The Beauty of White Pine
Recently, I was in need of some empty wine crates to fill in the bottom shelves of a wine cellar that I was building for Silver Oaks Chateau, a wedding venue just outside of Wildwood, MO. I picked up the wine crates for $5 each, which seemed fair, but only a couple of them had complete lids. The rest were destroyed when the cases were opened by the employees at the wine store.
My plan was to install the empty wine cases so they looked as though they were full and unopened, so the lids had to be rebuilt. All of the boxes are made from pine, and mostly Eastern white pine. I am guessing that a couple from France are some more exotic form of pine found only in Europe, but they looked a lot like Eastern white pine.
All of these wine crates needed new lids.
I worked through the stack of twelve cases and found three that had serviceable lids, which just need to be nailed on again. The others were broken or nonexistent, so I headed over to my rack of pine and grabbed a few boards to resaw and plane to 1/4″ thick. On my way to the table saw I thought to myself, “It sure is nice to have a bunch of pine just waiting around to be used like this.”
And, it wasn’t by accident.
I have white pine in the shop because I like it. I especially liked it because I had it when I needed it, but I like it well beyond that. White pine is easy to work with, lightweight, dries quickly and stays straight, it is easy to nail and screw, it is easy to plane and distress, and the trees can get big with beautiful straight logs. Plus, the wood smells great and leaves my shop smelling fresh and clean. It isn’t so great at resisting dents or Mother Nature, but those usually aren’t deal breakers for me.
White pine can be big and straight. Look at a 22′ log on my 12′ bed.
They are not all straight. This white pine has a crazy shape and needed to be trimmed down to 60″ wide to fit in the Lucas mill.
Two big white pine slabs made this 32″ x 22′ bar top.
All of these tables at Urban Chestnut Brewing Co. were made of white pine that we milled for Goebel & Co. Furniture.
White pine is great for these solid and hollow beams. The light weight makes the installation job a lot easier for the carpenters.
This wine cellar features hand-hewn white pine for all of the shelving.
White pine is usually poo-pooed by everyone and treated as a lesser wood. Maybe it’s because it is sold at Home Depot and it doesn’t cost too much, or maybe it’s because pine is thought of as a framing lumber. Either way, it seems like everyone thinks that nice woodworking isn’t done with pine. But, I say don’t blow pine off just yet.
Think about the things that pine is good for and focus on them. It is great for projects with big and long pieces since it is light, dries quickly and the logs can be big (the 16′ long tables for Urban Chestnut in the photos above are a great example). Pine is the perfect choice for anything with a rustic feel because it can easily be worked with hand tools, distressed with minimal effort and is naturally rustic in feel from the characteristic knot patterns. But, white pine isn’t always knotty. The big logs can produce completely clear lumber for projects with a more modern look, and even smaller logs can produce clear lumber between the knots, which can be used for smaller projects. White pine is also fantastic for woodwork that needs to stay straight, like interior doors, because of the trees normally straight up growth pattern which produces consistently stable lumber. I have built many doors with white pine, and I love knowing that the doors will stay very straight. Just think about all of the places that you could use pine and haven’t given it a chance.
Lastly, think of the joy of working with pine. Everything, except sanding, is easier with white pine – focus on that. Pull that handsaw off the wall and make a few cuts, just for the fun of it. Grab a hand plane and make long curls of shavings. Leave those shavings on the floor and feel how soft and fluffy it is, and enjoy the smell. Pick up a board and feel how the lumber is so lightweight and a joy to carry. Heck, grab a stack of boards and carry those around for a bit, and be thankful they aren’t oak. Imagine your shop is much older than it is, maybe with a water wheel powering the entire operation, and be proud to use a wood that has been making its way into furniture for hundreds of years.
Stop finding reasons to not use pine, and you will start to fall in love with it before you know it. All you need to do is spend some quality time with the white pine and keep an open mind.
New Found Love for Cypress
I am currently working on installing a wood ceiling in the basement of my house. I thought it would be a great use of eastern white pine and a treat to actually do a little work on my own house. I “treated” myself to eastern white pine because it is the cheapest lumber I sell and therefore causes me the least financial negativity by not selling it.
A mixture of eastern white pine, spruce, and cypress are finally whitewashed and installed on part of my basement ceiling, minus the extra nutty cypress that I couldn’t bring myself to paint.
As I was rounding up all the pine in my shop, I was worried I didn’t have enough stock, so I looked for lumber that was similar. I grabbed some spruce and cypress that seemed fairly similar, and since I am whitewashing all of the lumber, I decided they would work. The spruce looks great. Most people couldn’t tell the difference between it and the white pine.
The cypress is a different story, but not for the reasons you would think. The problem with the cypress is that after I sealed it with shellac prior to the whitewash some of it looked so cool I couldn’t bring myself to whitewash it.
I have always poo-pooed local cypress because it has so much sapwood from growing quickly in wide open spaces (usually yards). The sapwood is less durable than the heartwood so the wood is not the best choice for exterior applications, which kills me because that is the first thing that people expect out of cypress. When someone asks if I have cypress I say,”Yes, but not the cypress you are thinking of. It didn’t come out of a deep swamp from a slow-growing old tree, and there isn’t much clear wood.” Almost every board is knotty since the trees are usually covered in branches to the ground. Everything about this “exterior” wood says don’t use it outside, so it tends to lean against the wall for sale and only very slowly trickle out of the store.
Now, I got a fresh look at my cypress, but not for an exterior application. Now, I just looked at it as wood, and what I saw was a wood that stands out from the crowd. Some of the boards looked more like burls and less like lumber. The knots are clustered in tight pockets, mixed with bark inclusions and swirly grain. Again, not great for exterior wood, but awesome for a future piece of furniture.
The cypress on the bottom is not local, but it is what I expect cypress to look like if it is going to be used outdoors. I milled the cypress on top, and while it may not be great for outdoor use with all of its “character”, it is way too cool to paint.
Another portion of the same lumber shows the difference between the two cypress boards.
As I went through the stack and rediscovered the boards, I set them aside, hoping that I could finish the job without using them. At this point, I have the ceiling almost completed and it looks like I won’t need the cypress. But, even if I did, I have a feeling that I would be milling up some new, not-so-cool lumber to finish the job. This stuff is just too cool to paint and put on the ceiling. Go-oh, Cypress!
What’s Going on at WunderWoods
Everyone always asks what I do. Here's the answer. Click on the photo above for a short video tour and see all of the steps it takes to go from a tree to finished furniture.