Storm wrote: "The best source for small amounts of quartersawn beech are old
wooden
planes.  Sometimes they are so damaged that you can get them for a few 
bucks."


I scavanged a broken Ikea-esque chair on the street, turned out to be beech, and
I made one of the best wooden screws I've made out of one of the legs.
Stockpiled a bunch of rungs and legs for more screws. For years I've used beech
from a scavanged "made in Yugoslavia" knife board for repair patches and small
items. For a full-sized bench plane body these would be too small, but you could
get plenty of molding plane wedges out of chair legs, even bench plane wedges if
you didn't mind glue-jointing two pieces together side-by-side. Maybe a
spokeshave from a leg. Even a small plane, if you found a big table.


The old Clark & Williams website had an article about how beech was the best
wood for plane bodies, with lots of explanation and numbers about how it
responds to the climate. I cant' offer anything pro or con to their opinion, but
there isn't a better opinion on the subject. Getting beech is the problem: even
if you find a lumberyard offering quartersawn beech you aren't likely to get a
true radial cut, and you will still have to season it for the traditional year-
per-inch because beech apparently doesn't settle down without time, even after
kiln drying. Its a circular problem: American sawyers won't take the time and
trouble to season beech properly because there is no demand for it, and there is
no demand for it because it isn't available properly seasoned.


A friend of mine, Jim Croft, wrote a 96-page article on "Finding Suitable Wood
for Book Boards and Related Considerations" in a recent collection (note that
this is Vol. II of a series):

http://thelegacypress.com/suave-mechanicals-
vol-2.html">http://thelegacypress.com/suave-mechanicals-vol-2.html

or

http://www.amazon.com/Suave-Mechancials-History-Bookbinding-Mechanicals
/dp/0979797489/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y/187-5017176-2329560">http://www.amazon.com
/Suave-Mechancials-History-Bookbinding-
Mechanicals/dp/0979797489/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_y/187-5017176-2329560

Among other things he talks a lot about beech, about true radial as opposed to
"quartersawn," and a huge amount that goes far beyond just book boards. I think
any woodworker would learn by reading the piece. The book is expensive and the
run was short, but interlibrary loan should produce a copy.


Tom Conroy


[By the way, if you buy a copy I get a royalty, since I have an article in the
same volume. Just sayin'...But Jim's article really is as rich as I say. Check
it out on ILL if you don't want to pay me a royalty.]