First Project and wow is wood expensive

[Blake Barr]

Hello!

I'm a brand new woodworker and having gone through a tool collection phase I feel ready to take on a first project. I decided to make a cabinet for my sister to do hair with at home. She still lives with the folks so the design is intentional for the space and has dictated the size/shape etc of the wood used. I plan to construct the carcass out of MDF or cheap ply as it will be painted but I wanted to use tiger/curly maple for the doors and do a modern slab design on the doors. After calculating everything out I needed 2 32x26" (approx) doors. Basically I calculated I needed 6 10'x8" 4/4 boards to make book matched doors. I brought up on a bf calc and I it came out to 40bf total.... and at 5.25 a bf it was $210 ....

So do they make curly maple veneered MDF core ply or do I need to get a good resaw blade and make my own veneered MDF doors?

[Ryan Baker]

Good luck finding tiger maple with nice figure for 5.25. $200 isn't bad. You're going to add almost that much for the MDF too. Get used to it. You haven't even gotten to the expensive wood yet.

Yes, you can buy figured maple veneer and go that route if you choose. It probably won't save you as much as you think, especially after you factor in the extra materials, tools, and effort it will take to apply the veneer well. I wouldn't put veneer over MDF anyway -- though you can probably get away with it if it stays dry.

Have fun with it whichever way you choose to go.

[Blake Barr]

I'm going off the price list at my "local" hardwood dealer (http://www.highlandhardwoods.com/ret...od-lumber.html) they list 5.25 for soft curly maple (I honestly don't know the diff between hard/soft curly maple). I'm going to head up there tomorrow. It'll be my first trip to an actual hardwood dealer so it should be eye opening and fun to go see all the woods I've been reading about in person.

[Peter Quinn]

You can get any custom plywood laid up you want, not sure it will be cheaper or not. Minimum quantities might get in your way. For instance a single sheet of AA plywood in a vaguely figured veneer sells for in the neighborhood of $280? So you might want to make a few more doors than two with even a single sheet.

I'd go with making my own with an 1/8" veneer (curly on the outside, whatever on the inside). If not, check with Roberts Plywood at getwood.com. There is a West Coast supplier I can't seem to remember or find currently.

[Blake Barr]

that sounds like a reasonable reason to buy a resaw blade and fence for my bandsaw.... the plywood route would be "easier" but I want to work with some real hardwood lumber. Every project I have ever done is utilitarian and centers around a sheet or two of MDF so making my own veneer would be preferable. I don't own a vac press though so I'd have to rig up my own small manual veneer press........

As for suppliers I'm in New England so east coast works fine... thanks for the tips...

[Greg Cuetara]

Blake,
Enjoy your trip to HH. They are great up there and have some really great wood. If you have questions ask the guys there as they are very helpful. When you go in just walk through the front door and right through the next set of doors to the warehouse. They do have a shorts area where the lumber is discounted a bit and sometimes they have specials once in a while. Every saturday I have been in there it has been very quiet so the guys have been helpful.

I am on a cherry kick right now and they have s2s cherry skip planed to 7/8 for $2.40 bd.ft. When I go I usually pull out every board and pick through till I find what I want for sizes, color etc. So far their cherry special has been some curly cherry which when finished is spectacular. Don't be bashful about picking through what they have just put it back neatly and no one will care. If you are looking at buying curly maple in the rough you may want to bring a small block plane to see what the figure is on each board. I have never done that before so talk to the guys before you start planning away.

Back to your OP. Solid wood is expensive especially quality wood which is why good furniture is so expensive. As others have said on this forum the cost of the wood is a small cost in the overall grand scheme of the project. Look at how much time you will spend putting everything together along with how much you have spent on tooling your shop and finishing supplies.

Good Luck and have fun.
Make sure you give yourself enough time and after your stop to HH go down the street to Brentwood Machine and take a look at the big iron.

Greg

[Blake Barr]

Good Luck and have fun.
Make sure you give yourself enough time and after your stop to HH go down the street to Brentwood Machine and take a look at the big iron.

Greg

That sounds great! It's nice to hear I can spend some time taking in all that is offered. I wanted to break away for the last couple months to just go look but they where closed over the holidays (which gave me time to drop into brentwood machine) and I've been busy all Jan. I'm excited to go! I understand in the long run wood isn't expensive compared to the quality but my sis doesn't have much money and I'm not in a spot to supplement her... I'm just glad to have a project!

As for big iron I've been swooning over big jointers/planers.... I have my eyes peeled for a CL deal....

[Greg Cuetara]

As for big iron I've been swooning over big jointers/planers.... I have my eyes peeled for a CL deal....

Not if I see one first

[Frank Drew]

After calculating everything out I needed 2 32x26" (approx) doors. Basically I calculated I needed 6 10'x8" 4/4 boards to make book matched doors. I brought up on a bf calc and I it came out to 40bf total....

Blake,

Maybe it's my rusty math skills, or maybe I misunderstood the details of your project, but do you really need 40 bf to make two 32"x26" doors ?

[Blake Barr]

Blake,

Maybe it's my rusty math skills, or maybe I misunderstood the details of your project, but do you really need 40 bf to make two 32"x26" doors ?

the doors are 26 and 9/16th wide

3/4 in doors yah... wait....

36" x 8" would yield 1/4 of a panel after milling...

so 36" x 8 panels = 288" of 4/4 8" wide and with milling losses I figured 6 10" x 8" boards would get me there ...

wait....

(288 X 8 X 1) / 144 = 16bf....................................... I messed that up somehow... that's less than $100.... nice... now how did I screw that up? maybe I was thinking of 8/4 for doing book matching (higher $$ per bf than 5.25 anyways and I don't have a resaw blade...)

I would hope the "waste" I'd rip off would be enough for the face frames....

thanks for pointing that out

[Brent Leonard]

you can build your own GOOD furniture, alot cheaper than buying real handmade hardwood furniture, but I doubt you will be able to build your good furniture cheaper than the mass produced furniture at the wharehouse furniture stores.

I think alot of people, myself included, get into woodworking to save money on our furniture, then end up doing it for the enjoyment and quality of our own work.

wood is expensive. good wood, even more so. but boy is it nice!!

[Craig T. Smith]

Blake, Welcome. When I started getting into woodworking I thought about all this money I was going to save then I checked out pricing Wow what an eye opener. But since I was in it for a hobby, stress reliever and fun I could justify it. I had to make something for my step son to bring my wife around though. Learn ahve fun and enjoy. Happy Woodworking, Craig

[Rob Young]

Yes, good quality hardwood is expensive. But if you are doing this as a hobby then it is reasonable to use $0 for labor and overhead when comparing costs of a piece you build to something of comparable quality you could purchase.

In my fevered little brain, I have accepted the $0 labor/overhead argument for myself because I am taking a long view of getting several large projects done. I will still buy manufactured furniture when appropriate (need it now, etc) but for certain pieces I have resolved to build them myself and not worry about the material cost. Worry only about the design and finished piece asthetics.

Oh, and if you haven't already started using a spreadsheet to help you figure matierals and even some very rough cutting diagrams (stay flexible when figuring out how to extract workpieces from rough pieces) I suggest get comfortable with a spreadsheet. You can tell cells to format in decimal or fractional numbers. A free application, OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org I think) is a full featured office suite with spreadsheet, word processor, presentation creator apps that are just as good as MSOffice. Just a plug for one of my favorite pieces of free software...

[Blake Barr]

Well I suppose that is a good way to look at it. I'm getting a shop table put together right now so that once the maple has a chance to dry and acclimate to my shop I can start milling. I ended up with 22bf of maple for $118.75. I'll post some pics up when it's done...

[Neal Clayton]

Hello!

I'm a brand new woodworker and having gone through a tool collection phase I feel ready to take on a first project. I decided to make a cabinet for my sister to do hair with at home. She still lives with the folks so the design is intentional for the space and has dictated the size/shape etc of the wood used. I plan to construct the carcass out of MDF or cheap ply as it will be painted but I wanted to use tiger/curly maple for the doors and do a modern slab design on the doors. After calculating everything out I needed 2 32x26" (approx) doors. Basically I calculated I needed 6 10'x8" 4/4 boards to make book matched doors. I brought up on a bf calc and I it came out to 40bf total.... and at 5.25 a bf it was $210 ....

So do they make curly maple veneered MDF core ply or do I need to get a good resaw blade and make my own veneered MDF doors?

maybe it's just me, but i'd prefer something that is made out of solid cypress @ 2 bucks per board foot than something fake with a high dollar veneer on top. insert whatever other inexpensive local relatively knot-free lumber you have in lieu of cypress.