This Episodes Questions:

Brians Questions:

Love the podcast fellas! I have a simple question: When I use my table saw, I usually just check if the blade is "high enough" i.e. any height higher than the wood piece. Is there an ideal blade height for a given wood thickness? Thanks!

What is the most difficult project you've ever done?

Guys Questions:

I’m wondering how thick is too thick to veneer onto a plywood box. I’ll be making a treasure chest for my daughter’s wedding (for cards and such) and lining it in leather. I have some wood I’d like to use for the outside as “veneer”, but it is a 3/8” thick. The species is morado, and they were a “special buy” thing at a Woodcraft I got a while ago.  Basically, I have them and I’d like to use them if possible rather than buying something else.

I recently bought a small bandsaw mill (Woodmizer LX30) and am becoming an amateur sawyer, exclusively to supply lumber for my own projects.  2 questions, here's the first:

1. In what use cases, if any, would you use air-dried lumber for your projects, assuming it is stickered properly, outside, with a rain cover on the top, for a year per inch of thickness?  I was told by a friend who operates a kiln that air-drying in southern Indiana will never get the moisture content much below 13-15%, it will dry unevenly throughout the board, and it won't kill powder post beetles and other insects.  His conclusion is that for any indoor woodwork projects, I should only use kiln-dried lumber.  Do you agree?  Why or why not?  Fortunately, he's well-respected, trustworthy, and at $.35/bd-ft dried, affordable.  But I can air-dry for free, so I'd be curious to know when, if ever, that may be workable.

Huy's Questions:

I have another good fundamentals of woodworking type question for you. Could you explain the differences between grain density and porosity? For a while I thought I knew what at least one of these meant. That was until I heard Guy describe oak as a tight-grained, open pore species. That whole description goes more or less right over my head. I'd really appreciate it if you guys could explain what grain density and wood porosity look like visually, as well as what effects these attributes have on working with a particular species, finishing it, etc. 

Thanks for all of your time and for sharing your expertise with all of us. The Fridays when you guys have new episodes are my favorite days of the week.

Hello Friends,

I have a ten-foot long 12/4 burled and figured maple board with a live edge on one side.  The board ranges from 9” to 18” wide.  My plan is to resaw it into a two 1.5” ish boards and dimension them down to about 1 ¼ to make the parts for my project.  Before I do that, I need to clean up the burled protrusions on the live edge side because I think it will be easier to do that before I resaw it.

My first question is how do I clean up the live edge burls?  Some of the live edge is typical, but other sections have a lot of terrifying spiked peaks and valleys where a burl has boiled out of the tree.  It looks like the surface of the sun right before it’s getting ready to disrupt our global communications system for a few hours.  If it helps to understand what I’m dealing with, my wife saw the board when I brought it home said things like “your wood is being a drama queen” and “it’s trying to do too much” and “how much was that”.  To experiment, I took a wire brush to a small section just to see what would happen.  It worked well from the standpoint of clearing out debris, removing bark and burrs.  But I suspect this isn’t the best method for ultimately prepping this for finishing and is probably a crime.

Once I get the edge cleaned up, I’ll resaw and dimension my parts.  Getting this 10 foot 12/4 stock up onto my bandsaw and perfectly slicing it into two equal pieces will probably go great.   Then I’ll sand the faces to 220.  That’s where my extensive experience runs out.    Rather than give up at this point, what can I do to bring out the wild figuring on these boards?  Fesstool made me buy higher grits of sandpaper like 400, 800, 1000 etc that I haven’t used.  Is this why I have these grits? Unlike everything else in my life, I don’t want to overthink this, but I’m starting to wonder how much that twisted, gnarled bubbling burled edge is going to drip finish on the rest of the board after I spray it.  Should I consider frog taping the faces, spraying the live edge first and then shoot the face as a second operation after the edges are done?  Can one of you come over?

I’ve never used shellac before, but I’ve listened to every one of your episodes so I feel like I’m probably an expert in shellac and pound cut related activities.  I have a 5 stage Fujispray system that I’ve used in the past to drip finishes on the floor and all over myself and my work pieces.  I also have some rags. Robert