ETLB Squawk Forums — Archive

Despite the fact that I was briefly a wood machinist back in the day, I'm not actually very knowledgeable about timber. But some quick googling seems to be telling me that reclaimed timber is really good (assuming you get pieces without insect damage, rot, nail holes, etc) as its very dimensionally stable since its basically been air seasoned for the longest time.

But should I build a airplane out of reclaimed timber? I assume if its generally considered good then it will also be good for building an airplane, but I thought I'd better check with you fine folks first.

I ask because I found some reclaimed Douglas Fir for a reasonable price and so I bought a piece. They had a whole full rack, so I'm just wondering if I should  maybe go back and get more...or even if I should use the piece I've got?

A picture of the piece I got is attached below. Its 240×45mm by 3.5m. Its starts at 20 rings per inch on one side down to 6-7 rings per inch. Mostly dead straight grain down the length. Mostly clean with just a couple of small knots to work around. Some nail holes down one side, but its the side with the 6-7 rings per inch so that works out well.

Cheers

I'd use that whole board. Go back and get two more and you would likely have all the wood you need.  

Better then what you can buy today for a house mortgage!

It took 6 months to receive a spruce order last year from ACS, I'd have jumped on that fir you got there.

Good good good. I'll probably swing by and pick up some more in the coming days. I'm almost ready to officially start my 1100 build now.

But can you believe I can't find framing pine...just regular old cheap radiata pine dimensional lumber.

I need it to build my workbench but there's apparantly a shortage. The local big retailers are empty and at least the one local independents I use sometimes is dry too. I'm sure I'll be able to get it somewhere, but its just a bit funny that I managed to find good ol douglas fir more easily than pine and for not much more, price wise.

There is no reason you can't test it for strength.   The EAA has articles in a "Wood" booklet they put out or you can watch my video on You Tube, testing aircraft wood for strength.  That will give you piece of mind.

G'day Kenneth. Sounds like its worth a watch, but I'm actually feeling pretty good about this timber now. I've started cutting it up and its really nice. Minimal runout. Im happy enough to proceed without testing since doug fir is generally stronger than spruce or white pine anyway. Theoretically I could downsize the timbers to save weight since doug fir is also denser, but I wont downsize so I'm confident this timber will be well and truly strong enough. Cheers!

This has no consequence to anything but I just thought it was interesting how different the timber looks with flash (left) and without (right) flash. Its just a close-up of a bunch of 1/4 inch members.

That wood looks as good or better than what you would get from ACS.

Great! It would have cost me a fortune to get ACS timber, and this was anything but a fortune.

It was still sort of painful cutting it down to those 1/4" members with a 2.55mm kerf and turning 28% of it to sawdust haha.

But yeah it did look pretty good from the outside, but you just dont know until you start cutting it down. And once I did I couldn't be happier.

Where are you located? If they still have any more of that wood and its in New England I ought ta get me some.

I'm located on a entirely different continent in Melbourne, Australia...so it's all mine! Haha

I got 3 more.

They're not quite as clean with a couple more knots here and there, but they should be easy to work around since I got most of my long timbers out of that first piece. And these have far fewer nail holes. And they were even lower priced...I got these for 24% less than the first one.

The rings are definitely not as nice as the first one in terms of orientation, but the overall density of rings is better and more consistent. And those bottom two have some out of spec sections with ~45% grain. We'll see how I deal with that. I know I've seen timber sent out by ACS or in Team kits with 45% grain so I could probably just go with it. Or I could just do some creative sawing, produce a little more wastage, and just bring in back into spec at 60-90%.

3.7m top = ~32 rings per inch
4.4m middle = ~18 rings per inch
4.4m bottom = ~26 rings per inch

I should have gone back sooner as the other really good 220x45mm ones were gone. The extra 5mm really makes it easier to get what I need out of it whereas the 40mm is going to require slightly more planning. Although these new ones are painted so the surfaces are cleaner/smoother/less deteriorated so I wont have to take as much of the edges of these to get to nice clean wood.

So yeah that hopefully concludes my 'Reclaimed/Recycled Timber' thread. What I've got will hopefully be enough, barring any surprises.

I'm not going to post a build log but I might post a couple of pictutes as I cut it down and I'll probably post some pictures in other threads along the way that will show the timber after its been milled down and put into use...if you're insterested.

Well, it's not over yet.

I've cut up all that timber, though most of it not fully to dimension. For example, a 1/4" slice off the side of the board which will later be trimmed down to RS-17's, a 1/2" slice for RS-6's, etc. This way I know what I've got, if I've got enough, so there will be no suprises later.

And....I ended up falling short. I'm going to have to buy one more.

It should have been enough, but the surprise was a row of concealed (putty and paint) brad nails coming in from both sides down one edge of all three painted boards. A couple were discernable but I guess I overlooked them while focussing on knots and the larger open nail holes I could see. So I ended up losing 40-45mm of the 140mm width of the boards, only managing to squeeze a few RS-3's out of those bits. I could get some RS-1's but unfortunately I already have all the RS-1 I need.

The joys of reclaimed timber ey. It was certainly fun to cut. I have a C2 carbide blade that can handle nails so I didn't have to worry about flying teeth or anything, but man did it loose its sharpness quick smart going through those nails.

This is what I ended up getting:
RS-0 - 100%
RS-1 - 100%
RS-3 - 100%
RS-4 - 100%
RS-5 - 100%
RS-6 - 90%
RS-7 - 100%
RS-8 - 85%  
RS-9 - 45%
RS-9SC - 100%
RS-10 - 0%
RS-11 - 50%
RS-12 - 100%
RS-13 - 100%
RS-14 - 0%
RS-15 - 100%
RS-17 - 70%
RS-18 - 0%

On another note, I quickly knocked up a taper cutting jig. I gave it a test run with some scrap timber and its works like a charm. See below: