X-mass present for daughter, play baby doll crib. Figure if I’m gonna put the time in and doing it at the repeated suggestions of mother, grand-parents, and aunts it should be an heirloom type piece. Dovetail joints, little pull out drawer under bed bottom, maybe tongue and grooved sidewalls, all routered edges, etc…
That said, best wood selection based on cost, and workability. Not pine-too cheap.
My Grandfather all-ready set the standard with his gifts for my Mom when she was little. All stuff we still have and works like a miniature working piano in full detail and working all wood tricycle, miniature school desk, rocking chair, and play tea cup china cabinets. On top of that the guy didn’t have ANY power tools .
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mahagony. Tight grain, no knots, stains well, machines easily.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Edited 12/2/2008 9:18 am ET by FastEddie
cherry, maple (can be stained to look sim to cherry), or birch (painted) mostly in that order for me. Oak could work but for something small like this, the grain is too 'large' IMO.
Cherry or walnut would get my vote.
The only thing missing from you question is the type of finish you want. Stained or painted? If stained, light or dark?
For an heirloom piece, I would recommend skipping the staining process altogether. If you want it light, pick maple, medium is cherry and dark is mahogany. Just a clear coat on any of these would look beautiful. Like someone else said, avoid oak. It doesn't hold small details well, IMO.
Poplar might be a good choice. It's harder than pine, easy to work, and reasonably priced. Around here, Home Depot carries it as dimensioned lumber and I've had very good results using it.
One downside to poplar is it's color variations. I've seen boards ranging from creamy white to shades of green, to almost black. Depending on how you plan to finish your stuff, a little "cherry picking" may be necessary when you pick your stock.
Poplar can be difficult to stain - it blotches much like pine. It paints very well, and I've had good luck with clear finishes on "cherry picked" stock.
I made these shop cabinets last year from materials left over from other projects. The drawer fronts and "skirt" trim pieces are poplar. I also made some drawer pulls from scrap Rosewood and finished them with oil based polyurethane. Not exactly "fine furniture", but I've been told that they're way too nice for a shop. - lol
Your location plays a big par in what is cost effective. North of the Mason Dixon line, Ash is widely available and cheap. Also Cherry is plentiful.
For what you describe ( I wouldn't paint, teething on rails and such) I'd lean towards Walnut. It works well, smells good, needs little in the way of prestain/staining and is durable. Around here in Ky, Cherry,Walnut, Maple are all about the same price per BF.
If you have need to have it surfaced, a good hardwood supplier usually has that capabilty, expect to pay more tho'.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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I'd vote maple, with a minimal finish-beeswax or salad bowl finish. I'd want something that I could literally chew and slurp on without puckering.
my only issue with walnut is that the dust is more irritating when you work with it, makes me wonder if the wood itself is a little irritating to a baby too?
k
You know that Walnut ( Juglans Nigra) has a sedative like quality ? That's also what makes it toxic to other plantings and even the sawdust is often irritating to horses when used in the stalls.
Cherry also has Hydrocyanic Acic which can be lethal to animals when used as bedding. And around here in Horse country, the catapillars would eat the cherry leaves, poop them digested down, horses eat the grass, and suddenly had spontaneous aborts of foals. There was a mass felling of cherry here in almost all the pastures, and it glutted the market.
So, I guess with that said, I'd tend to agree with your choice of Maple.
Unless the OP can handle buying sight unseen lumber tho', and having it shipped in, I guess he is still working with whats available locally.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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actually, a sedative based crib sounds pretty good... <JK>
I heard about the horse thing, hadn't heard the explanation though. interesting.
And frankly, I don't know much about the chemistry of maple vs walnut, ash or hickory. I'm making an assumption based on butcher blocks and maple syrup as much as anything... not real scientific. and the walnut is probably only an issue of inhaling dust, I don't recall any major skin irritation like with ipe.
I do know that the crib our in laws generously bought for us from target stank like benzene when we unpacked it- the manufacturer in china must have wrapped it up soon after finishing it. the smell was overpowering. I'm sure it would have offgassed pretty quick, but we had to return it. we were so embarrassed, felt like they must have been offended by our ungratefulness...
we ended up with a ridiculously expensive maple crib, and the first thing i did was lick it and gnaw on it. tasted fine.
k
Sedative would be nice if they worked, but she just gets soooo tired she only get's cranky and won't sleep.
The crib I'm asking about here is not for her, it's for her baby doll.
hey- responding to yesterday's gentle reminder that the crib was for her doll, not her.
d'oh.
I've gotta read more carefully. I've missed a couple of details like that recently.
k
Thanks guys.
No paint, finish I'm leaning towards darker reds by means of stains or natural. Mahogany is out of budget for sure. Pine would be great but dosen't have that heirloom quality/feel/grain to it.
Normally I'd would pull oak from my own stock for anything decorative like this since I have a lot laying around and it would look good. Problem is I'll get impatient and frustrated trying to remove a little material and than *#@& there goes a whole corner or giant gauge and the piece is ruined.
So where do these recommended species fall as for ease of routing/shaping/sanding and than on the price scale where do they fall.
I am north of the Mason Dixon line, Mich.
Mich has LOTS of Cherry, and Hard Maple. I'd ballpark 4 bucks a BF for FAS of either. Both machine well, but sharp tooling is a must, both burn if you dilly dally when routing and sawing. Usually, not a problem if you know to expect it and plan accordingly.
If I get burns that show,a quick swipe with a scraper is all that ya need, then sand as usual. Don't try to sand out burns, you just fubber up the surrounding area.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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The wood that works the easiest and produces the nicest finish is walnut. All of the other hard woods have issues.. Maple is really hard very tough to stain, Cherry burns easily and etc..
I could make a hundred timbers with a single set of planner blades on my black walnut but one timber of white oak would barely finish with a set of planner blades..
Take a sharp scrapper to black walnut and the wood gets a nice smoooooooth glow to it!
(whatever wood you use finish it with shellac.. it's the only finish that people have been eating all of their lives (it's on pills and candy) plus it's insanely easy to do a flawless job with.
The cost of wood is a tiny fraction of the value of a product. but for say 5 bd.ft. of black walnut expect to pay as much as $50.00 whereas oak should cost only $25 and Ash would be about $20.00
That's at retail..
Buy it wholesale and the costs plummet down dramatically. In todays market if you buy it rough and green directly from a mill you can expect to pay $10.00 for 5 bd.ft. of Black walnut, $4.00 for Oak and $1.00 for ash.
I love walnut, and cherry is a good choice, too. I've worked with Spanish cedar and it's a real dream. It's got a nice tight grain, it's got a warm color, and will withstand some neglect.You might want to consider using shellac as your finish since its non-toxic, easy to repair, and looks like an heirloom piece when you're done.--
James Kidd
http://www.carpenterconfidential.com
Frenchy, Sphere, thanks those where the kind of answers I was looking for. Thoughts on aromatic cedar I've got a bit of that laying around already also?
I've seldom used spanish cedar. Sphere?
Spanish Cedar is similar too and sometimes used as cigar box wood. It's akin to a mahogony in appearance and work-a-bility. I'd be a little concerned with it having enough strength for this type of application. That and it is not readily available to many areas.
I stick with what I KNOW will last and by following some leads and hints of surviving antiques, Cherry, Wal. and Maple are/were staples of the trades.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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Funny you mention that cedar, I just aquired a huge lot of it, sawn into 1x at some wide widths. I guess you COULD use that, but for some reason, it isn't making me excited..I dunno, maybe too knotty? I'm making flooring, and rustic is the word.
I'm inclined to say there are better options as previously stated. But I can't put my finger on why that is.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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What's wrong with Cherry?
I Don't know, that's why I'm asking.
So far eliminated mahogany (too expensive), pine (not the heirloom feel to it), Oak (overall weight of piece and workability) ebony, zebra, Brazilian (exotics-wrong app.)
Just leaves some other 20,000 species to pick from.
Both cherry and maple have similar workability. Cherry burning easier might be the only issue you find. Do you want this to be dark or light? If you're going for a rich, old world look, you can't go wrong with cherry. If you want a clean, new look, go with maple. Both will look great and will last a hundred years or more. Cherry will look better as it ages and gets used. Prices are comparable too.
Hard maple, sanded perfectly, and left unfinished.
Got the idea from the wagon full of blocks that most kids my age (born when Moses was a corporal) pulled around.
My first choice for heirloom quality would be maple or cherry. But Paduak (purple heart) has some possibilities, too.
You are aware that those are two different species? And both are rather hard and coarse grained, prone to finishing issues around the large pores, without either a grain filler or lots of sealing.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
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I tried to look up a family "tree" for the various species and couldn't find one, but I believe Padauk and Purple Heart are at least cousins.
cherry does two things I don't like.. it darkens with age the patina while highly desireable isn't always appealing to children.. Second it burns really easily when cutting or doing other work to it..
There is actually a skill to doing great work with cherry that a lot of other woods don't have..
I would go with maple with a penetrating oil finish. Cherry is a close second.
They both are tight grained, machine crisply, and last forever for this type of project.
Thanks for the help guys.
I remembered late yesterday I had a resource for the very question I asked and I’ll try to attach it here for everyone’s use/information. The book version is a lot nicer it gives a ½ page write up on each verity and good picture of a clean sample half stained. I just went thru and changed the Authors bar graph representations of scale to a numerical value based on 1-15. Did it that way because the tables in the book where all 15/16” long so a 3/16” bar on the graph became a value of 3.
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I’d recommend the book too it’s a full color 192 pg. book on wood going from the forest and what conditions create what in growth and why, to milling approaches, selection, grading, how too, coping with wood conditions like cupping, bows, and twist for milling. Goes into drying and storage including how to build your solar kiln, buying lumber and into veneers, and engineered products. Very informative from sapling too end uses and reclaimed wood.
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Anyway;
Cedar and spanish cedar? No way for me.
Oak? Wouldn't be my first choice, but you can get a nice finish if you fill the grain. You can get a nice effect from oak by staining and sealing the wood, then filling the grain with a different colored pore filler and then sealing again.
I'd consider maple if wanting a naturally light colored finish, or maybe maple with a gel stain if wanting a medium finish. Juducious use of flamed or birdseye panels will set the piece off nicely.
For heirloom quality and appearance, a naturally dark finish, and nice grain...my first choice would be mahogany. Second walnut. Third cherry.
I'm in CT where everything is expensive, and I just bought a bunch of 6/4, 9" wide boards for about $7 a bdft. Used them as a desktop in a home office/library.
It's been a while since I've worked with mahogany, and man, like others have said, it mills easily, takes stain probably easier than any other wood, and just looks too nice when finished.
Walnut next. A little more difficult in some regards. About the same $$ as mahogany.
Cherry last. As others have mentioned, it does burn, unless you precondition it, it can take stain unevenly, etc, etc. About $3-$4 a bdft.
For heirloom work, sanding is fine, but if you can follow that with light passes from a scraper, it really opens up the wood. Sanding can sometimes burnish the wood and can limit how the grain takes the stain and how the wood shows off its grain.
I vote cherry
maple is a pita to stain. too blotchy
walnut, mahogany too soft for a childs toy
oak machines easy enough if you want that look
ashe is cheaper and can be stained to look like oak
quarter sawn white oak will give it that timeless rifting
poplar ok if you are painting it