Results 1 to 15 of 15
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Question Sourcing quartersawn pine for Roubo bench, and best dimensions

    Looking at building a Roubo-ish laminated-top workbench; where might I best source quartersawn pine, and is there any advantage to going with 90x45mm on edge beams over 90x35mm to prevent problems with the glue-up?

    I'll have a go at spring-jointing them but not sure how that'll go with 1800mm long beams.

  2. # ADS
    Google Adsense Advertisement
    Join Date
    Always
    Location
    Advertising world
    Posts
    Many





     
  3. #2
    FenceFurniture's Avatar
    FenceFurniture is offline The prize lies beneath - hidden in full view
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    1017m up in Katoomba, NSW
    Posts
    10,643

    Default

    Do you mean Radiata? My local Home Hardware let's me go through and select the sticks myself, which means I can pull out only ¼ sawn stuff if that's what I need. It would only be about 10% or so of what is there and that's because it's all backsawn which eventually becomes true ¼ sawn by default when they get to the middle of the log.

    I've also noticed that the ¼ sawn sticks have far less knots in them (often none at all) - there is probably a reason for that, but I'm happy about it.
    Regards, FenceFurniture

    COLT DRILLS GROUP BUY
    Jan-Feb 2019 Click to send me an email

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    5,124

    Default

    Pinus Sawmill will make you up what you want.

    Dont bother with Bunnings. While the 6m 90x45's might be very ring-dense and knot free, invariably on the inside is the heart wood.

  5. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    Thanks woodPixel didn't know of Pinus, will check them out tomorrow.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    blue mountains
    Posts
    4,880

    Default

    Flat sawn 90x45 or 90x35 will be same as quarter sawn when it is up on it's edge for glue up. The 35mm will make the glue up easier. They will pull together better. My top was old recycled stuff and to joint I just ran it through the thickkie to get both sides parrallel. There is enough bend in the wood to pull together by hand.
    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...9949332C7FB168

    Do the top glue up in small batches. Say 4 sections then glue those sections up. The edges of those sections will require a propper jointing however as there is no pulling those babies closed unless strait and square. If you decide on a split top keep the 2 halves small enough to fit through the thicknesser. Saves a mountain of work. Still have some final flattening to do only a little.
    Post pics as you go. We all love to watch bench builds.
    Regards
    John.

  7. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    No luck with Pinus Sawmill, they don't do quartersawn, just framing-grade 90x35 ... so I might as well just go to Bunnings and pull out everything they've got and grab all the radial grain lengths, for 28 metres of the stuff I'll have to go to several Bunnings.

  8. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    5,124

    Default

    Fyshwick always has 2 racks of 90x45'[email protected] ready to go.

    They keep a spare rack out the back behind the garden area if they run out.

  9. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    back in Alberta for a while
    Age
    68
    Posts
    12,006

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by NathanaelBC View Post
    ... so I might as well just go to Bunnings and pull out everything they've got and grab all the radial grain lengths, for 28 metres of the stuff I'll have to go to several Bunnings.
    28 / 5.4 is just 6 lengths. You should be able to get that small quantity at a single Green Shed.

    Also, 28m implies a finished width in the order of 500mm -- will this be wide enough
    regards from Alberta, Canada

    ian

  10. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ian View Post
    Also, 28m implies a finished width in the order of 500mm -- will this be wide enough
    Ay it'll be a split top, and it needs to be narrow enough to squish up against walls of garage so cars can be parked in there every once in a while.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Brisbane (western suburbs)
    Age
    77
    Posts
    12,078

    Default

    Nat, I wouldn't get too hung-up about how the radiata is sawn. Most commercial pine is from not-so-big trees, and the most economical way to saw is through & through, so you'll get what you get as far as grain orientation goes. It's a reasonably stable wood, and although the tangential/ radial shrinkage are a bit different, they are not so big in absolute terms. Compare the figures for radiata & Tas. oak, for e.g. (source Tas. Govt. website):

    P.radiata
    Shrinkage (green to 12% MC): Approximately 2.9% radial, 4.8% tangentia

    Movement: Between 25% and 5% MC, radial movement is approximately 0.19% per 1% MC change; tangential movement about 0.27%
    per 1% MC change

    E. regnans
    Shrinkage (green to 12%): Approx. 5.5% radial, 11% tangential before reconditioning;
    3.5% radial, 6.5% tangential after reconditioning.

    Movement: Between 25% and 5% MC, radial movement is approximately
    0.23% per 1% MC change; tangential movement about 0.36%
    per 1% MC change

    What's most relevant is the absolute change over the sort of MC range you expect the bench to live in, and based on the figures given, it won't be all that much in either direction, so with any luck, you won't see any significant change in a randomly-oriented grain bench top.

    I'd be much more concerned about how dry the wood is when you get it. From my own experience, the MC of pine you get at the big shed is a very variable feast, particularly if it's stored in open-sided sheds outside, where a lot of the bigger sections live (at least at the store I frequent). Radiata seems to be a bit slow to equilibrate in thick sections, based on my very limited sample size (drying wood harvested from two of my own trees). However, once you get it down to the magic 12-14% range, it seems to be reasonably stable in the section size it's been dried in. However, if you slice a bit off & there are asymmetrical knots in it, the slice can turn into some very strange shapes, whatever the MC!

    I made a bench for a family member from my home-harvested radiata a couple of years ago. I didn't have enough to be choosy about grain orientation but it has remained quite stable (the top is about as wide as the one you are planning). Actually, building that bench gave me new respect for radiata as a building material. When the bench was requested, I decided to use the pine because I had it, & couldn't think of a better use for it. The bench had to be a particular size & length to fit in the space available for it, and not too massive because it had to be gotten into an awkward corner & will be moved a few times over the coming years. The wood was hard & dense (for pine), so the bench turned out plenty solid enough and the top not too easily damaged. It's heavier than I expected, but not too bad, Spotted Gum would've been more durable, perhaps, but I wouldn't have enjoyed negotiating a similar-sized SG bench down the stairs & round the corner to where it now lives! The tree it came out of was a biggish one, about 750mm diameter with little taper for the first 10 metres or so - probably 75-80 years old, but it contained lots of large knots, as you'd expect from an open-grown yard tree....

    Cheers,
    IW

  12. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    Just picked up another load of beams for the bench from the borg cube (only so much I can put on the roof racks in one go) and these are allegedly "baltic" pine I assume Picea abies not Pinus radiata; curious.

  13. #12
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Seattle, Washington, USA
    Posts
    1,857

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by NathanaelBC View Post
    Just picked up another load...
    Did you manage to get quartersawn material?

    I think you may really struggle to find that in any kind of usable width. As Ian said, plantation trees are cut when still very small, relatively speaking. I probably bought three cubic meters of Hoop Pine from a commercial mill in the Brisbane area over the course of about a year and a half, and not a single stick of it was quartersawn. I'm pretty sure they throw away/chip the pieces that would actually have true, radially sawn sections with rings at 80-90deg from the faces.

    But I have faith. You must persevere!

    I would look for it on Gumtree or I would try hardwood merchants. That seems like the type of thing you're going to find in some guy's garage who has had it since back when you could actually cut down a Hoop Pine that would be large enough to get quartersawn material from.

    Cheers,
    Luke

  14. #13
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    Nah I'll just go with whatever for now and see how it goes; it's all a learning exercise for me, and if it checks, splits and cups in a year or two then I'll have the opportunity to make it again.

    It's not like I know what I'm doing anyway

    I have started an imgur gallery for the workbench build but I can't embed the photos here because image resizing isn't supported and you don't want to see 1500 pixel wide photos so might need to re-upload them here.

  15. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Canberra
    Posts
    5,124

    Default

    If you use windows, the native Photo Gallery tool has a very easy to use crop and image resizing capacity.

    Did you end up getting the pine from Bunnings? The Baltic there that is in 5.4's is really pretty good.

  16. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    Canberra, Australia
    Posts
    370

    Default

    3.6 metres is the most I can load onto my Forester's roof racks, which as I'm making a 2.0 metre bench leaves me 1.6 metres play to get the best beams from each. Having a bit of trouble with warp but think it'll glue up okay; working them over pretty hard with the No. 5 on the high corners but it's going to make them slightly inconsistent thickness which means the final laminated surface won't be square but that shouldn't be a problem.

Similar Threads

  1. Roubo bench - Purchase.
    By gatesy in forum THE WORK BENCH
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 26th March 2015, 12:45 PM
  2. My Roubo bench WIP
    By bsg in forum THE WORK BENCH
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 22nd October 2013, 10:58 PM
  3. Underhill's Roubo bench
    By The Pom in forum THE WORK BENCH
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 14th June 2011, 11:57 AM
  4. Dan's Blackbutt Roubo Bench
    By BozInOz in forum THE WORK BENCH
    Replies: 215
    Last Post: 8th April 2011, 08:21 PM
  5. WIP Roubo bench
    By mic-d in forum FURNITURE, JOINERY, CABINETMAKING - formerly BIG STUFF
    Replies: 48
    Last Post: 30th January 2009, 04:34 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •