Edge Glued Board, Poplar and Oak, deal or not?

[Elmar]

There's a local Habitat store selling edge glued boards, 8" wide 5 foot long for $6 for poplar and $10 for Oak. They are at least 3/4" thick. Is this a decent price?

[toller]

That is about the normal price for solid oak or poplar. What is an edge glued board?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

It is an OK price, not a great price from what I can see. You have 3.3 board feet of wood, but it would have probably been closer to 4 bd. ft. before jointing and trimming. Oak is about $3.25 a board foot here, poplar about $2

But it if you can use it, but not worth mortgaging the family farm to stock up.

[scobagle]

Thats actually not too bad of a price. Especially for Oak. If its S4S'd, then its not a bad deal at all, but if its still S2S, then I agree with the other guy, a decent deal. The next thing to consider would be the condition of the oak. Is it white or red oak, is it FAS or #1 or #2 common. More than likely, if its surfaced already, its FAS. Then its not a bad deal. I only know these things because I'm kind of a nerd and work at a hardwood lumber store. Scott

toller wrote:

[Charlie Self]

toller asks:

Boards glued edge-to-edge, not end-to-end or face glued.

Charlie Self "One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected." George W. Bush

[toller]

So they are 8" panels made up of smaller boards? Why would these exist? They can't be scrap, and it doesn't make sense to put labor in to making them.

[bf]

My guess is that these were donated/salvaged from someone who had glued them up for a specific purpose at one time.. (Since it is habitat).

Maybe someone made them for a project, and then realized they had to be

9" wide and thus donated them.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Home Depot carries boards glued up pine from 12" to 24". They are good for shelving or any place you need a wide board and don't have the facilities to do a proper glue up. The oak my have been a similar thing. All the beauty of oak, but a way to use up all that 2" stock that does not fetch a good price at the wood dealers. May have been used as shelving so the seller could brag a bout using solid oak.

[George]

See the post about skip planing. Commercial outfits which make such excellent furniture have scanners looking at the boards and automated saws cutting out the knots and defects. Tends to make a lot of shorter and narrower pieces which are subsequently finger joined and glued into longer and wider boards. Some make a virtue out of it by flaunting the glueups on tabletops and other surfaces. It makes a piece with greater rigidity than plywood suitable for shelving, too.

[Elmar]

Well I bought a bunch of the red oak for some mission plans that I am going to begin working on.

I figured even for the table top (coffee) I only have to glue up three boards intead of a 8 to get the 24" width that I need.

They had some nice 3-1/2 inch boards in 5 ft lengths. I figured they would be good for making jigs too....

Brings me to my next point about mission furniture. Who makes the best mortise machine for the $$$$?

Thanks!

Elmar