Should I Have To Plane/Thickness PAR?

[Geoff_S]

I now know where to ask this question.

Over the years I have bought quite a bit of PAR timber and have often wondered whether or not I am being done. Certainly when I go
to my local yard I can at least look down the length of a piece and see any bow, but my problems have been when I have had to
order stuff that's not stocked, either from the yard or online.

The issues have come recently when I have ordered a pile of timber for kitchen cabinet doors, especially the 2 mtr tall ones. It has
worked out OK as it happens, because I had to order quite a lot for all the other aspects of the job. But I did end up having to "select"
the straightest bits for the 2 mtr doors out of the bundle of PAR that I was sent, owing to the fact that there was bowing in so much of it.

Now my last order was 70mm x 21mm x 3000mm from somewhere else. That was the exact size that I wanted. It was all just fine in this case, but if a piece had any sort of bow, should I accept it?

Or should I just bite the bullet in future and just buy sawn, and a planer (I have a thicknesser) and deal with it myself?

 

[ColeyS1]

Or should I just bite the bullet in future and just buy sawn, and a planer (I have a thicknesser) and deal with it myself?

That's what I would do. I think of par the same way as tanalised studwork - it's ok if it's going to be hidden. You should find a dramatic increase in quality with sawn softwood. Jewsons are usually pretty good. If they send out rubbish I send it back.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[Geoff_S]

Thanks Coley. You say a dramatic increase in quality with sawn softwood, but what about the hardwoods? Can I expect similar?

 

[MattRoberts]

I worked with PAR pine for quite a while until I wanted to move on to hardwoods, so I bought a planer thicknesser. It's great to be able to dimension your own timber as required.

When buying PAR, I wouldn't expect it to be perfectly straight out flat each time, which is why I would always select it by hand and not have it delivered blind

 

[custard]

If your objective is making the best furniture you possibly can, then there's a good chance the hardwood you need isn't even available as PAR boards.

You may well decide you want sequential, waney edged boards from the same log. That way you can get the cut you want, with consistent grain and colour, and the option of book matching your components.

It's probably inappropriate to set such high standards too early in your woodworking career, but if you stick at the craft you'll likely get to that point before long. So why not get yourself prepared right from the start? That means locating and visiting those timber yards that stock boulles or flitches, and selecting your wood in person.

If you build your woodworking around PAR timber then you're setting real limits on what you can ultimately achieve. Only you can decide if you're comfortable with those limits or not.

 

[Jacob]

PAR is just for bodging and not for proper woodwork. I think everybody finds this out gradually!
Selecting by hand is bad practice as you will be sorting through stuff from which the best may already have been taken.
The next big mistake is to buy a machine, sawn timber, and start planing your own stock of PAR. Nothing should be planed until it has been sawn to the size wanted from the cutting list of the thing you are going to make

 

[MattRoberts]

Jacob, you're such a wind up merchant...

 

[Chris152]

Selecting by hand is bad practice as you will be sorting through stuff from which the best may already have been taken.

?

 

[deema]

PAR is just that planed all around, it doesn’t indicate that the stuff will be straight or out of wind. The chances are that it’s out through a 4 or 6 cutter which won’t straighten in most cases.

Wood is sold in grades which indicates the minimum standard that you will get. Any decent yard will not allow you to sort through as you will in effect be down grading the pack, they will end up with stuff that is all at the bottom end of the grade. A point I believe Jacob is making.

There are yards that are specialists and do allow selection, however they are in my experience selling specialist timber.

To make anything well you need to get into converting rough sawn board into PSE yourself. Patience is also a virtue as you really need to leave the stuff in the environment it will be ultimately be in for a while and then initially plane and again leave the stuff for a while to reacclimatise and then finally plane to size.

 

[Jacob]

Selecting by hand is bad practice as you will be sorting through stuff from which the best may already have been taken.

?

A good timber merchant will not let you select softwood as it has been graded already and if the best is taken the grade of the whole stack is effectively reduced. You buy it by grade unseen. It means everybody gets same deal though If you think it's not up to scratch you can complain of course.
Hardwood different but it's up to the woodyard to give you what you want - seeking through stacks of timber on your own is difficult to impossible in a big yard, though it's interesting to have a look around and get to know how they work.
And it's a bloody site quicker - you just tell them what you want and get it delivered!

 

[custard]

you just tell them what you want and get it delivered!

Great, I'd like some of this,

Some of this,

Plenty of this,

And a load of this,

If you could give me the number to call so that I can place this order then I'd be most grateful.

 

[Jacob]

If you can specify it then you can often order it. Sycamore/maple are sorted by good woodyards as the best stuff for music instrument backs is worth a bomb, the worst is firewood. If they let you ferret about you might get something unexpected - I bought a lump of fiddle-back sycamore once but the chap in the yard said bloody hell it shouldn't have been in that stack don't tell em at the desk they'll want a fortune for it.
But you know as well as I do that your pics are of very special timbers - you'd have to seek out the woodyard which might supply stuff like that and ask them what they've got. You wouldn't find it by chance very often.