On Tue, 21 Jan 2020 at 08:40, Joseph Sullivan  wrote:
>
> SNIP:
>
> Something Leach does not say is that because there is no mouth in front of the
blade, your stock selection must be impeccable.  Just imagine trying to find a
10 foot or more piece of wood with straight grain the full length in a modern
lumber yard.
>
> END SNIP
>
> Well, yes and no.
>
> The Chris Schwartz method of getting straight grain lumber for workbenches
works pretty well, although a bit spendy.  The idea is to buy wide lumber -- say
nominal 12".  Generally, this will be from better cuts anyway, and will have
bands of straight grain in one or both edges.  Rip those sections and Bob is
close relative.
>
> I myself do something like this with my oak and walnut.  I have walnut and
both white and black oak in excess of my lifetime needs.  Generally, I have it
sawn through-and-through (right down the log the long way).  This yields stacks
of book-matched wide boards  that will contain varying degrees of flatsawn,
riftsawn and q-sawn wood.  If I want straight grain, I look for nice rift or
q-sawn stretches and rip them out.  Just did this with some rift-sawn sections
of walnut I want to use for table legs.
>

That is actually kind of my plan for my workbench, I have a friend who
run a saw mill, it does macrocarpa slab only.
I was thinking about using macrocarpa for the legs and the top. since
i want a 10 cm top and 10x10 cm legs (10cm = 4"), i'm thinking about
buying a 10cm thick slab, 2m long (6.6 ft) and maybe 80 cm wide (2.6
ft). Choose a slab that has the pith (or close too), rip it into
double legs and half tops and discard the pith.
Don't know yet how much this will cost.

The only thing that is unknown to me is the stability of the wood, as
he's doesn't kiln dry the wood.

Chris