On Mar 9, 8:16 pm, "George" wrote:
"C & S" wrote in s.com...



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?

Expect a LOT of waste. Fred might get beech that behaves, but none such up
here where it's pretty abundant. American beech was used in the past for
flooring, but even nailed and T&G couldn't tame it. It'll do the Borg 2x4
trick when ripping like as not. It's pallet lumber mostly.

Air dried or kiln dried?


The big boys up the road are steaming the stuff to try and equalize the
stresses, but I didn't notice an awful lot of difference when we worked with
their donated experiments at the school. Might have found the formula by
now, but yours is air dried, so no help from new technology. European
beeches are much better behaved.

European beech was the preferred wood for wooden bodied planes
and other hand tools in Europe. During the Colonial period and up
to the early 1800's yellow birch was commonly used on this side
of the pond. After that, (which corresponds to expansion past the
Apalachians) beech became the dominant wood used for hand
planes and wooden hand tools in general, with the most common
exception being clamps, which still were mostly made of yellow birch.

Ohio Tools which was a major manufacturer of wooden bodied
planes in/near Columbus used beech for almost all, though they
made some high end planes of Rosewood and maybe Boxwood.

It is commonly accepted that kiln dried wood is more stable than
air dried, but luthiers tend to prefer air-dried and the folks who
make
wooden-bodied planes in Europe claim to air dry their billets for
5 years or more. Maybe it depends on the species, climate, or
the patience of the person drying the wood.

That, and the fact that there are several species of Beech in
North America leads me to suppose that there are lots of
reasons for personally experience to vary.

--

FF