL "Wood
Handbook" (a standard engineering reference, and it's free besides
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fplgtr113/fplgtr113.htm) or
that comes up on the list when you select "decay reistance high" in
woodpicker http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/wdpick.htm should be more than
adequate in a basement. That includes most of the more popular US cabinet
woods--white oak, black cherry, and black walnut are all reasonably decay
resistant.

The trouble is that the OP was objecting to paying something like $7 a
board foot for redwood, and any of the tropicals will cost more than that,
and the more popular cabinet woods aren't a whole lot cheaper.

Personally for me if price was no object I'd go with black mesquite--it's
one of the most stable woods around, has good decay resistance, has good
mechanical properties, and it looks very nice.

--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)