5/4 or 6/4 -- What do I need to resaw and finish to 1/2" for making drawers?

[George Bokros]

I have not had stock resawn before so I am not sure what I need to purchase to have the mill resaw for making drawers. My gut tells me 5/4 should be fine but not having done this before I am not sure.

I am having the mill resaw it because I need 8" material for drawers and my bandsaw is not large enough to do it. I do not want to purchase a riser because I would also have to purchase all new blades also.

Thanks

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

If someone else is doing the work, you should ask them what they need. But I would think that 5/4 would work.

Have you considered edge gluing narrower boards to get your 8" width?

[George Bokros]

[QUOTE=Gerry Grzadzinski;2469332
Have you considered edge gluing narrower boards to get your 8" width?[/QUOTE]

I would rather not edge glue 1/2" for drawer boxes.

[Lee Schierer]

If you want 1/2" finished stock, it might be possible from 5/4 if the rough sawed surfaces are pretty flat. Assuming you will lose 1/16" for the saw kerf, you will only have 3/32' total material left for clean up, that is only 3/64" (.047") per side for clean up, which is pretty marginal. 6/4 will give you more margin for error and better clean up.

[Matt Day]

As Gerry said, if you're paying someone to do it for you, tell them what you want the finished width to be (1/2") and ask them what they need. I think they'd say 6/4 to be safe.

[Charles Lent]

6/4 starts to get expensive and is sometimes hard to find in the material that you want. Why not just plane 1/8" off each side of finished 3/4 stock and not re-saw at all. The 3/4 material is easy to find and usually the cheapest per board foot. Plus, you can likely do this yourself and not have to pay a mill to do it for you.

Charley

[glenn bradley]

I use 6/4 since the starting stock is rarely true and some milling after the fact is necessary. That being said, the two yards I prefer around me both stock 1/2" stock in a variety of materials just for drawer boxes so that might be an option.

[Peter Quinn]

5/4 is the snow balls chance if I were doing it my self and it came in pretty thick dimension, but I wouldn't never have a sub split 5/4 and expect anything usable for drawers. You need to have flat material for good drawers. If you start at 1 1/4"' you have to at least skim and flatten one face to reference the bandsaw fence, so now you are down to 1 3/16" best case, you loose minimum .090" between bandsaw kerf and cleaning up saw marks, let's say you are pretty close to 1 1/8" at that point split in two you have boards that are now 9/16" thick that you need to flatten across 8" over the length of your drawers.....see where I'm going with this.....basically very close to impossible with 5/4 for many drawer widths.

6/4 is where you want to be if you are intent to resaw. Depending on species it can be more cost effective to just buy 4/4 and burn it down to the 1/2" thickness. We ran ithe numbers both ways and it doesn't pay to resaw for us. In some cases you split 6/4 and get two planks so bowed over the length as to be useless, so your waste factor goes way up, thus 4/4 becomes ultimately more cost effective. Cheaper to kiln dry than thicker stock too, so in many species there is a premium as thickness goes up to accommodate drying costs.

[Peter Quinn]

Another thought, if you have access to a custom mill see if they can saw you 3/4 stock for drawers and dry it at way. I've spoken with a few commercial drawer subs and they can order whole lots of thinner material, not sure that would be possible or save you any money.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

In some cases you split 6/4 and get two planks so bowed over the length as to be useless.

+1
Been there, done that.

This is why I got out of IT.
Lessons learned in woodworking last forever.
Knowledge gained in the digital world last for two months.

[Mike Schuch]

Why don't you just buy some 3/4" x 8" stock and plane it down to what you want? It would probably be cheaper than having expensive thick stock resawn by a custom mill.

[George Bokros]

The mill I am going to charges $20 setup and 7 cents / linear fit to resaw. For me that would be about $23 to resaw. With the comments about the wood bannaning after resaw I don't think that is the route to go.

I am going to buy 4/4 and turn 1/2" of it into chips. I priced S4S maple 3/4" x 9 1/2" x 8 ft at $7.50 per lf so one piece is $60. On the other hand 4/4 from the saw mill is $2.59 / bdft so 4/4 x 9" x 8 ft is $15.54, NO BRAINER

[Larry Frank]

Just my thought but I use 1/2" material for smaller drawers and 5/8" for larger ones. Depending on the size of the drawer, I would use 5/8" especially since you are planing it down.

[David Eisenhauer]

" I priced S4S maple 3/4" x 9 1/2" x 8 ft at $7.50 per lf so one piece is $60. On the other hand 4/4 from the saw mill is $2.59 / bdft so 4/4 x 9" x 8 ft is $15.54, NO BRAINER"

I'm guessing the S4S is kiln dried and the sawmill lumber is not? Perhaps the smaller drawer sizes (as opposed to case sides, etc) will not result in problems due to wood movement, especially with a good-all sides finish on the drawers.

[George Bokros]

The material from the sawmill is kiln dried. I have purchased from them several them before and the material is top quality.