Quote Originally Posted by Bill Berg View Post
David, That's an interesting question. Just thinking pretty quickly about it I have 3 thoughts.

1. If I was doing this again with curly maple I would probably suck it up from the beginning and take the 3 hour drive and try out Irion lumber. Even being within an hour of a couple of the popular southern PA saw mills it was frustrating finding enough stock that I was happy with and matched well.

2. For the white pine drawer stock I resawed thicker material to both get better utilization and nicer wood. It seemed like I spent forever doing this and cleaning the gunk off the blade. Will consider something different next time.

3. I used to use BLO on most projects but have been getting away from it recently. I included it in this finish because it just felt like I should... but think it is the shellac that is really providing the depth/color/grain pop. Would probably omit this step in the future.
Bill - some comments. If you're interested in period furniture, and you're that close, you're seriously missing out by not visiting Irion. It's their specialty (supplying period furniture makers), and impossible-to-find matched sets of highly curled maple is all over their yard. 22" wide curly maple boards are not at all unusual, and I've purchased 40" wide plus mahogany planks from them, and I know they have up to 60" widths - try finding that anywhere else in the US.

As to the white pine - it is, of course, the correct secondary wood for furniture made in New England, and there are sources available for 20" or wider EWP planks so that you can have single-board drawer bottoms as you would find on an antique. EWP also imparts a really nice smell to the interior of casework. Poplar and Southern Yellow Pine, which would be correct for Pennsylvania furniture, not so much. In fact, I sometimes go off the reservation and use EWP anyway despite the fact that the piece I'm building should have Poplar as a secondary wood - raw poplar really doesn't smell good at all.

Finally, you're correct about BLO. BLO and wax was often used on less expensive furniture from the period, but period source indicate that it was rare on high-style pieces. Instead, these got a film finish made of dissolved, fossilized tree resin in oil. The overall effect is very similar to modern alkyd varnish/oil mixtures. Oddly enough, shellac was almost never used during the colonial period, despite it being often cited as an appropriate period-correct finish for such pieces. The reason was that the shellac of the day was very dark - basically the same as button-lac sold today. Refining of shellac to the orange/garnet/blond varieties that we have today didn't occur until the second or third decade of the 19th century.