Morning all,

My wife is expecting in March   and I've managed to persuade her that it would be great for me to build a cot and chest of drawers / changing unit for the nursery.

Not the fun starts...!    I've made some small-scale furniture before so this is quite ambitious for me - I'm really keen to give it a go though.

Firstly...

Kiln vs Seasoned oak - what's the benefits of kiln over seasoned (ie air dried)?  I have been talking to woodbypost.fsnet.co.uk - their prices are very reasonable but their oak is seasoned down to around 12% rather than being kiln dried.  If I bring some of this home and keep it in the garage / coldish room then will it naturally reduce moisture content to single figures?  Or could I go ahead and make the furniture with a content of 12%?

Also, what kind of finish would you guys recommend for the wood, considering that a baby might try to eat it...!  Some kind of natural wax?

Thirdly, I'm looking at buying one of the 'worktop' planer / thicknessers.  There is a charnwood and a sip version - both under £200 on ebay brand new and they both handle up to 4" x 6".  Should be fine for what I need it for, but has anyone here got any good / bad experiences from them?

Finally (!), does anyone have advice for the bext place to go for plans?  I am going to go to John Lewis, Mothercare etc to get ideas and inspiration on designs and ways to build the furniture, but it would also be good to get hold of some woodworking plans.  I've done some searches on the net but not overly successful...

Many thanks

Gary

If you store timber in an unheated garage it'll be about 16%MC in no time, well mine is anyway. As Jason said it would be best to store it in the house, I would also go for kiln dried for this sort of project.

Chestnut and Liberon finishing oils are both certified "toy safe" so should be fine for you.

I would go for the SIP in preference to the Charnwood, the SIP has a 2 year guarantee and SIP have really improved their quality in the last few years.

I've had a look  but couldn't find any specific plans for what you are intending to make, cribs, beds and bunk beds but not a combined unit

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Ahhh

I couldn't find a cot either but there are plenty of designs for a chest of drawers.

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Thats £22.50 per cubic foot, that must be sawn timber, do you plan to machine the timber yourself? You would need some reasonably serious machinery to do so.

I occasionally use air dried timber because I know a local farmer who has a barn full of oak and ash, but it takes me ages to machine it all up, plus sometimes there can be as much as 50% wastage. This is why kiln dried is so much more expensive.

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Thanks for the info, Jason.  Very impressive furniture - it looks amazing.  If my cot is half as good as that my baby should sleep well...!!

Where's the best place to get solid oak flooring from?  

I'd need to buy (ideally) oak flooring without T&G and without a finish on it - this isn't the sort of stuff you can pop into Wickes or B&Q and buy...!!

I was going to buy a thicknesser planer to machine the seasoned timber, but I'm not seriously reconsidering that option, based on the feedback on this forum.  If I'm going to end up wasting a fair bit then maybe I should bite the bullet and go for oak flooring timber - if it's about £40 per cubit foot then it's almost twice as expensive but should be much more stable and have less waste.

I'm still hoping someone else is going to pop up and say it will be fine to use air dried oak...still waiting...!!

This might seem like a daft question but if everything said above is true then why would anyone buy air dried timber?  If it's prone to warping then would it only be purchased for projects outdoors?  Or would it be people with their own kiln that would purchase it and kiln dry it themselves before using (I can't imagine many carpenters have their own kiln?!).  I'd still really like to go to the timber yard and pick up some of the timber he has - just to play around and experiment with.

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You might be waiting for a while, then. Over the last 40 odd years almost every house in the country has gone over to central heating, so the MC in timber within houses has dropped from a highish 10 to 13% that we used to see in coal-heated houses in wet old Lancashire to 6 to 8% typical in centrally-heated dwellings. However, there are still many projects where air dried is required, such as replacing timbers in buildings, renovation and restoration, etc.

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Actually I used to have an Ebac LD82 kiln at one time, and I must know 3 or 4 other people who still own and use a small dehumidifier-type kiln, so not as uncommon as you might imagine amongst hardwood workers. Joiners doing exterior work, such as doors, gates, etc (and that is a great part of the joinery trade) don't need to kiln air dried any further as their stuff is going to be ouitside - those working on interior fitments, furniture, etc., do. The biggest problem for a merchant is that hardwoods are expensive (your £22 / cubic foot on oak is actually pretty good) so the time it stays on the rack after kilning affects it MC - even if you kiln to 8%, leaving timber on a rack in an unheated shed in a Pennine autumn or winter would see you back at equilibrium with the surrounding air (12 to 14% or possibly higher MC) in a matter of weeks. That means the only way you'll get timber from a merchant at low MC levels is generally either to buy from the largest merchants, the ones with their own kilning facilities (such as John Boddy) or those who ship such vast quantities into the manufacturing trades and who consequently always have fresh stock which doesn't hang around long enough to reabsorb atmospheric moisture (such as Timbmet). For this reason some of use always take a wood moisture meter when visiting timber yards.

Scrit