I've got the blues

I’m fairly new but the things I’ve made of pine have worked out nice. Excuse the ignorance but what is “blue” pine?

-- Alan, Prince George

I wondered the same thing so I googled it. Says its a hard pine native to the Himilaya, Karakoran and Hindu Kush mountains. Moslty gives off a pungent odor and is used for making turpentine. Great for firewood.

Rogue lives up to his name.

Lee

-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.

What he may be talking about is when pines are cut and allowed to lay on the ground too long before sawing, the wood gets a blue tint to it. At that stage they’re not very desireable from an appearance standpoint although just as strong as non-blued pine.

-- Carl Rast, Pelion, SC

pine is fine… It’s not like we’d nail together a couple of 2×4s and call in fine woodworking. From where I’m sitting all I see is pine trim mostly old growth that I’d stripped and stained (was under several coats of paint over the past 130 years)... and it is all knotty beautifully grained and gorgeous.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

we have gone through 6000 BF of this stuff as finished millwork in the last 7 days on a single project . Blue pine a dirty word ? I don’t think so !

I have pine when I thought the project called for it, I painted some projects and stained others (used a sanding sealer to prevent blotching) and they both worked out fine. When I do use pine, I go for the Common Select. In fact, I recently picked up a steal at HD, they were discontinuing a particular size of Select Pine (1×6x48), each board was only $2, so I bought everything they had. It will come in handy sometime and for $2 a board, you can’t go wrong.

-- "You get what you inspect, not what you expect"

At an Ethan Allen facility in NC I was intrigued with what I thought was a good sized swimming pool very close to the sawmill. The”pool” was filled with a blue colored chemical they used to prevent blue stain in their fresh cut pine. As the pine boards came from the mill they were banded together and a big fork lift would lower the entire load into the pool where they soaked for a period of time before the air and kiln drying. I was told that just a short exposure to the air could start the blue staining process and thus make the wood unusable to them.

Myself, I dislike working with pine because it is so susceptible to scratches and marring. Just a piece of sawdust or small wood chip on the bench that might get under the boards or between them in a stack can do terrific damage. Of course you can sand that out but that takes time. Time when you could otherwise be doing things you might really enjoy. Inevitability you’ll miss some of those scratches or you might get burnished spots or streaks that won’t show up till the stain goes on.

I really think in the long run, if you agree that time is money, building with pine can be more expensive than working with hardwood. I’m speaking here of the softer pines that most most home centers and lumber yards carry. Poplar can be a good alternative. Many times it’s less expensive than #1 pine, cuts and stains nicer as well.

Of course if it’s the “look” of pine you want, then you just have to man-up and pay the price, IMHO.

-- Tom Landon, Lakeland, Fl. When you're through learning, you're through.

Blue pine is great stuff. I just start from the point of view that wood should be textured. If I wanted a smooth surface I’d use plastic.

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com