Thread: Desktop Design

G'day Mate, welcome to the forum. I'm just guessing here, but are you situated in the US. This is just an assumption, but if so, I am sure one of our US members would be better suited to answer the question of what type of wood to use. As to the darker strips, I would go with the idea of Darker timber as opposed to staining the strips darker.

If you are gluing long grain to long grain, just glue should be fine. I imagin you will be using about 3/4" thick timber, so 3' unsupported should be fine.

Steve

I reckon you should get two different types of wood if you can. If you stain the one type of wood with different colour stains, it's very easy to stuff up after you have glued the strips together if you need to do more work on it such as sanding, final planing or scraping. It's very difficult to go back over it and restain any part that needs it, especially near the joint line.

Also you need to be careful that the finish that you use is compatible with both stains and that the finish doesn't cause bleeding so that the two stains run and smudge each other. I don't say that you can't use two different stains, because I have, but I did find it to be a real PITA and made me wish I had used different wood.

Cheers
Samson 13