Working with Whitewood

[Jelly]

I've been given some boards of whitewood (probably 5ths or worse, a colleague bought more than they needed for some DIY), which is generally a material I avoid like the plague, but as it was there I cracked on making a little wall-mounted cabinet.

I rapidly remembered why I dislike it, making the carcass I cut my dovetails then clamped to a sacrificial board in the vice to remove the waste with a chisel, even with a chisel sharp enough to shave with, the sacrificial board and taking very small cuts the endgrain got well and truly munched, I got tear out on the outside faces of the boards , and generally just ended up turning into a mess.

Thankfully, I was always intending to put mouldings on the top and bottom, which will hide the issue, but as I have more to use up, I'd quite like to know if there's a secret trick to working with it, as even on the shooting board with a low angle plane It gives a rough finish on endgrain, and the extra fine edged (20 degree, convex bevel) chisels I keep for working with soft and/or brittle timber make bugger all difference.

Any and all suggestions welcome.

P.S. The other wood I was working with today on another project was reclaimed Jarrah, which was rather pleasant by comparison.

 

[undergroundhunter]

no tips other than avoid it, its just really fast grown rubbish.

Matt

 

[Droogs]

sounds like one of the few occasions where powertool woodworking is an advantage. The high speed of the bits helps prevent the fibres crushing before they are cut. do it with a router

droogs

 

[Trafalgar]

Deeply incised lines and a chisel or two ground low -- about all one can do. Droogs is right about using power tools. Great place to use router and jig.

 

[skipdiver]

Burn it. Will keep you warm for a bit while you work on the Jarrah.

 

[Jelly]

Burn it. Will keep you warm for a bit while you work on the Jarrah.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Jarrah, its gluing up at the minute, it's like a harder version of Keruing which I rather like, but even straight off the plane it looks lovely which is more than you can say for Keruing no matter what you do to it.

 

[Jelly]

Managed to make some alright looking crown mouldings out of it, to hide the shonkyness of the dovetails... Had to rip a 1.6m length to width, plane the angles onto it , stick the top moulding, then plane out the cove to meet it and finally pick out sections which had turned out alright to use. I don't like the angle I chose though, too much flare.

Whole thing has been a nice project to occupy time between stages of finishing my SS gift, and brush up on neglected skills (or in the case of making the cove accurately by hand, learn new ones) but the finish is destined to be poor at best. Guess I'll see it through in horrid whitewood, finish it with linseed and use it in the workshop to store something or other.

 

[Trafalgar]

Paint it, oh gelatinous one....

 

[D_W]

to hide the shonkyness of the dovetails...

Good choice. Even the finest dovetails don't look as nice as a moulding.

 

[custard]

I don't work with softwoods, but even the softer hardwoods cause problems occasionally, so i keep a couple of carbon steel chisels in dovetail sizes (i.e. 3/16 and 5/16) that are ground at 15 degrees and honed at about 17 or 18 degrees. They won't take any hammering, but they cut clean as a whistle on soft and punky stuff like Spalted Cherry.

I agree the cornice overwhelms the cab a bit, maybe it could be balanced with a vigorous lower moulding?

Good luck!

 

[Jelly]

Charles, painting it is not a bad shout, I've been looking for a reason to formulate some linseed oil paint ever since I learned to make linseed varnish...

I agree the cornice overwhelms the cab a bit, maybe it could be balanced with a vigorous lower moulding?

Well I do have a matched round to the hollow I made the cove with... Is there a record for world's biggest Ogee moulding?

Annoyingly I made a trial run of the moulding which came out rather better and I'd set it a much better angle making it less hulkingly ostentatious; but I only made 200mm of it.

 

[Trafalgar]

Turn it over and make the cornice the base....

 

[Jelly]

Turn it over and make the cornice the base....

That would be a really sensible option, if the slope from the join with the carcase to the cove wasn't so badly chewed up (I could only find so much width of nice clear wood in the boards), that said if I paint it as suggested above, I can just attack it with filler...