On Mar 9, 4:04*pm, Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
On Mar 9, 2:24 pm, "C & S" wrote:

I have the opportunity to purchase some American Beech, sawn last spring and
stickered since at the dirt cheap price of *$.40/bd/ft. I've never used the
stuff before. Goolge tells me that it is prone to twisting an splitting when
being dried, also not particularly dimensionally stable.

My question is: I can just expect 25% less yield out of a pile, or is the
stuff just ill-behaved and likely to **** me off. I'm looking for a
completely subjective qualitative 1st-hand opinion on this stuff. I would
probably just use it as a secondary wood or painted (yes I do that from time
to time) furniture. I'm guessing that "not dimmensionally stable" means -
dont even think about it for shop fixtures.

So should I pick up 100-200 bd/ft becaue it's cheap and I'll eventually use
it, or should I steer clear?

Beech has become a common substitute for maple in chairs and
tables. You can see some of the stuff at Starbucks. * Once it is
cured it should behave quite well. *It tends to be 'springy' and
resists splitting better than most furniture woods. *It tends
to split and warp during seasoning because it does not
give up it's moisture very well, and is especially troublesome
during kiln drying. *Once it is dried, those problems are past.

That's my experience as well. I bought a pile of American beech from
a guy that had it sitting in his basement for about 8 years. It was
really, really warped, twisted and cupped - but once jointed and
planed it hasn't moved really at all. It's a nice heavy wood. I like
it.

JP