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Prefinished Plywood – Where To Buy Cabinet Grade Prefinished Plywood
Jack asks, “I am building some cabinets for my kitchen and I am looking for a place to purchase some pre-finished plywood. Thank you.”
I have seen Norm Abrams use prefinished plywood on some of the projects that he built. I think specifically in the dream kitchen series that aired in the spring of 2008. [...]
What is Medium density fiberboard (MDF)?
Medium density fiber board or MDF as it is commonly known is an engineered material that consists of wood fibers and glue. It has been available since the 1980’s.
It is one of those products where lumber companies had a waste product (wood fibers, saw dust and wood chips) and wanted to make something out [...]
What are man-made woods?
Actually, the term “man-made” is a misnomer because in reality, they are still wood products and by-products just re-manufactured in a less costly and more efficient method. The furniture and home building industry is constantly pushing for more cost efficient building materials. Lumber companies are on the look out for ways to turn scrape and [...]
Get To Know Your Woods
Even for the hobbyist woodworker it is good to have a basic understanding of the common types of wood that are available. For years, I build my projects out of red oak, birch and white pine. Over time I expanded into soft maple, mahogany and poplar.
There are two main categories for lumber hard [...]
How do I prevent warped panels?
When gluing up a large panel, will alternating the ring pattern prevent the panel from warping in the future?
Maybe, while it does not hurt the panel but it does not prevent the panel from warping.
How to plane a straight face on a warped or twisted board?
In a previous post I pointed out a technique for cutting a flat surface on a twisted or warped board by using a joiner. Well, what if you don’t have joiner? What if the board is twelve inches wide and you have a six inch wide joiner? A fellow wood worker came up with an [...]
Recycled Lumber: How do I prepare reclaimed lumber to use it?
You have been fortunate enough to get your hands on a pile of recycled lumber from an old building. It has a rough surface, dirty, has nails and nail holes in it. How do you clean it up into nice straight dimensional boards, with a surface planner right? Yes, but not so fast there are [...]
Recycled Lumber – Where to get it on the cheap / free
Used lumber might not seem like a great source of material to build a piece of fine furniture out of; however, looks are deceiving. Rough cut lumber from old barns, factories, and yes old homes are an excellent source of high quality hard to get lumber. This is especially true the older the [...]
Mahogany: What is real Mahogany?
Mahogany trees grow in several regions around the world. Primarily the trees grow in Central Africa, Caribbean islands, Central and South America, and in the Philippine islands. With so many different species of mahogany, the question becomes ‘what is real mahogany’? To answer this question lets examine some of the more popular mahogany species.
Bamboo Furniture: Make furniture out of grass?
Can you actually build furniture out of a grass? Yes, you can with bamboo. Bamboo is actually a grass not tree. Because it’s hollowed out stem does not contain any woody material. However, its hollowed out stem is being dried, cut and glued into plywood sheets. These plywood sheets look and behave like any other plywood sheets.
Pressure treated lumber – Are your children at risk?
Lumber that has been treated with Chromated Copper Arsenate (CCA) will over time leach out arsenic. There are many outdoor play scapes, sand boxes, fences, and picnic tables that have been constructed with pressure treated lumber over the past decades.
How concerned should a parent be? Pressure treated lumber new and older boards (those in use [...]
Pressure treated lumber – chromated copper arsenate
For decades pressure treated lumber was treated with chromated copper arsenate (CCA) to prevent rot, fungus, and insect attacking the wood. The chemical treatment worked so well in preventing the wood from decay that it was quickly used in a variety of projects such as decks, fences, play structures, picnic tables, docks, and framing garden [...]