Lodgepole Pine
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- This topic has 14 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 2 months ago by DeniseG.
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Colorado has a terrible pine beetle infestation and consequently there is a lot of lodgepole pine lumber available. The beetle infested trees result in a blue stained lumber which I think is very pleasing to the eye for informal and contemporary furniture and items. What I don’t know is whether or not this kind of lumber is easy or okay to work with – cutting, stability, etc. Do any of you know something about the charters of lodgepole pine. I can get the wood rather inexpensive because so much dead needs to be removed from our forests.
I could get it for free if I was ambitious enough and had a way to mill it, but that’s beyond my interest or ability.
21 November 2013 at 4:16 pm #21920Denise, I have no first hand experience with the Lodgepole Pine, but here is a resource that a lot of us here reference for different types of lumber. They have a section on the Lodgepole Pine.
http://www.wood-database.com/lumber-identification/softwoods/lodgepole-pine/
If you can find some lumber that is milled and dried, I would give it a try, what have you got to lose? Good luck, and have fun with it!
Denise, Nathan asked the same question awhile ago. https://woodworkingmasterclasses.com/discussions/topic/working-with-beetle-kill-pine/
Hi Denise,
I have used Lodgepole for making boxes and drawers. I had some chunks of large, clear lodgepole stored in my father’s shop and was going to mill some of it for a project but it got some kind of fungus in it (very unusual). It wasn’t attractive at all. I like to use it when I can get it partly for the pleasant pine smell while you are working it. And by the way your dovetailed box looks great. I hope you are enjoying this hobby!
–JimHi Jim, I haven’t picked up any beetle kill pine yet. The big box stores in my area have some and I’ve learned of a good source for 4/4 and 8/4. However, I’ve decided to make my bench out of KD Douglas fir construction lumber.
This hobbyist all I hoped it would be and so much more. Finding WWMC is making it much more fun and rewarding to learn and progress with practice.
Thank you for the feedback on my boxes. 2 more boxes and then a stool and a saw bench (T. Fidgens) and then a work bench. Those are my current building plans. I hope Santa brings me tools for Christmas and my birthday. 😉Hi Joe, No lumber yet for my workbench. I’ve looked at the big boxes and all they have are 2x material with rounded edges. I’ve also found rough cut doug fir at 2 loval lumber yards. No rounded edges, bit rough, so all faces need to be planed first. I’ll likely go with the 2x material from Lowes/ HD when I’m ready to start. All the lumber I find at Lowes/HD is kiln dried, so I should have less wood movement when I let it acclimate in my basement.
Don’t fret over those 2×4 with rounded corners, by the you square up and flatten the laminated tops they will be gone. To make life easier you can do one of two things, get an extra blade for your plane and set a radius on by filing it with a mill file, or find a scrub plane. Using either of these will make very fast work of planing down those corners. For the legs, I wouldn’t even bother trying to remove them unless you want practice planing, which isn’t a bad thing either.
Hi Dave,
Funny you should mention a scrub plane. In the woodworking class I’m taking, we are id mentioning rough lumber to 6 square. In the process I used a scrub plane for the first time last week. A scrub plane is a game changer for hogging off material. And it was VERY easy to use. I’m Going to be buying a scrub ASAP ant it will certainly be the tool of choice for flattening my bench lumber.
Hi Guys,
I bought my Doug Fir from home depot and have the tops mostly finished and starting the glueups on the well board and aprons.
I wish I had a scrub plane for the tops, it took quite a lot of planing to get them down. I learned a lot about planing though, lol. I have some gaps in my tops, I think the doug fir is harder to bend with clamps, and I needed to be more accurate with my joints than it appeared on Paul’s videos. Second top looks better, but still not perfect. It’s going to be a hefty bench though, ;).
I found a US made front vise from toolsforwoorkingwood.com, and it looks pretty nice. I will have to dado room for the vise though, it is designed for 2 1/2″ deep top, so I think I’ll dado out so the vise sits about 1/4″ bellow the top.
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