Hi. I recently bought an unfinished house in Alaska, and plan to do much of the trim work myself. I’ve got about 3000 l.f. of VG fir, some of it reclaimed, waiting to be made into trim, stair railings and risers, cabinet doors, and so on. It all needs to be surfaced. My plan calls for finger joints on the risers, and a fair amount of bullnose trim. What tips do you all have for working with fir? I know it splinters like crazy, and I think I can deal with that. But I can’t decide how to make the finger joints — with a router jig or a band saw — and I’d love to know how to avoid tear-out when routing the bullnose. I’ve seen some advice in the archives here; but it doesn’t go very far. Any tips you have for planing, routing, sanding or finishing fir would be much appreciated.
Thanks!!
Deborah
Replies
Fir is a nice wood to work with, especially VG. Keep your bits and tools sharp and work with the grain as much as possible.
Not quite understanding the finger joints on risers
I use an danish oil finish on my fir. My mix is homemade: 1part Tung Oil, 1 part turpentine, 1 part spar varnish. Brush on and wipe off excess. Let dry over night. Repeat procedure.
This gives a natural look to the fir, allowing the wood to develope a natural patina. I also find the oil mix penetrates into the wood much better and helps minimize splinters. A light sanding on the edge to create a bit of a softened edge helps as well to minimize splinters.
In the past I tried putty on the nail heads, but have never had luck matching...it starts off fine but over time the wood will change and the putty becomes more pronounced. Now I just use a 18g. pin nailer for the trim and do not bother filling nail holes. Or use a 15g. and set it for flush and do not set the nails.
Thanks for the tips. See my reply to "piffin" for what I mean by the fingerjoints.
The finishing product sounds nice. What, exactly, do you mean by spar varnish? I've seen several products that carry this name; seems like they vary considerably. Would you use this mix in high wear areas? Could you put a poly or something over it?
I'm delighted to hear that a pro might leave the nailheads without putty. I trimmed out a little under-eave attic door, and to me it looks fine, especially since this is a rustic environment (or as my late sweetie used to say, "we're not building a piano here!"). But I would hate to have a visitor be scandalized!
-- Deb
I have heard the "fingerjoint" you spoke of as slotted box joint. I like the detail of it. Nice choice. If you score your cut lines prior to sawing, you will experience less tear out.
I use a marine grade spar varnish because it has better UV protectants for outside applications and it has fewer chemical additives. Any good quality varnish will work for inside application. You do not need to nor should you use polyurethane or other sealer over the danish oil.
I do not like the look of putty nail holes. It is very hard to match the wood especially as the patina changes over time. You can use muriatic acid and then peroxide to tarnish the nail heads before installation. Works well with either gun nails or hand drives, but just do the heads. Make sure you rinse them well with water after and allow to drywalk good
That is a great tip for the nails. I'll try it. Thanks for the encouragement. -- Deb
Deb
I call them box joints. My baseboards are 1 x 5 edge grain doug. fir with box joints on all outside corners. I also fitted them with 3 fingers on one and 2 fingers on the other.
KC
Deb
I ran upstairs and took a couple pictures. I tried a router, scroll saw and jig saw but I ended up going back to the handsaw and chisel, once you get the hang of it it goes pretty quick. Added a picture of the wall between the bookcase I worked on over the weekend.
KC
Thanks, KC --- that is exactly what I mean. Looks terrific!! I appreciate your voice of experience on the right tool to use; now I can justify those new chisels I recently bought! Although I will no doubt regret it when I'm trying to clean them, I plan to leave mine a hair proud.
Deb
I've heard that some people "climb cut" edge details in VG Fir (have to bow my head when I say that). I'm not saying I do it, or that I'd recommend it, or that it's a safe procedure, but (I've heard) it definately helps prevent chipping and grain tearout.
jim and everyone,
we used the climb cutting technique a lot in the boatyard where i used to work. we used tons of fir. two projects in particular stand out; the complete hull for a thirty-five foot ketch and all of its spars (hollow box construction). this will work for the roundovers, and other edge treatments, but not if you're routing pins and tails for finger joints. if you go with the routing, get as much waste out of there with a jigsaw, forstner bit, or coping saw as you can before firing up the router and jig...
little moment of pride and a happy memory: while beveling the edge of a plank to fit, i cut a forty foot continuous shaving with my block plane.
if you're using chisels, plan on sharpening them a lot. the hard and soft grain structure when chopping end grain is hard on tools.
if you use a handplane, i would suggest honing a back-bevel on the iron or using a plane with a higher bed angle
thanks, jim. pardon my ignorance, but by climb-cutting, you do mean just routing the wrong way, right?? I'll try it for the round-overs. do you just make an initial shallow pass, then go back to the "right" way, or do you route the entire profile downhill? With a piloted bit, do you think it is safer on the router table or with a hand held router?? (I was told you were the king of fir ..)
I'm in Talkeetna - a couple hours north of Anchorage.
Something else that will help with the splintering when routering fir is a zero clearance fence.
I certainly know where Talkeetna is; haven't been there for a while, tho. Good tip on the fence. What a lot of great advice!!
Talkeetna, huh?
ever been over to the Salmon Bake Restaurant in Healy?
Very nice people there (and good food too). Located just north of the enterance to Denali park, right on Rt 3.
Beautiful country, if you don't look at the Princess Cruises place that sprawls across the road from the Bake!
Lucky you, living up there.
Norm
Yeah, climb cutting is feeding the cut from the opposite direction, whether you move the router, or the material. The thing is, the bit then cuts as it enters the wood, not as it leaves it. The safest way is to use a powerfeeder that won't allow the material to grab and become a projectile. You can get by taking small bites with a hand held router too, though. Works great for stile and rail work, too.
But of course, I've never done this myself, and would never recommend it to others.
Dear Jim and Deb and everyone... I routinely rout CVG douglas Fir the "wrong way"
Is it dangerous? I believe it can be. Effective for field machining CVG Fir into custom profiles without destroying many lineal feet of what is, essentially a non-replaceable building product? Yes it is and I recommend that all carpenters faced with such a task learn the required technique and achieve the necessary "touch and feel" to do it.
Breaktime is not the place or forum for educating anyone about this. A dust filled home from the turn of the century that you must remodel and restore ( well, kinda.)
is a perfect spot. I suggest you get some extra wood.
I've actually only been up to the park once. We usually go south when the urge to flee attacks. I have been to a restaurant called The Perch about 30 min. south of the park which I would highly reccommend.
To all: I've been hoarding piles of VG DF for the last six years.... cant wait to use it in my house this summer. (A lot of it was late 60's framing lumber - can you believe it?)
In the 80's and early 90's I worked with a guy who called me "VG Blodgett". We'd be remodelling this or that and and run across some VG joist, stud, or rafter and I'd have to stop and admire it, run my hands across it a bit...been known to find a couple stray VG studs in a pile at a lumber yard and spend an hour picking through the entire unit pulling out and buying all the sticks like that - treasure.
I still always look at the end grain in units from Allen Log Company. For some reason or another I've found more tight grained VG studs with their stamp on it than usual.
Did I ever tell you guys about the time I hired a guy with a Woodmizer to mill thousands of feet of old growth VG Fir (have to bow my head when I say that) out of a pile of logs that was headed to the pulp mill because they had center rot and no mill would buy them? Traded the sawyer a Lincoln Town Car I'd inherited and sided a cabin for the logs. Man, that was a fun month milling hauling and stacking that stuff. Never did square off the edges, got some big assed slabs, like 1x24, 2x16, 4x12, stuff like that.
Then, the same sawyer called me a couple months later and a huge cedar log, with center rot had washed up on some guy's place and asked me if I'd pay him 200.00 to saw it up the same way, so as to vield all VG. Man oh man, we're talkin' tight grain, almost black cedar, had to be a couple hundred years old. Still have some of that left, too.
Great day to be a carpenter, isn't it?
In terms of climb-cutting (routing the wrong way is a good way to describe it) you want the last pass to be the climb cut and give you the smooth finish if anything, not the first. You have to take very small bites and multiple passes or the router will grab and teach you why people should rout the other way.
Do you have access to a mortising machine? Even a little benchtop model should handle this easily. You'd get nice clean corners in a jiffy and minimize any necessity for the use of sawblades.
Knowledge is power, but only if applied in a timely fashion.
Nice work! I think this is one reason that Greene and Greene were so sought after during their time!
First, be looking for a post from Jim Blodgett, the high priest of {bowing the knee}Clear Vertical Grain Fir.
I'm not sure of your meaning for fingerjoints and why you would want to use them for risers. Is it possible there is a semantic miscue here?
What is the joint you are making?
For bullnose and all other milling with fir, it is important to keep very sharp tooling and keep it cleaned of pitch. Take small passes, cutting no more than an eighth of an inch each time. Because it is splintery. I cannot imagine getting a good cut with fingerjointing end grains on this wood. for milling that parralleles the grain, take time to "read the wood" be removing shavings so that you are cutting the grain up rather than biting in where a splinter will split and run deeper into the wood.
On one of my most frustrating kitchens ever, I built cabs to match the older fine fir in the butlers pantry in the style of the old craftsman that was every where in the house and did some nice, if i do say so myself, grain matching and orientation.
The month after they moved in, they decided to paint the kitchen blue. The tears rise in my eyes thinking about it.
Excellence is its own reward!
Deb - where are you in Alaska? I might be persuaded to take it off your hands so you can be free to trim with something a little easier to work with, say FJ pine preprimed casing.
What d'ya mean, generic and cheap? 10,000 tract houses can't be wrong.
Seriously, have fun. I bet it'll look beautiful.
I'm in Haines, in southeast. You?
Thanks so much for the tips; arrrggh I can imagine how you felt when the paint cans came out!!
The fingerjoints are a craftsman style detail taken from Greene & Greene homes - how do I post a picture here?? I'd show you what I mean. The riser joins with the horizontal panel encasing the stairway; these are not tiny little fingers, but just three to five "fingers" at each riser. So you can make them with a band saw, except that some of the side panels get pretty long and unwieldy for that tool. I've experimented with a pattern & router, and if I improve my technique, that might work. But the tear-out can be horrid going around the corners.
I'm cheating on the cabinets; I bought the cases and plan to make the doors and drawers and face frames. When you matched the old cabinets you were talking about, how did you make the panels? Did you use plywood or solid wood?
I'll do a search for Jim Blodgett.
Thanks for the help. -- Deb
I know the "joint" that you are talking about. Finger joints bring up the image of a large number of relatively fine fingers.
I would call it a knucke joint. The ones that I have seen pictures of only have 1 knucke on on piece and two on the other. They are not structural, but rather just decorative. And the pieces stick out a little past the mating piece and are "rounded".
I looked in some books and where the mating pieces are in the same plane, such as a door frame, it is a bridle joint.
I would make a template for quick marking and then use a jig saw.
That's exactly right, Bill. But I was thinking about 3 and 2 for the knuckles (I like the term!). I'll try a jig saw, I might be able to be steady enough.