Anybody know what a good wood for drawers dividers is?
I am looking for that white stuff that appears to be quite stable, must come in about 1/8" thickness. I thought about Baltic Birch but prefer not to have the stripes on the top edge for this.
TIA
You'll need to make this yourself. What machines do you have?
Make what myself? I was asking what the wood was not how to make them....LOL
I have produced a couple of dozen furniture projects over the last 45 years, framed and finished my house (almost) and many decks and built many computer and electronic projects.
Hard maple makes good dividers and is light in color.
John
Thanx.
I wondered about maple but I have had a lot of warping with maple in the past. Perhaps in thinner material for dividers it would suit.
The other problem is finding a supply of 3/8 - 1/2" stock.
John
The only time I see solid stock that thin is in craft stores in the balsa wood bins. The guy makes furniture and surely has a bandsaw and/or planer to re-saw and surface.
I use poplar and I rip it down from 3/4" stock so you end up with quartersawn dividers. Easy on the tools and hardly ever have any that bow. If I need dividers shorter than 3/4" then I usually rip them down after the fact but nothing stopping you from planing the stock down first if you need to. If I needed something taller then I would use 8/4 poplar.
-Kevin
Wait a sec. You're *the guy,* right? Ok never mind.
Poplar is one of the most stable easy working, fine grained wood. It is what I would use. It also is easy to finish, and is closed grained, so it finishes slick and smooth, easily.
Basswood works almost as easy, and has good finishing grain also, but is a bit softer.
Thanx. I just think that 3/4 would be a little thicker (in looks) than I wanted for cutlery dividers and other drawer things. Sometimes it's just a matter of getting used to the thickness and then it looks normal again...LOL
I wondered about hobby shops for building kits. I know they use balsa and one other wood that is fairly strong. Sealed it may do the job...expensive probably.
-Kevin
On Sat, 8 Jan 2011 22:43:26 -0500, "Josepi" wrote: Thanx.
I wondered about maple but I have had a lot of warping with maple in the past. Perhaps in thinner material for dividers it would suit.
The other problem is finding a supply of 3/8 - 1/2" stock.
Poplar seams to be the wood of choice and the one I figured to use but is there a source of say 1/4" matrial in this?. I considered flooring underlay (3/16" ??) but I believe it is only one sided and the plies would show.
Basswood works almost as easy, and has good finishing grain also, but is a bit softer.
I guess I wasn't clear, I rip it 1/8" thick for jewelry box dividers so they are 3/4" tall and 1/8" thick. If you use 8/4 stock you can get 1-3/4" tall by however thick you want. If that is still not tall enough, then you can get thin stock from wall lumber (or make it yourself).
Around these parts you can get Baltic Birch ply as thin as 1/8. Light colored and stable as it gets.
Dave in Houston
Go to Home Depot and buy an inexpensive 2" slat Venitian blind. Disassemble.
I can see myself buying a table saw one of these days. I know too many lost an eye and other parts with them so I have avoided it and the room space is a factor.
Sounds like a tall rip for such a small piece. Thanx for the clarification.
NICE!!! THANX.
A friend and neighbour (fellow home builder) has old venetian blind slats he uses for everything. It's a running joke between us to use them for window shims and a tonne of other stuff. These are plastic though.
How are you building all this stuff for 45 years and don't own or are reluctant to use a tablesaw? Are you real good with a bandsaw or circular saw? My tablesaw is pretty much the machine that 90% of all my stock goes thru if it doesn't go thru anything else. ~If~ you had a tablesaw, you could make this stock in mere moments.
RP
No, no. The proper tool for resaw is the bandsaw. Get some 8/4 maple or poplar or birch. You can resaw it to 5/16" or 3/8" and plane or thickness sand to 1/4". Or resaw to 3/16" or 1/4" to get 1/8".
If you don't have the tools needed, buy thin lumber on line. I did a quick Google and found several places. Among them:
There is also Advantage Lumber & Trim in Buffalo, NY:
Aside from many other decent suggestions (basically resaw from planks a lot) and along the same line as the "buy wooden venetian blinds for premade stock if you are looking for that and can't/won't resaw..."
Bandsaw is better for resawing, takes less space, and is less prone to the tablesaw-specific problems you are afraid of. Will still bite you if you are stupid around it, of course - anything that cuts wood cuts flesh. You can also resaw by hand (as usual with neander methods, much less space and money, but more practice is helpful, and things need to be sharp to work well.) I don't recall when, but at some point good old Tage Frid suggested the bandsaw as a more logical first power saw for a shop than the table saw. Someone with a FWW database/CDROM/DVD can probably find the article, unless it was in one of this books.
Depending what size you need - popsicle sticks, tongue depressors (both AKA craft sticks, and usually birch, I think), paint stirring sticks, yard sticks/rulers. The hobby shop route is possible but expensive. Up until the rulers and yardsitcjks, which used to be cheap but are less so these days, all of these are quite cheap sources of thin stock.
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