i'm gonna show you that it is possible to make proper furniture out of construction lumber as i build this coffee table but stick around because there is one big reason why you shouldn't i'm gonna get started by rough cutting these two by twelves with a circular saw but why two by twelves the first thing you need to do is select your lumber this one looks great the long and short of it is that you want to avoid buying simple two by fours and buy the largest dimensional lumber that you can the reason is knots when they harvest trees for smaller dimensional lumber they grab the tiniest stick they can poop a two by four out of like this tree here because the young ones are cheap kind of like me but as you can see there are branches coming out of every end and each one of those represents a knot that'll make your project look more like a barrel sauna if they need to saw something larger like a long 2×12 then they need to start with a much bigger tree these trees have fewer knots and imperfections because their branches are all the way up there the lumber industry wants to maximize its profits by skimping on the drying process what this means for you is that those two by twelves you bought are still too wet to use if you try to use any wood that's not properly dry your flat farmhouse tabletop will end up looking like a barrel sauna in an ideal situation you would hit your head in an ideal situation you would allow your wood to dry out like these boards i've had sitting in my crawl space for a month now but if you don't have that much time to wait i'm going to give you some tips along the way to help minimize the inevitable wood movement if you do have the time and you want to be extra sure your lumber is ready to use you can use an inexpensive moisture meter like this pinless one that i have the exact number doesn't mean deadly squat but just compare it with known dry wood of the same species in your shop and it'll be good to go it's also good practice to always buy a little extra and build up a stockpile of wood so you have some dry material available when you need it just don't turn into this guy never thought of myself as a hoarder but i'm hoarding i just thought of something before i rough cut this i want to share with you the secret to getting the best cuts out of your two by material you're gonna find two different cuts of wood within construction lumber or in other words how the board was sawn from the log the first is called flat song and the dead giveaway here is that you can trace a growth ring that enters and exits on the same side of the board the second is what i've dubbed craps on and it's sort of similar to flat sonics if you get this nasty thing in the middle here called the pith which is the center of the tree the downside with flat sun is that the board tends to cup over time and this can even happen when the board is properly dry with construction lumber the downside with crapson is that it's incredibly unstable and can warp and twist in unpredictable ways and it can even split along the pith on its own accord so you might be saying to yourself they both sound undesirable which one should i choose and i would say neither and both let me explain by finally showing you how i'm going to lay out and cut my parts for the project any part that i'm going to see only one face in the finished project i'm going to cut out from the edges of the crap sawn board like the aprons for my table avoiding the pith in the center of the board leaves me with a very stable and straight grain cut called vertical grain side note if this were a hardwood like oak this would be called quarter sawn any part that i'm going to see more than one face in the final project i'm going to cut out from the edges of the flats on board this results in what's called riffs on and is equally as stable as vertical grain but you get all four sides with nice straight grain which is great for the legs of my table you get this effect because the grain travels diagonally through the part this is yet another reason why these wide boards are better [Music] construction lumber is typically used for banging together houses but if you have any aspirations for making furniture at all no matter what wood you're using a planer certainly wouldn't hurt if you don't have a jointer no big deal i won't be using my jointer for this project since it's not really set up to use yet also i want to show you that you actually don't need a jointer to get straight and flat boards don't be afraid of this monstrosity i rocked a lunchbox planer for years and i'd actually still have one but my delicate ears got tired of the whaling all you need to flatten your two by material is a planar sled this is nothing fancy it's just a piece of mdf that's as wide as my planer and it has a little cleat thing on the end so the boards don't fall off and you will need some wedges as well so you can level out the board and a little pink glue gun to tack things down temporarily [Music] i was hoping this wouldn't happen this right here is a pitch pocket and it's an aspect of working with soft woods and construction lumber that i really don't like because it's sticky and gross a pitch pocket is a little void filled up with gummed up tree sap and it's caused by growth ring separation when a tree got injured somehow through the kiln drying process the sap hardens a little bit but it's not super solid and it can mess up your saw blades and it can even drip out over time this is one of the slots that makes up the bottom shelf of my coffee table and i can hide this defect by simply placing it on the underside where no one will see it but i don't want to risk potential dripping so i'm going to remove it and i'm going to do that by continuously brushing it with isopropyl alcohol and wiping it away denatured alcohol will also work well but i can't get it in canada because apparently we can't be trusted with pure ethanol construction lumber is soft wood spruce pine or fur to be exact and because soft woods are generally soft it means that your completed piece of furniture will show signs of wear sooner than hardwood furniture would unless you're like my nana and collect figurines in china and things some styles of furniture do not age well and some do and for the ones that do imperfections will add what the hgtv people call character remaining in the realm of farmhouse rustic modern or even shaker style will ensure that your project will look good for years to come i'm building something more in the mid-century modern realm because this is what my friend wanted so i let him know about how quickly this will show wear and tear so do as i say not as i do [Music] [Applause] [Music] i'm going to be using dowels for the joinery in this bill but if you don't have a dowel you can just use your domino instead i'm obviously being facetious but i know that because you're interested in using construction lumber for your projects i'm just gonna throw this out there a
