Advice on Beech

[Moonsafari69]

I have been offered some 1" rough sawn kiln dried Beech and need some advice please. Is this any good for general woodworking? Any tips or advice would be really welcome. I can P&T the timber myself. Thanks, Dave.

 

[AJB Temple]

Depends what you mean by general woodworking. Beech is very useful for all sorts of things. My main workbench is made of beech. You could always laminate it.

 

[Moonsafari69]

Depends what you mean by general woodworking. Beech is very useful for all sorts of things. My main workbench is made of beech. You could always laminate it.

So for making tables, boxes, picture frames etc you would say Beech is ok? Does it have any pro's or con's for working, finishing etc? Thanks for your help.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Easy enough to work and finish, but tends to be featureless and dull. Very poor weather and rot resistance.

 

[Moonsafari69]

Easy enough to work and finish, but tends to be featureless and dull. Very poor weather and rot resistance.

Thanks Phil.

 

[Ttrees]

Lovely bright timber I think.
I love the look of it unfinished, a good choice for a large surface
Whats the best way to retain the brightness folks without looking like its too coated ?
Tom

 

[MusicMan]

I like it too. Also, it is one of the strongest and stiffest of the easily-available hardwoods.

My preference is for a drying oil (BLO) or a hard wax oil (Fiddes, Osmo) for a hard wearing and resistant finish. A light stain can help, depending on your taste.

 

[custard]

Beech is just about the cheapest hardwood you can get in the UK, so it's often used for projects where economy is paramount. Consequently it has a bit of a utilitarian reputation.

It's a pretty good timber though for most indoor projects, it's plenty strong enough and has a very tight grain that finishes smoothly and well.

The two main issues to be aware of and work around are these,

-Beech isn't the most stable of hardwoods. If you go from 90% humidity to 60% humidity (a fairly representative seasonal range in the UK) the tangential dimension shrinks 3.2% while the radial dimension shrinks 1.7%. To put that in context, the corresponding figures for Oak are 2.5% and 1.5%, and for Honduran Mahogany are 1.3% and 1.0%. In practical terms you need to select straight grained Beech boards, progress down to finished dimensions in fairly small steps, keep the timber stored in stick, and acclimatise it carefully. Follow these precautions and you shouldn't have too many problems. Get cavalier about it and you'll have a warped and twisted nightmare come assembly.

-Beech has a very different look on the tangential face and the radial face, the radial face (i.e. quarter sawn) is heavily and distinctively flecked where as the tangential face is quite bland. The contrast between the two can be quite jarring visually, so you need to orientate components carefully to produce a balanced and harmonious look. Alternatively you can look for rift sawn boards for components like legs (where the end grain annular rings run diagonally from corner to corner) which will mean all the faces look fairly uniform, like this example that I used for desk legs,

 

[Ttrees]

Custard your mentioning on the movement of beech compared to others, say mahogany is one I have wondered.
Why are all the woodie planes made from it ?
Is it because it is a more stable choice, when dealing with a chunk of the mouth taken out from it, regardless of the amount it moves ...
As long as it moves in synchronicity ?
Nice square !
Tom

 

[custard]

Why are all the woodie planes made from it ?

Because it's cheap and plentiful. The planemakers however were careful to choose clean, quarter sawn, straight grained billets; so they gave themselves the best chance of success. Incidentally not all wooden planes were made from Beech, I'm no expert on tool history but I've seen Apple and Birch examples and the Japanese use Oak.

 

[Sawyer]

Easy enough to work and finish, but tends to be featureless and dull. Very poor weather and rot resistance.

And woodworm seem to consider it a great delicacy too!

 

[ED65]

Whats the best way to retain the brightness folks without looking like its too coated ?

A thin coating of whatever is the obvious thought, but actually a fully-developed film finish doesn't have that obvious look if it's very flat.

Re. beech's use in planes it really was primarily because it was cheap and plentiful, and tough enough. Elsewhere in the world the same requirements led to other wood species being chosen in preference, and a few of those are not particularly known for great stability.

But the stability thing can be a little misleading. We need to remember back in the old days it was more economically viable for wood to be seasoned for much longer (and obviously this was all air-dried stuff before a certain date). In addition to that in a larger plane-making concern rough blanks might have been sawn and then put up for years to "mature" (season more fully) before being made into a plane, something that is still done today in a few operations on the Continent.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

As ^^^^ Custard - the plane blanks were quarter sawn, so stable in the dimensions that mattered - it's unequal, irregular movement that matters, which is largely avoided.

 

[Bodgers]

Stacks of uses for Beech. Used extensively in kitchen equipment due to its tight grain. Kids wooden toys are often made from Beech too - tight grain, reasonably dent proof.
I picked up quite a lot of 1.5" thick beech slabs recently for a price that was fairly close to construction SPF. At some point it will become a workbench.

 

[Moonsafari69]

Gents, thank you very much. You've answered my questions and some more that I didn't ask. This is perfect so the responses are much appreciated. The result of this is I will go ahead, buy me some Beech and actually make some good use of it. Thanks again for the advice.

 

[monkeybiter]

FWIW It carves nicely too, plenty of resistance for a ham fisted chimp. DAMHIK

 

[sunnybob]

I like beech. I use it a lot in my boxes and small stuff

 

[monkeybiter]

This is a lap-tray I made from beech.

There was some shrinkage that became an issue because I allowed some glue to get into the groove for the floating panel. (hammer)

 

[Moonsafari69]

It sounds like shrinkage is a common item to watch out for. Will Beech need more than the 1 year per inch of drying time then? From the photos that have been shared I think the flecks look quite attractive, I will ask about the rift cut boards to see if they are available. It's nice to see some of the things that have been made so thanks for sharing. Dave.

 

[Dan j]

The year per inch should be fine, however the issue comes more when moving suddenly from low to high humidity/temperature areas.
I've got quite a lot of 3" beech that's been stacked and seasoning for about 6 years in a drying shed. Its moisture content is down to 20% ish but i still like to leave it indoors for a few weeks to move before machining it up.