hard facts

That’s too bad. You are doing fine work and have no need to justify/rationalize your creative and technical decisions.

Greg

Tradition is a hard nut to crack. I don’t knoiw were or why the beech tradition started, but I’m sure it had more to do with availability then anything else. Harder and more stable sure sounds like well thought out reasoning to me.

-- http://timetestedtools.net - Collecting is an investment in the past, and the future.

Good info. I was surprised that white and red oak moved more than Douglas Fir.

Interesting info. I agree that availability would play a large role. There are other characteristics which may also have been important back in the old days. Beech is softer than Ash and therefore easier to work with hand tools. It is also a highly shock resistant wood, a good characteristic in a plane. I also have found that open grain woods are much more splintery that open grain woods and this might also be a consideration during production. Other factors such as drying times and weight (both under transport of raw materials and in use with the finished product) might also play a role. Personally I love ash. I’ve used it for several projects and it is strong and wonderful to work with and it looks great too. I am not trying to reinforce your critics here, just trying to rationalize why beech might have been the wood of choice in earlier times, but not necessarily today.

-- Mike, an American living in Norway.

Yes Mike, I believe every point you make to be accurate and feel in no way that you are being critical.

Dons comment about tradition sums it up.

Hope my posts don’t come off as snarky or antagonistic, I’m just a straight shooter who prefers fact to opinion.

Be Good
Rhett

-- Doubt kills more dreams than failure.

Yeah, I’d say that Don and Stefang hit it right on the head. I like the fact that your breaking tradition and improving it by choosing to use better materials.

-- Rob - Indianapolis IN - Learning... one mistake at a time...

Interesting post. Thanks, Rhett.

helluvawreck aka Charles
http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com

-- helluvawreck aka Charles, http://woodworkingexpo.wordpress.com