Wood Preparation
Learn how to select, mill, and size lumber for project parts. Find out how to optimize lumber for maximum yield and the best appearance for your projects.
Your benchtop planer takes a beating in normal use. Give it routine maintenance for glassy-smooth results board after board.
There's no such thing as the perfect board. But you can salvage a lot of "challenged" lumber using these tricks.
The WOOD team spends the day at Senior Design Editor Kevin Boyle's home, milling lumber from logs.
I like to slice logs at an angle and use these slabs for fretwork. What do I have to do to keep the bark from drying, shrinking, and falling off the slab?
I wanted a solid wood top for a small pub table. I used narrow oak boards that measured 8 percent moisture content. I stained it with water-based stain, and the oak and plywood top cupped.
How can I get mold off without ruining the wood or driving the mold deeper into the grain?
When a friend cut a large maple log in half for firewood, the inside was beautifully spalted throughout. Can I dry these pieces in the oven, or would it be better to air-dry them?
With the temperature dropping below freezing in my unheated shop, I’m worried about wood movement. Does frozen moisture in hardwood or sheet goods make the wood expand?
A friend bulldozed down some large black walnut trees, and I talked him into letting me rescue them from the burn pile. How do I turn these trees into useful lumber?
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