Sellers Home Dining Table: Episode 1
Posted 26 January 2022
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Choosing wood from the supplier has a system to it and following on from that comes your wood preparation. In this episode, we take a good look at things. Paul must get the wood for a larger tabletop from the mill, ensuring wood reduction ready for planing and jointing together with minimal wastage. What to look for and what to do revolves around understanding the processes we use and then, too, the actual wood itself. There are many tricks of the trade in this episode, and by showing what Paul does, he will pass on the tips for generations to come.
That 3 minute section (8-11) would make a neat little board end split check youtube teaser video.
Paul, I work at a sawmill and I wish every customer was as realistic as you with understanding that you may lose an inch of material and have to chase end checks and decide to fill or remove cracks or deal with a bow. Very informative to see you work all the way through the building process.
That’s why you should always buy extra—as the wood stock dictates 🙂
I typically get about 50% extra 😵💫😂
Informative and helpful.
Thanks.
Great video, really helpful information on dimensioning and preparing the wood.
Great content. I wanted to mention that going into these details on wood preparation has been extremely beneficial to me.
Lots of crosscutting oak. How often would you consider resharpening your saw?
I have noticed that some saws will dull sooner than others. Another factor is the fleam angle, the greater the fleam the sooner they become dull. I sharpen when it starts to get dull but probably not as often as Paul does. I have several crosscut saws so I can just grab a fresh one and sharpen at my convenience. I only have two rip saws but I don’t do nearly as much ripping so I could get by easily with just one.
Was that first board you cut the ends of really quartersawn? I thought quartersawn has growth rings standing square to the surface…around 10 minutes in the video you can see that the endgrain pattern is not square to the surface…did I miss something? thanks! (oh and I still enjoy watching these videos even after having watched sooo many 🙂 cheers! Patrick
Patrick- Rift sawn will have end grain perpendicular to the surface, but quarter sawn end grain is not always 90° to the surface. With quarter sawn wood the end grain varies depending on the section of the quartered log the board is cut from. The first board Paul cuts in the video is quarter sawn.
Is there a difference between this version and the one that was distributed two days ago?
No difference. The email system had a glitch and didn’t send the email but this is unrelated to the posting of the weekly video on the site.
If you don’t mind me asking how much did you spend on the wood for this project
Regards Graham
Hi Graham, I did some quick math based on the prices for oak here in Germany, and for a table this size you’d have to spend roughly 350€ on wood (this can vary a lot though; for instance, edged lumber is much more expensive than unedged). Hope this helps!
I asked Paul. He had bought wood for future projects as well. He estimated the wood just for the table was around £200.
Normally stock prep videos don’t keep my interest very long, however this one was so interesting and informative as to how Paul manages the same material challenges we all face. Using CA to seal shakes on the edge grain was great. For whatever reason, my first thought was “that is going to be a lot of sawing and planing to get around….”
I enjoy the way Paul walks through what he does and how the team films and edits it. Great quality all around. Watching Master Classes it is a critical part to my Saturday morning coffee routine. Thank you for your efforts.
This is really helpful and interesting. I have a question, did you use the wood directly from the mill or did you store it some time before u prep it? I just bought wood that has been stored for 3-4 years in a barn and wonder how long do I need to store it in my shop before I start to prepare it for my furniture? Should I measure the moisture first?
I asked Paul how long he kept the wood in the workshop before he used it. He said it was about a month.
Thanks Katrina Sellers.
Thanks clovercheek
Thanks Katrina very informative for me
Great project, I am looking forward to building the table. I would like to ask the name of the saw mill, looks like they have a great variety of hardwoods.
I thoroughly enjoy the videos and the process. At one point, you said you didn’t a tenon going through short grain. Why?