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Choice of Wood

A

Andy Kev.

Nordic Pine
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Evening All,

I have two questions about types of wood.

Firstly, a friend has a garden table with a metal frame and wooden top and the latter is beginning to rot. What wood would you recommend as a long term fix? I assume that oak is an obvious choice but there must be others. Assuming I settle on a hardwood, I would probably have to wait a while for it to dry out before working it. Is there any particular softwood which you would recommend as a short term fix while that happens or is there a softwood which I should use for the long term?

Second, If I buy pine for cutting into longish lengths, say 1.80 m and want to have final thicknesses of around 7/8" or 3/4", what thickness of rough sawn would you recommend? My guess is about 35 mm.

Thanks in advance.
 
Do you have any photos of the table? There could be a design flaw that's caused the top to rot, unless it's decades old of course, as you can expect a couple of decades from even softwood when properly designed to shed water.

I would use Iroko which is an African hardwood that is readily available and is very durable for external projects. Oak would be a waste as it would go silvery very quickly, with the potential of rotting the metal frame if it's steel as there will be a tannin reaction between the oak and steel.

I would be comfortable buying 1.25"/32mm for planing down to 3/4" or 7/8", but if you need the planks perfectly flat it may be worth buying 1.5"/38mm just to have a bit more meat to plane off to get it flat. Some timber comes very flat and needs little planing and then other batches are warped and bowed heavily.
 
Thanks. That seems to answer the question.

I saw the table for the first time at the weekend. It looks old and I suspect that it was left out in all weathers. The design looks to be a good one but as I have no phots, I hope this description works: the long sides look to be about 4 feet and are 3" wide and about 3/4" thick. There are three 2 feet pieces joining them, one at each end (obviously) and one in the middle. The three shorter ones look to be M & T'd into the long ones.

There are then a series of shorter pieces, prob about 2" wide running from the ends to the middle cross piece.
They must have small tongues on their ends and I suspect that they are just floating in grooves in the end and middle pieces. Mind you, they could be through pegged but I didn't look closely enough. That is how I would attach them. To allow water to drain each of these pieces is about 1/8" from its neighbour, which I think is a sensible design touch for outdoor use.

Is iroko one of those woods that is stable from the off i.e. you don't have to wait ages for it to dry out? Although I've never had my hands on any, I've seen the name crop up quite a lot and am optimistic that my local timber merchant will have some.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions ref the pine thicknesses.
 
Cabinetman":wc17wo18 said:
Second Iroko, not my favourite timber but probably best for outdoors.
Obviously there’s Teak, or rather there isn’t lol.
Click to expand...

:text-+1: Iroko; nasty stuff to work with but very durable outside - Rob
 
Iroko is a good choice for external use.
Iroko has natural oil content so if glue is used a quick clean prior to applying.


Sent from my Redmi Note 9S using Tapatalk
 
Thank you all very much for the replies.

Rob, you say that Iroko is nasty stuff to work. Does that mean it would be difficult with hand planes? Is it also one of those toxic woods?

Andy, thanks for the tip about chestnut. I'll see if the timber yard has that as well.
 
I'd be looking at oak as well, probably won't last as long as iroko but much nicer to work with.
 
Andy Kev.":20rbseuz said:
that Iroko is nasty stuff to work. Does that mean it would be difficult with hand planes? Is it also one of those toxic woods?
.
Click to expand...
It gave me respiratory and skin problems and two weeks off work when I was an apprentice. Never touched it since.
In my view it is best just left outside.
 
Having read all the replies and paid particular attention to the ones about the more dodgy i.e. dangerous woods, I took AndyP's advice and got some chestnut.

A two foot end of the board had completely split due to shakes (didn't have to pay for that length) but it should be good for producing some of the shorter slats (a WIP may follow) and I have to say I am delighted with the way it "performed" i.e. when I took planes to the edges where the split occurred. It was quite easy to get them flat and ready for the only machine which I will use, my small portable table saw.

What I normally do is to plane one edge straight (as I have done here) and then obviously one face (the next job). Then I run it on the table saw to get the other edge done in one operation. Then it's just a matter of doing the second face with the planes. So we'll see how that goes. So far, I'm optimistic.

Thanks again for all the replies.
 
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