I was talking to someone who wants me to build them a table. I have no problems with that -- I've built tables before. But this one is supposed to be for outside, where it has to face the weather (including the harsh Canadian winters). I've never built outdoor furniture before, and am not familiar with what materails work well.
What woods are good for outdoors? How would I go about treating the wood? Also, what kind of glue should I be using?
This would be my first paid project, so I'm rather exited about it and want to do a good job.
Cedar, redwood, cypress, walnut, locust: check any good reference tome on woods to add to the list of durable woods, including purpleheart and other exotics.
Don't treat it. Let it turn gray, or finish with exterior varnish (will probably need refinishing every 2-3-4 years, depending on exposure, quality of finish, quality of application).
Use polyurethane or resorcinol adhesive.
Design joints to drain, and don't fit them as tightly as you would for an indoor project.
Charlie Self
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson
Redwood, Cypress, White oak, Cedar, Teak, pressure treated pine (okay, but not for food stuff or children). Outdoor primer/paint protects wood very well. I use CWF for clear-coating and this darkens the wood a little. Use traditional joinery with waterproof wood glues.
I'm surprised to see walnut and white oak on those lists. They don't last outdoors in England. Oak does, but only for big pieces (timber framed houses) and it looks pretty scabby close up.
I have made a number of porch swings out of Cypress, which is inexpensive in this area (Atlanta). One has been hanging from an A-frame in the weather (not sheltered) for six months without any visible sign of deterioration. Also made a window box which has been weathering for
3 years with no sign of deterioration. Cypress is easy to work with but not very hard. It is not necessary to put a finish on it, but a coat of Tung Oil with a UV inhibitor gives it a nice appearance and probably helps preserve the wood.
I never heard walnut is a good outdoor wood (maybe it is I don't know). There's a big difference between white oak and other kinds of oak. Any wood used for boatbuilding is a good choice.
White oaks only. Red oak rots like a demon. I had a white oak picnic table that was over 20 years old when I tossed the thing because it was murder to move when mowing the grass (is there a bigger waste of resources anywhere than lawns?).
Walnut is moderately durable, at least that found in the eastern U.S. I've made some of the boards and battens on my shop of log run walnut. You can't tell now, after somethinng like 4 years, but it looked kind of odd the first 3 seasons.
Charlie Self
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson
Walnut was widely used for sills because insects and rot don't particularly care for it. Of course that was when you harvested your own wood and had the ability to use the right wood for the right job. Now with economic constraints, it doesn't really make sense.
Likewise with the exterior varnish (spar urethane is a popular choice), use an exterior grade waterproof glue.
As for woods, I see a lot of ads for Ipe (a type of ironwood I believe) decks, and though I've never used Ipe myself I would assume that to be good for decks it would have similar qualities as what you need.
Maybe your cold winters kill the bugs ? Our UK winters are mild, and it's difficult even to air-dry walnut, because it keeps attracting borers even when dried.
We don't have red oak in the UK. A very few ornamental trees, and some imported timber. Our white oak species (Q. petraea and Q. robur) aren't quite the same as your Q. alba.
I want to think that I read that the "bog oak" or oak that has been buried in bogs is very good for this purpose. Maybe someone over there will know. I can't remember the name ya'll use for it.
Dunno about weather differences. Where I live in Virginia, it seldom gets below
10 deg. F. though I have seen it as low as 5 below zip (again, F.). That happened about 18 years ago, and it hasn't come within 10 degrees of that since.
I dry my own walnut, with no borer problems. What version is yours? Ours is J. nigra. Durability may well differ. My references list only J. cinerea in the family: that's butternut, and it is non-durable to a fare thee well.
I've got little info on English oak. I know I had some one time, and it was at least as hard as white oak, but a much deeper tan. I see that Q. robur is susceptible to beetle damage. Q. petraea isn't in any of my references. Durn. Thought I might learn a bit more.
Charlie Self
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson
Uh, well...it's been some time since I bought walnut, but the last time around, I almost had my tailgate dragging on an 8' Dodge pick up full of green log run walnut at 75 cents a bf.
As I said, I used some of it for siding and battens, but that REALLY was cull stock.
Charlie Self
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful." Samuel Johnson
And I went to the store for a bag of apples and came back with a sack of oranges. Since nobody's going to use green log run walnut for sills, it sounds like you did as well. IOW, try comparing the cost of 6/4 KD walnut with treated lumber.
For pete's sake. I really DO have sense enough to dry the shit before I use it for anything important! That lumber has built numerous projects: log run turns out a reasonable amount of FAS lumber (about 50% in this case), with culls useful for other things, like siding and birdhouses and whatnot.
IMO, buying fully dried hardwood is about like burning money. A little patience and some stickers are required, but you can easily reduce your wood costs by
65% when you start with green lumber. Too, particularly in the case walnut, most kilns steam the stuff, creating a mushy brown look. Air dried is far more attractive.
Point being, really, if you think ahead a bit, paying whatever FAS 6/4 walnut costs need not be all that painful. Probably roughly $1.90 a board foot.
Charlie Self
"Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. " Adlai E. Stevenson
If you'll recall, we were talking about using it as sills for houses. Most home builders aren't going to buy a bunch of green walnut, sticker it, air dry it, mill it, etc. If they REALLY wanted to use walnut, they would buy it already dried and milled. That's why I said it isn't economically feasible to use walnut for sills. Not to mention the fact that even at 1.90 bf, (excluding all the labor to mill, dry etc.) treated lumber is still cheaper.
England is all an Atlantic coastal climate - you can't get more than
100 miles from the sea, whatever you do. We probably see similar temperatures to that, but a cold snap like that is a one or two day occurrence every few years, not a couple of month's predictable weather.
There's no native English walnut; ours are mainly J. regia (the European walnut) or American Black. There's a guy near Oxford collecting a large world seed-source for walnuts and trying to find the best English cultivars. I'd love to grow some, but it's a sobering thought that you don't plant walnuts for your kids, but for your great-grandkids.
Q. robur is the pedunculate oak; acorns on stalks, leaves have "earlobes" either side of the stalk. Q. petraea is the sessile oak; acorns sat right down, no auricles on the leaves. Both are native throughout Europe, right out to the Caucasus, but Q. petraea doesn't extend north-eastwards into the cold of Finland and Russia.
You can't tell the timber apart, but the trees grow differently. Sessile oak has less trouble with epicormics (branches budding from low-down on an already mature trunk). Most existing trees are pedunculate, but new planting has to be sessile, if you want the planting grants.
As timber, all my oak is locally felled. There's a lot of French oak imported in recent years - don't know why, but they seem to be felling everything they can get. There's also plenty of American white (and a little red). Most of this is low-grade though, no-one seems to import the good stuff. American white oaks are softer than English oaks - our stuff can be _very_ hard going sometimes.
As to pests, then there's a few of them. but no really serious ones. Longhorn beetles are extremely common, but not a big problem. They're rife in freshly felled timber and the larvae may hatch from dried timber. The tunnels are large (1/4") and the beetles (and their antennae!) enormous. But they navigate well, so they typically only eat out a larvae-width layer at the top of the sapwood. Only the more clueless ones put the occasional tunnel into the heartwood. Apart from the House Longhorn (SE England (and Europe) only), they don't damage dried timber. The common furniture and powder-post beetles will attack dry timber, but make small holes.
Not a couple months. It gets cold in early December, but cold is relative. I spent a lot of time in upstate NY (Albany area) when I was much younger and winters there tend to be an experience. Sometimes 25 or more below zero, windy, lots of snow. Average snowfall in my area of VA is probably 18", with the top amount 63" (seen close to that much in one Albany storm back in the late '60s). But, though central VA temps may drop to 10 at 6 a.m., by 2-3 p.m., they'll almost always be above freezing, often in the low 40s. Which is what helps create ice problems.
I wouldn't really want to sleep outside without a good sleeping bag from late November through about late March, but it's possible to readily survive without it, if you keep your head.
We're maybe 160 miles inland, maybe 170. One day, I'll clock it. But we're right in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains (Appalachian chain), so we get some modifying influence there.
And, with luck, in 6-8 weeks I'll have this house sold and be back there!
Charlie Self
"Patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. " Adlai E. Stevenson
Talking of walnut, here's a recent post from alt.crafts.blacksmithing. Take a look at the pictures.
I finished my version of the "chunk of wood" anvil stand today. I learned quite a lot. This anvil stand started with a walnut stump. The wood is roughly 12x12x22" and is bound on both top and bottom with 2x¼" steel flat bar. Since the wood is green, I sealed it to slow the drying process hoping to keep it from cracking. Of course, with the ends bound in steel (driven on tightly, the steel had to stretch 1/16" to fit on) I'm hoping it won't crack anyway.
The anvil isn't fastened down to the top - it's just secured from moving. I can "walk" the anvil/stand around my shop - portability is a must in my small shop - without the anvil coming loose, but if I need to put them in a truck and drive away I can just lift the anvil off and move them separately.
The ends of the block aren't quite flat. Either is my floor, so I'll be kicking a wedge under a corner. The anvil doesn't quite sit flat on the top but a piece of thin aluminum sheet metal as a shim works very well. With the shim and wedge it sits dead solid.
I used bullseye shellac. I'm sure the hot scale will tear it up but I felt I had to do something.
Next step is to get all the blue paint off the anvil, then start on the forge.
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