where do you get your hardwoods? do you just have your local specialty lumber store? or is there a special place where people are buying hardwoods these days? like mail order? otherwise, i’m looking specifically in southern calif, the greater los angeles area. we have some specialty lumber stores in pasadena, because we have a lot of craftsman builders there, but, i don’t know where the best places are. any advice is appreciated.
i’ve decided to go whole hog into more craftsman-style woodworking. i just sent in my paypal money for an adroni rs500 router table, and i just bought a freud ft3000 plunge router to affix to the router table. i’m also wondering if any of you guys have hooked up a pedal for the variable speed control of the router, and how you did that.
I’m a huge fan of Woodcraft, they have a few stores in CA according to their web-site. http://www.woodcraft.com One note on buying online: in many cases vendors will do whats necessary with digital photographs to make grains and knots and burls look as rich as possible. If you have no other option, buy from a reputable place; but if you can, buy in person so you can see what you are working with. If woodcraft doesn’t have what you want, they have always provided me with specific vendors for exotics that they trust, never treated me wrong.
Just plant a row of black walnut trees around the perimeter of the Empfield compound. In 50 years, you’re all set with your personal hardwood source. Until then, you get to enjoy the ambiance.
In Socal one of the best yards is Saroyan Lumber. They usually have the best stock in exotics around. I am not sure how their retail sales work but it is worth a call.
Saroyan Lumber
6230 South Alameda St
Huntington Park, CA 90255
1-800-624-9309
Pants got the link I found. Check around. I would NOT recommend Woodcraft except in a pinch - I know the store in Richmond buys stock from my lumber mill nearby, and then they add a heft markup.
Also, if you have a good quality jointer and thickness planer, you will save a chunk on milling costs. You pay a premium for 3FS stock.
Now when you say craftsman-style - are you talking actual craftsman style - in which case you are going to need a supplier of quarter sawn oak primarily. Or do you just mean fine quality? QS oak is easily available online if you have issues - but you need to factor in shipping for any decent quantity and that gets pricey, given a good size piece of furniture will use anywhere from 50-200 bf.
As to a pedal for your router - are you actually thinking of a variable speed pedal? I would definitely not recommend that. You already purchased a variable speed router, and those are designed to maintain rotational speed under load. Letting you foot try to adjust the speed by varying the current delivered is a great way to hose up a good piece of wood. Way too easy to change speeds unintentionally. There are remote on/off switches, but set your speed at the router. You could easily have a nasty accident with a panel raising bit if you “accelerated” on the foot control.
If you gt a chance - check out this guys books - I am doing a chest on chest in curly and birds-eye maple - he does beautiful stuff and has been a great correspondent for questions. http://www.woodworkersedge.com/about.htm
Let me know if you have any questions. I have been doing this as a hobby for years now, and other than being comprised with small shop space (what I wouldn’t give to have the room for a good panel saw) I have a fair amount of experience in both power and hand tool techniques.
Edit to add: If you are going to do furniture building - you next accessory for your router should be one of these - http://www.leighjigs.com/d4.php - best investment. Yeah I can do them by hand, but damn this is so much faster.
i’ve decided to go whole hog into more craftsman-style woodworking.
I’m trying to understand what you mean here for a particular reason.
Sometimes the type of work (style) you are doing may dictate the kind of wood you are using. For instance, you may be thinking of building some furniture in the Arts & Crafts style or Mission style, in which case you might be looking for 1/4 sawn white oak. You won’t get this at Home Depot or even most lumber mills.
You could look at Woodcraft.com. I have bought some wood from them and they are reliable, but may be a bit more expensive.
If you go to the Taunton press website and find the Fine Woodworking magazine part, they have a chat room where you would be able to find someone local to you who could give you some information.
QS oak is actually pretty easy to find - woodfinder.com drew 93 hits - so pretty much any state has it. Hell you have a place in Detroit AND a place in Ann Arbor - and that doesn’t even count the internet folks with no direct retail sales. They tend to be pricey - 8-9$ a bf - my local guy has it for 5-5.50 a bd ft - so about the same as cherry or walnut as a cabinet wood.
FYI - woodcraft does not carry qs oak, unless the local store purchases it - they only deal with qs veneer plywood.
“you may be thinking of building some furniture in the Arts & Crafts style or Mission style”
precisely. i’m all about mission, but, the wife is more into what stickley calls pasadena bungalow (perhaps because she owns a pasadena bungalow). she’s very “gamble house.”
me, i’m a mission guy, and i consider mission under the “arts & crafts” heading. for me, simple, very square, few rounded edges, dovetail joints, dovetail butterfly keys, stuff like that. likewise when i do masonry. red brick, red clay, saltillo tile, nothing very ornate.
now, my eventual interest, when i’m about 70 and i’ve divested myself of everything else that takes up my days, is to build a craftsman log cabin, probably appalachian style, with compound dovetail miters, and a timber roof.
but, my IMMEDIATE project (per the wife, and she’s right) is to tear out the kitchen and redo it. from the ground up, with stickley, and greene & greene, as my guides.
Thanks for the clarification - and good to know about mission vs stickley and greene and greene - the latter have some pretty ornate inlay work that would be a challenge for many woodworkers without years of experience.
A couple of things for you to ponder however. Given that if you are going to hold to traditional woods and work with quarter sawn oak - one thing you may want to consider are exposed corners of your cabinets. The problem you face is that the figure on the wood is only on the face grain, and not the edge grain. As such, if you are framing and exposed corner, where you would have substantive depth for the stiles, you would have an awkward look from one edge if you just used raw stock. What you should consider is building up those corners using two pieces beveled 45 degrees and then joined so that the face grain shows both on the front and side (This is a pretty typical technique when building mission furniture where there are exposed corners). A few biscuits to firm up the joint and you are good to go.
Now, if you are doing mission panel work, you do have a choice between flat or beveled. If choosing the latter, I would suggest foregoing the router and do this by table saw (cross grain routing in qs oak can leave a lot of tearout). So if you want a simple beveled panel - take your table saw, using a good combination or planing blade, and tilt the blade to 12 degrees. Set you fence to 3/8ths inch and bevel all four sides (if you have the option of a zero clearance insert, use it). This will leave you with a simple raised panel that will precisely fit a 1/4 inch routed groove. And your face surfaces will be much cleaner.
Finally, you may want to consider doing a pegged through tenon. Lots of options here - you could use round dowl in a contrasting wood, but that is not particularly in keeping with the mission look. My preferred options would be as follows. Simplest is to use a square dowel through the tenon. Leave it a bit proud (1/8th say?) and then use a sharp chisel to pare all for sides at a 45 and create a raised button. Very sharp looking if you go ebony to oak, or holly to oak if you want a light contrast. The other option that works very well if you want a flush peg is to shape an octagon dowel slightly larger than the hole diameter. You then pound that through, and the hole will basically compress around the octagon giving a tight fight. Finish flat. If you want this to be more subtle, just use oak in a contrasting grain alignment.
Of course, with any of this ornamentation I would consider how much of it you want to be repeated - - button pegs are nice in the corners of case work, but could get very busy on every cabinet door.
Also, butterfly joints should be reserved for large panels or pieces, such as table tops or full length door panels. They look really out of place on anything less than 24" length.
“Simplest is to use a square dowel through the tenon. Leave it a bit proud (1/8th say?) and then use a sharp chisel to pare all for sides at a 45 and create a raised button.”
greene and greene use that method a lot.
“butterfly joints should be reserved for large panels or pieces, such as table tops or full length door panels. They look really out of place on anything less than 24” length."
I dont know where to get wood. But if you are making furniture? I can use a roycrofter style cabinet to showcase my roycrofter copper vase and lamp collection.
Over 25 years experience in manufacturing wood products has taught me to invest in good industrial quality equipment if there is any way you can financially do so. I learned the lesson that purchasing craftman quality tools brings. Craftsman and Jet equipment are good if this is a hobby, but if you decide to do this for a living, you will be replacing it soon, so spend your money on the heavy duty stuff upfront. Take a look at exfactory.com. Lots of good equipment for pennies on the dollar.
Wish I could help with the wood but I’m on the east coast. We purchase everything straight from the mills. We do have several large hardwood suppliers that sell the local small wood working businesses. I would be surprised if there wern’t some there also. Example = http://www.wurthwoodgroup.com
“if you decide to do this for a living, you will be replacing it soon, so spend your money on the heavy duty stuff upfront. Take a look at exfactory.com.”
dude. this is a HOBBY. i’m making ONE new kitchen. MINE.
