Sources for wood?

[DaleB]

Are there places other than Aircraft Spruce and Wicks to order spruce for an airplane?

Wicks' website is a nightmare -- I can see I'd need to call them with a list rather than placing the order on line. Not my first choice, but it's certainly better than my experience so far with ACS. I placed an order with them for $500+ worth of spruce on 2/3. Two full weeks later -- 2/17 -- there was still no indication they had shipped it, so I contacted customer service. That was last Friday. Finally, today, I find out they won't be shipping my order until THIS Friday. That's a full three weeks after ordering, and another weekend gone without any material to start building. It's more than a little frustrating. I wasn't anticipating they were going to go look for trees to cut down when I placed the order.

Next time I'll know better. Is Wicks any better? Are their other dependable sources for aircraft spruce, or am I just swimming upstream trying to build anything out of wood now?

[CraigCantwell]

Dale: Did you note the information about sizing at the very bottom of their wood pages? If you specified exact lengths and gave no minimum length requirement, it can have a big effect on getting materials. They are long pages and if you didn't get to the bottom, you likely missed it. Another thing that can slow things down is having them ship only when the order is complete. A lot of times I'll specify to ship what's on hand and ship back ordered items when complete.

[DaleB]

Yes, I read it all before ordering. I didn't order anything out of the ordinary... 4 and 6 foot lengths of capstrip. When I was placing the order I was tol there was a 10 day lead time on capstrip. OK, it would have been nice to have known that two weeks before I ordered, but I can deal with it and write it off as a lesson learned. Then that 10 days stretches out to 21. Not just an extra day or two or three. Not even "ten business days". We'll see if it actually ships Friday, or if there's an other unanticipated delay.

So I'm looking for an alternate supplier, one that either stocks what they sell or is at least up front about how long it will take them to ship it. Yeah, maybe I'm a little steamed about it, but I don't think I'm being all that unreasonable.

[Carbiener]

Those are the only two "normal" sources for aircraft spruce. McCormick Lumber in Madison, WI sells rough boards, don't know about shipping. I have used some of their stuff and with a good planer and table saw you can make anything you want. Also Douglas Fir, Western Hemlock and other woods can be aircraft grade if they are inspected and used taking their strength in mind. I am using Douglas Fir from Menards for a lot of non critical wood on my project. May I ask what you are building?

[DaleB]

Well... eventually... I'll be building a Fisher Celebrity, some day when I get some spruce. I'm checking local places for white pine, Douglas fir and western hemlock (some parts call for pine), but so far what I have seen has been more suited for a pulp mill than an airplane.

[Carbiener]

I have the plans for the Celebrity, nice plane! I have been on your end and understand the frustration. Have thought about how difficult managing the wood shop at these places would be. They can't cut a 22' board for 5' cap strips because the next order is going to be for 17' spars. Sitka Spruce is sometimes more precious than gold as it only grows in one place in the world! As far as getting bad wood at local lumber yard, I remember what a wise man Bob Hoover said (not that Bob Hoover). " As you cut wood into cap strips all the bad spots just disappear." What he meant by that is when you cut, the wood breaks at the knots etc. and you end up with long and short pieces. The long ones are cap strips and the short ones are the bracing. Good luck with the project!

[geraldmorrissey]

Might try Fred Tebb & Sons, Inc., 1906 Marc Street, Tacoma, WA 98421, Tacoma, WA 98401 Phone: (253)272-4107

[martymayes]

You can google for specialty lumber stores in your area. Also try some boat building sites. The Glen-L site list specialty wood stores by state that might have what you need https://www.glen-l.com/resources/lumber-suppliers.html
The good thing about Wicks or Spruce is you can get wood already milled to size. That's one reason why it's so expensive. If you buy rough cut 2 x 6 spruce boards, while much less expensive, you'll need a way to cut and mill that stuff to size.

There's a couple specialty wood stores near where I live. All I can say is don't go on a weekend. You'll think you're at a flannel shirt / suspenders convention. Bunch of old guys with long beards smoking pipes and carrying blocks of burly maple. Not really airplane stuff.

[DaleB]

Yeah, there is exactly one specialty wood store I have found anywhere near here. Strictly hardwood. Never heard of spruce, fir, hemock or pine. I have a couple more lumber suppliers to check out, but Nebraska is not exactly known for its tall coniferous forests or plane/boat/guitar manufacturing industry.

Waitin' on the UPS truck. Maybe I'll take up needlepoint in the mean time.

[martymayes]

I have a couple more lumber suppliers to check out, but Nebraska is not exactly known for its tall coniferous forests or plane/boat/guitar manufacturing industry.

Isn't Nebraska the state where recognized state tree is the telephone pole?

[DaleB]

No, it's shorter, has orange and white stripes and is found perennially along and in the middle of streets and highways across the state.

[mmarien]

Another source is abandon projects. I picked up my spars from an abandon project and know of a second project that has spars. I have a box of 1/4" x 48" capstrip that I won't be using. It came with the spars but I already had the rib material.

I bought my capstrip from ACS and am pretty happy with the quality. I don't remember the time it took to ship, but then I did some proper project planning.

[DaleB]

I've added "Order wood at least 60 days before it's needed" to my list of lessons learned on this project. It looks like my order is finally on its way... three and a half weeks after I placed it, 15 days past the lead time I was told to expect when I placed the order, and 4 days after I was last week it was "shipping today". But who's counting? :)

This was just a capstrip order, nothing excessively long, or unusual.

On related topic... For some pieces, I'm thinking it might be better to order larger planks and rip them down to size. The less cutting ACS has to do, the better my chances are of not sitting here tapping my foot waiting on it. I'm also thinking in case I find some decent quality white pine or Douglas fir locally, where that is called out for certain pieces, it would be good to be able to resaw some common lumber yard stock down to size. Would it be reasonable to try to do this with a decent quality but not super-expensive band saw? I'm thinking an older Delta, or a new Jet or Shop Fox 14" with a good Timber Wolf blade on it. Something in the $750-ish price range new. It's obvious that my little cheap 10" bench top saw is absolutely not up to a task like that, although it's been great to have for small jobs. I've seen Youtube videos of guys slicing boards down to smaller sizes, but of course its going to look easy when a pro with really good equipment and a lot of experience does it. I'm willing to buy a nice big band saw if it's going to allow me to do the job, but not if it's just going to be a good way to ruin expensive wood.

[Sam Buchanan]

I ripped the wood (including rib capstrips) for a plans-built MiniMax with an inexpensive bench-top table saw. The key to making these saws work is using a good blade. A couple of roller stands (http://www.harborfreight.com/132-lb-capacity-roller-stand-68898.html)are very useful and make handling long boards much easier.

[DaleB]

Yeah... I suppose I could get a good blade custom made for this one, but it takes an oddball small size. The blades I have found are not great quality. I can't see spending money on a custom welded blade to see if my Harbor Freight band saw can be made good enough to (slowly) rip very expensive wood with acceptable results. I doubt I'd feel badly about having a good quality 14" saw, especially since I can see some more upcoming non-aviation projects that I'd use it for. After watching a video I found about setting up and tuning a larger bandsaw, I did the same to mine. It cuts much, much better and straighter than it did before, but still not great. We'll see how I feel after getting some ribs done, and checking a couple more local places to see if there any acceptable Douglas fir or other materials available.

I do have one of those roller stands -- they sure do come in handy.

[Sam Buchanan]

Yeah... I suppose I could get a good blade custom made for this one, but it takes an oddball small size. The blades I have found are not great quality. I can't see spending money on a custom welded blade to see if my Harbor Freight band saw can be made good enough to (slowly) rip very expensive wood with acceptable results.

Dale...I used a table saw. A band saw would indeed be a slow go......

A hollow-ground circular carbide blade is commonly available at big box stores at a reasonable price and will last long enough to cut the lumber for two or three airplanes. My saw is a cheap Delta that I've had in the shop for 25 years. It also cut all the cedar strips for two canoes and a kayak. :)

[braywood]

Start making fittings; there's no need to sit and wait - always lots of things to do and make!