Timber

[Lonsdale73]

The supplier finder by postcode bottom right of certain pages reports a 'page not found' error message therefore advice sought please.

I'm after some hardwood, species not critical but what is critical is the width (180mm), the thickness (12.7mm approx) and I need enough of it to give six lengths at 450mm and six at 200mm and maybe one or two bits spare for set up / testing. It also needs to be flat, smooth and square, not cupped, bowed or otherwise twisted. Fired out a number of emails to timber merchants in Lincs, Notts and Leicestershire - not had a single reply!

 

[undergroundhunter]

I think you will struggle to find 12mm thick off the shelf (too thin), in my experiance I have never bought wood that was flat, square, not cupped or bowed, its always been one or the other. Couldn't you buy some 19mm or 25mm and plane it youself that way you know its good, or even get the supplier to plane it to 15mm and then finish it yourself when its aclimatised? I use G Empsons Nr Scunthorpe for my timber, they let you pick through and will stick it throught the thicknesser if you ask.

Matt

 

[Lonsdale73]

Couldn't you buy some 19mm or 25mm and plane it youself

Matt

Sadly, my skills are nowhere near that level, only just learnt what cupping and bowing are and that the 'square-cut, planed all round' isn't always that square and as such will never permit me to produce right angles. I did buy a planer thicknesser which was great for creating wedges and sawdust (I know it's not the machine that's at fault). While I try to get to grips with the basics I thought it might be useful to practice with some (near) perfect pieces.

Sunny Scunny's not that far, will see if they can help. Thanks for the tip. There is a merchant not that far away from me, I bought a piece from him last year, was like a Cadbury's Boost bar, smooth on one side (not so) slightly rippled on the other. I know he has a huge bandsaw and a planer so thought I'd give him another go but he tried to sell me two pieces which were both too wide and far too thick with no offer of running them through his hardware to get them even close to the size I was needing

 

[RobinBHM]

You may get a better response with a simpler request for pricing, maybe ask for 180mm x 13mm [email protected], which would be machined out of nominal 8" × 1" boards.

A few timbers spring to mind: tulipwood, meranti, red grandis, sapele, utile.

I dont know the use, but meranti and red grandis are reasonably likely to stay flat, although its a big ask to expect a board 180 x 13 to not cup. I dont suppose you could use birch plywood?

 

[Lonsdale73]

I dont know the use, but meranti and red grandis are reasonably likely to stay flat, although its a big ask to expect a board 180 x 13 to not cup. I dont suppose you could use birch plywood?

Thanks for that. The boxes are intended to hold my studio lights to make them easier to transport safely and neater to store when not in use. I have made a trunk from 18mm ply which is great for storing all of them, their stands, leads, cables, brollies, triggers etc except once loaded I can barely move it let alone lift it into the back of my car. So I thought I'd build individual boxes this time and practice half-blind dovetails rather than simply pocket hole srcew as the trunk is. I did start of with some ply however the tails snap off - I guess because I'm stripping away half the material. I had the brainwave of gluing some solid wood strips to the end and cutting the dovetails into these but they too snap off rather easily although I suspect this time that might be because I've cut them running in grain direction rather than across it? Conversely, the pins in ply are fine, I assume because there's more supporting material behind and to either side. My original thought was to cut some hardwood taills to fit the the existing pins in half inch ply panels, hence the need for 12.7mm stock, Now that you've got me thinking about it, I dare say I could create 'corner posts' from thicker stock and attach the sides to these. Actually, simpler still, rather than rebate away half the ply, could try cutting tails all the way through and cutting the pins deeper. Won't be today but will give it a go and report back!

 

[Lonsdale73]

Not sure why this duplicated an earlier post or how to delete completely.

 

[Lonsdale73]

Empsons can't help but at least they took the time to reply, so far still the only company to do so. But I popped back into the workshop this morning, dispensed with the recommended rebate and cut straight through, et voila, it works! Won't win any awards but I don't care about that - for now.

 

[undergroundhunter]

Empsons can't help but at least they took the time to reply, so far still the only company to do so. But I popped back into the workshop this morning, dispensed with the recommended rebate and cut straight through, et voila, it works! Won't win any awards but I don't care about that - for now.

For what you are wanting them for I would use ply, as others have said its quite hard to keep 1/2" material flat unless you have got ages to let it acclimatise and machine it slowly. For experimental purposes why don't you buy some 3/4 (19mm) pine and plane it down to 1/2" to see what happens, that way you will get some practice and also I think you will learn a lot about the nature of wood in general.

Matt

 

[Lonsdale73]

Empsons can't help but at least they took the time to reply, so far still the only company to do so. But I popped back into the workshop this morning, dispensed with the recommended rebate and cut straight through, et voila, it works! Won't win any awards but I don't care about that - for now.

For what you are wanting them for I would use ply, as others have said its quite hard to keep 1/2" material flat unless you have got ages to let it acclimatise and machine it slowly. For experimental purposes why don't you buy some 3/4 (19mm) pine and plane it down to 1/2" to see what happens, that way you will get some practice and also I think you will learn a lot about the nature of wood in general.

Matt

I started with ply but as noted above the dovetails snapped off. Problem with pine is I struggle to find it in widths over 150mm and I needed 180mm but I did attempt gluing some 12mm thick pine to the ends of the ply and cutting the dovetails into that but they too snapped off. This morning I went back to the ply, left out the suggested rebate and cut the dovetails straight through and made the pins correspondingly deeper and that got me a result. Like I said, won't win any awards but will serve their purpose more than adequately.

 

[Alexam]

The overal weight of your photographic equipment with wooden boxes will be greater than using large plastic boxes, as I used to do when photography was my main hobby. A lot of work and you may be worse off ?

Alex

 

[Lonsdale73]

The overal weight of your photographic equipment with wooden boxes will be greater than using large plastic boxes, as I used to do when photography was my main hobby. A lot of work and you may be worse off ?

Alex

They're to house studio lights which get used maybe half dozen times are year on location and need to be protected while in transit or in storage. As mentioned, I did construct a trunk to keep them all together but yes, much too big and heavy to be practical. Now I have a selection of shoe box sized 'crates' that individually are compact, manageable and stackable while offering better protection / durability than plastic. I have a variety of gadget bags, rucksacks, backpacks, cases and boxes for the actual cameras and lenses which are chosen for use according to that day's job. Sad thing is, when car is fully loaded with EVERYTHING not only does the replacement cost of it all come to much more than the cost of the car, it outstrips the cost of my first house!

Besides, was very, very satisfying producing something practical while practising my woodworking skills. Having to evaluate why things weren't working quite as expected and improvising to get a result will hopefully stand me in good stead for future projects.

 

[SurreyHills]

If using ply I would make the boxes using finger or box joints. Easy to make a jig to do this on a router table Steve Maskery has done an excellent video on a great jig.


Cheers
Andy

 

[Lonsdale73]

If using ply I would make the boxes using finger or box joints. Easy to make a jig to do this on a router table Steve Maskery has done an excellent video on a great jig.


Cheers
Andy

I have an Incra Ibox, now available for sale at a bargain price as I got an LS Positioner which enables me to cut box and dovetail joints. Despite doing almost everything wrong, my first project didn't turn out too bad and I was curious to know how well it could be if I actually followed the instructions properly. I have to say - and I'm in no way connected to or sponsored by Incra (although open to offers!) - that the positioner is a fantastic piece of kit even in the hands of a rank amateur like me.