More Boxes

Where do you find redwood 2x4’s?

My local Lowel’s. They stock redwood lumber and fence planks.
I also picked up a redwood 2x12 for another project.

Well maybe using redwood 2x4 from Lowes was not the best idea after all.
The wood is noticeably curling towards the milled side…
Theses were perfectly flat yesterday.

I noticed this happening on the poplar box I made as well though not nearly as bad.
I am going to do some Google research on warping :wink:

I get that on freshly milled wood all of the time, I usually bring the pieces into my house for a couple of days before finishing them and they relax back to flat.

1 Like

Lowes and Home Depot have started a very disturbing trend as they are selling wood that hasn’t been kiln dried. They are strapping a stack of green boards together and after unstrapping within a few days the wood warps, cups and splits on the end. This works ‘ok’ if you are building a deck and screwing the board down, but for anything else its just sad.

HD’s lumber storage is careless. I spoke with a manager once about all the cabinet grade birch at $50+ a sheet up on racks unsupported on the ends. All warped and basically useless.

I made another box from the same wood, same faceing
For this one I am playing with my idea as a “pendant” display box. Where the pended attached to a recess on the top of the box with magnets.

(The symbol is of “House Tremere” from the “Vampire the Requiem” Game.)

I did the final profile cut in climb mode to try to eliminate the chipping at the corners. It helps some but didn’t eliminate it. I guess redwood is just to soft for this kind of corner. (Maybe a rounded corner?)

I think I will stick with hardwood for boxes when I can, and modify my design to work with 4/4 planks (regular .75 inch planks)

For this particular project the box is just a bit too thick. I may go with a hinge as well.

For giggles, after I had applied the first coat of Tongue Oil, I decided to put this box in my vacuum pot. (A vacuum desiccator setup I got years ago for degassing silicone and resin) Sucking out all the air and moisture. I only left it in for about 10 min. It didn’t cause the wood to warp. I did seem to absorb the oil faster. Though the redwood is so “thirsty” it is hard to tell.
I wonder if it will have any affect as it dries?

Hey @AaronMatthews,

I didn’t think it worthy to start my own thread on the boxes I made, But I made a couple last night and now that I’ve designed them, they really only take about 15 mins to cut out of some 0.2" plywood (you could obviously substitute any material, just adjusting the finger lengths to fit accordingly.





I would like to work on some that are made of one piece of wood though…

1 Like

Like 2x4s that is the dimension of the raw milled wood before it is planed smooth.
So you subtract 1/4" for the actual board thickness?
It all confused the hell out of me.

I guess if we were real wood working bad asses we would be buying our lumber raw, storing it so it seasons and dries, then planing it down ourselves. :wink:

It must be the way my local Gannal handles it then. As they sell planed wood but list it as the original 4’s. They also sell it by the board foot (also so confusing to me)

For the uninitiated the nomenclature can be confusing. in the US, For wood measured in quarters the measurement is always the nominal size right off of the mill, i.e. green and rough. It is the post processing that changes the actual measurement of the wood you obtain. Drying the lumber (kiln or air) will cause the wood to shrink. The amount depends on wood type and effectively on how the growth rings are arranged in the board (i.e flat sawn, rift sawn, quarter sawn). It is very easy to have the board shrink 1/16" in thickness during drying. The second type of processing is the mechanical machining the board goes through. You can get surfaced one side, surfaced two sides, add on straight line ripped or surfacing one or both edges, ending with Surfaced 4 Sides or S4S. What you get at a typical lumberyard catering to construction products is usually kiln dried S4S product that has been mass produced to end up with a repeatable standard dimension 3/4" thick by some width that will usually be 1/2 inch less than marked to account for the machining.

If you work with a hardwood dealer, you can get any of the above options, but most common are fully rough, random widths and lengths or S3S (surfaced three sides) as in a commercial operation all 3 functions will be done at one machine in a single pass.

Hope this clears some confusion up.

1 Like

Reminds me of this old ‘classic’ video…

Almost every beginning woodworker i know has had the same first experience at the lumber yard :smile:

Take the time to find a good local ‘hardwood’ lumber yard… not a building supply yard… and you’ll never shop for wood at the box stores again.

Here is mine… http://www.macbeath.com/
It was a very intimidating place at first, but now its like home :wink:

2 Likes

That sounds almost exactly like my first trip to the lumber supply house (except there were no females within 500 yards of the place). I still feel like I am a real nuisance when I stop by because I want to look at every board and pick out special pieces. Then I make them cut everything into 4 foot lengths so I can get it home. So it takes me 2 hours to spend $50, while the real pro’s take 10 minutes to purchase $2,000 truck load.

Great video, thanks for posting.

I’ve got a hardwood dealer a couple miles from the house (http://www.hardwoodweb.com/wp/) but it has definitely always been an intimidating place to try to stop in. Think I need to suck it up and give it a shot.

Nice work.
I’m new to this and would like to know if there is a way to make a guitar parts tray.parts tray
I can cut the outside, but I can’t figure out how to do the internal routing.
Thanks. Any help would be appreciated. I tried doing a google search but was unable to find an answer.

Make a smaller version of your outside profile, centered in the larger, and set it to fill whatever depth you want.

Copy the overall outline, shrink it and set depth of pocket less than full material thickness :slight_smile:
You can also use the offset app for this.

I tried that. Couldn’t get things to line up where the neck area is. Tried to remove that part in thd smaller version, but I am still trying.

I’m using bobscnc E3 cnc router. Trying to learn. Where is the offset app?
Thanks for the response.

Which program do you use for designing?

Without specifying we assume Easel :wink: