Yellow Pine

[Swobee]

I have an opportunity to get a lot of Yellow Pine for an excellent price. I'm planning to make my own supers any way and am considering using this lumber. I haven't seen YP hive bodies any where for sale - only Ponderosa, White Pine, Cypress. I've been told YP is better for exposure than White Pine and it's definitely a stronger wood, although heavier. I will either paint or dip or maybe both, but will not be set up for dipping until later this winter. Any thoughts on potential problems with using this wood species?

Also, anyone try using locking miters at corners instead of finger joints to eliminate exposed end grain? I know these joints will not be as strong as finger joints, but the locking miters work well for drawers and such and with no end grain exposed should last a long time. I'm not talking a simple 45° miter, instead this locking miter joint uses a special cutter head.

My brother made a couple of bodies from black walnut just for grins and they sure look nice. They're only sitting on display in the shop, almost too pretty to put to use! Thanks

[loggermike]

Ponderosa pine is commonly known as yellow pine.

[tecumseh]

I assume by yellow pine you are referring to the general term that builder call 'southern yellow pine'. There is a specific species (rare) of pine tree that is called yellow pine.

Anyway... many of my boxs are constructed of yellow pine. The issue of using this material is weight and exposure without painting or treating the outside will ultimately result in the material cupping or bowing. All my boxs are constructed with lap joints (with a few wood working machines it is quick and dirty) with the laps being joined by glue and nails. These hold up remarkable well. I would suspect the grain of yellow pine would make box joints a bit difficult since the wood is tough (at least for pine species) and tends to splinter easily. If yellow pine is aged then it typically becomes extremely hard and brittle.... driving nails in aged yellow pine without using an air nailer is almost impossible without severe splintering.

[loggermike]

Guess I should have said that yellow pine is what loggers call a ponderosa in the west. Common names of species can be confusing.My dad pointed out the junipers around here were called cedars in New Mexico when he lived there.The Insence Cedars here are tall and straight and can be 6 feet in diameter.Douglas fir is commonly called red fir, but so is Shasta fir by some.

[loggermike]

Over the years,I used many types of scrap wood from pallets and crates-plus hanging around sawmills for trim ends.Using a simple rabbet joint cut with dadoes on a table saw,when glued and airstapled, these 'junk' boxes held up for many years. When you dont have any money, and a large family to support, you learn how to cut costs to the bone.All this old stuff is gradually being culled and replaced but it served its purpose.

[Jeffzhear]

Over the years,I used many types of scrap wood from pallets and crates-plus hanging around sawmills for trim ends.Using a simple rabbet joint cut with dadoes on a table saw,when glued and airstapled, these 'junk' boxes held up for many years. When you dont have any money, and a large family to support, you learn how to cut costs to the bone.All this old stuff is gradually being culled and replaced but it served its purpose.

LoggerMike Right on! I don't care if its' pretty or not. I prefer to build as much as I can using whatever wood works. I have homemade boxes that are 50 plus years old, made by my Dad and others. My bees haven't caught up with the Jones's yet, and they don't seem to care....go figure.

Everything I own is painted and well kept...to me, that's all that matters. And, I know that I save at least 40% off of commercial prices for the boxes I build. Some will argue that it takes too much time...but, I build boxes year round on my table saw listening to the Yankee games and watching TV on occassion...

[Michael Bush]

Yellow pine is heavier and stronger. A plus and a minus. I have a lot of supers made of it and they work fine.

[loggermike]

There is also the pleasure of working with wood.Thats worth something.If there is time to make your own, and you can get a deal on the wood, the savings are substantial.I spent hundreds of happy hours in winter with the smell of sawed pine, with thousands of frame parts piling up behind the saw.
"Everything works if you let it." says it all.

[flathead]

Southern Yellow Pine is much stronger than white pine and seems to be more robust than Ponderosa. But white pine is more dimensionally stable, SYP will crown.

We use SYP and it is a great wood. It does split easier than white pine or cypress.

Wholesale at $225 a thousand for # 2s, we can build a super for about $1.50 each for material. We buy 6 footers which give us the price break.

SYP hot dipped should last many years.

http://zacharyfarmsllc.com/dipping_boxes_in_paraffin.htm

[Swobee]

Thanks for the responses. I knew SYP is heavier, but forgot about it's splintering tendency. I guess the trick is to treat the wood- paint thoroughly or dip and keep them maintained. I am willing to experiment with the locking miter on a few boxes. Maybe just on supers- they will be handled more often and that will tell me if the joints & Gorilla glue will hold up. I had just thought that if you can limit exposed woodgrain, you would increase the life of a box.

[tecumseh]

swobee adds:
I had just thought that if you can limit exposed woodgrain, you would increase the life of a box.

tecumseh replies:
you are quite correct, but the more elaborate the joint the more precise (exacting) the dimensions, cuts and trueness of the wood. when you construct boxes from salvage wood as jeffzhear, loggermike or myself this much total precision becomes impossible.

[John F]

Thanks for the responses. I knew SYP is heavier, but forgot about it's splintering tendency. I guess the trick is to treat the wood- paint thoroughly or dip and keep them maintained. I am willing to experiment with the locking miter on a few boxes. Maybe just on supers- they will be handled more often and that will tell me if the joints & Gorilla glue will hold up. I had just thought that if you can limit exposed woodgrain, you would increase the life of a box.

I use a locking miter joint on boxes I make out of plywood. I have a router table already set up so it's easy. I wouldn't use gorilla glue; I use titebond III (or II, but I buy by the gallon).

[JC]

I use a locking miter joint on boxes I make out of plywood. I have a router table already set up so it's easy. I wouldn't use gorilla glue; I use titebond III (or II, but I buy by the gallon).

I agree with you about the glue. I use Titebond III for my boxes and Titebond II for my frames. You must use a lot of Titebond glue. I no longer buy Titebond by the gallon since cold weather destroyed my glue. One of the woodworking magazines has an article on a "test of the glues" this month. Titebond III came out on top.

It wasn't that many years ago (early 1960s) that beekeepers used all nails and no glue. I remember some of that equipment working loose. I started using Borden's white glue in 1964. Now the wood will break before the glue joint.

[Swobee]

So, why not Gorilla Glue? The polystyrene glues are water proof, expand slightly to fill gaps and should hold up well. We use TitebondII now, but I was considering the 'foam' glues to fill joints and be water proof. Thanks

[randydrivesabus]

gorilla glue is pricey stuff.

[John F]

One of the woodworking magazines has an article on a "test of the glues" this month. Titebond III came out on top.

I get that mag. and wasn't surprised that in a wood/wood joint gorilla glue can't argue itself to be the strongest glue on earth. (Keep in mind the joint they used included long grain to long grain)


So, why not Gorilla Glue? The polystyrene glues are water proof, expand slightly to fill gaps and should hold up well. We use TitebondII now, but I was considering the 'foam' glues to fill joints and be water proof. Thanks

Truth be told I suspect that the water resistant titebond II is waterproof enough for your application but titebond III certainly is.

The foaming can also be a curse; just make sure you've fixed the joint somehow so that the foaming doesn't push it apart.

The urathane glues are great glues and have a place in woodworking. They fill gaps, they are strong, they sand well, they don't creep, they have a decent open time, they don't wick into the wood and fill the pores (affect staining) ...

If I were gluing up a panel for a cherry tabletop (for example) I would probably use a urathane glue.

For this application I wouldn't use it because:

It doesn't clean up with water (will ruin clothes you get it into).
It doesn't give me any physical joint advantage (strength, water resistance, creep resistance)
It only adds cost (as randydrivesabus has mentioned)



Oh yeah, and urathane glues will eventually set up in the bottle once you open it.(A) The titebond seems to last along time if you keep it from freezing.

(A) for this reason I only buy the amount of gorilla glue I will be using for a specific project.

[oh, and another edit]

If I were going to hot dip the woodenware I would [i]consider a urathane glue. I understand many that hot dip use the PVA glues and have no problems. I wouldn't mind seeing a test of hot dipped PVA glue joints.

[John F]

Swobee, Hays isn't that far from here. Is this wood deal something I could get in on?


Wholesale at $225 a thousand for # 2s, we can build a super for about $1.50 each for material. We buy 6 footers which give us the price break.

I'm not sure if you mean $225 per 1000 bdf or $225 per thousand 6 foot #2s but darn if I can find that sort of deal around here.

That's $.06 (assume 1x8x6 as a min.) per bdf up to $.225 bdf.

Is it S4S? Maybe LA isn't that far away either!

[Swobee]

John F- send me an e-mail, the address is in my profile. The deal actually belongs to my brother. I just finished writing a business plan for him to apply for financing to open a business selling bee equipment and manufacturing wooden ware. I can't speak for him and I'm out of town until Monday, so if you're not in a big hurry, I will talk to him and see how it all shakes out.

[flathead]

John F writes:
"I'm not sure if you mean $225 per 1000 bdf or $225 per thousand 6 foot #2s but darn if I can find that sort of deal around here."

Flathead replies:

SYP prices move up and down. Mostly up. In our experience, when buying lumber directly from the lumber mill, board lengths start at 8 feet. By buying 6 feet lengths, we can enjoy an even better price set locally by the mill. This may vary from mill to mill and other mills may even offer shorter drops. Our does not.

So if we are making supers, 1x8s in 6 foot lengths is our best bet. They come 190 each in a unit(bundle) which works out to about 752 bf per unit. The last bundle we bought ran $.225 per board foot or about $.90 each board picked up at the mill. About a 2 hour drive for us.

Not all mills will sell to the public and we have a commercial account with ours.

These are kiln dried # 2s and the cull rate is 10-15% but you don't loose all of the culled board's length.

SYP should be stored inside and kept neatly stacked until processing. We glue and screw our boxes using rabbet joints where the long sides of the box are square cut to 19-1/8" and the end pieces get the 5/8" deep by 3/8" dado cut on top(frame rest) and a 3/4" by 3/8" along the sides. End pieces are cut 13- 3/4" for 8 frame and 16-1/4" for 10 frame equipment.

[Swobee]

If you send an e-mail, make sure you put something in the subject about 'bee hive lumber' or some other terms so my wife doesn't accidentally delete it. We do not open any e-mails from unknown people, anything with a forward, darn few attachments and no junk e-mails from friend or foe thanks to a virus several years ago. We've got better protction software since then, but have kept to that practice of not opening suspicious email ever since. If my wife opens the email before I do and she doesn't recognize the name or no viable subject line exists, it goes into quarantine and the sender is blocked.

I can give you another email or two to use if she's already blocked you at home. By the way, we have relatives in your town and used to visit there fairly often. A cousin who passed away from breast cancer used to live near the high school just North of 88th. Her hubby since remarried and we haven't visited that area for two years now. We do participate in Denver's Susan Komen Breast Cancer Race for the Cure each year and will sell some of our honey with 100% of the funds going soley to cancer research.

[John F]

By the way, we have relatives in your town and used to visit there fairly often. A cousin who passed away from breast cancer used to live near the high school just North of 88th.

Small world. I went to that high school when it was called Highland. Today it is called Skyview. I live about 5 minutes north of this school, next to an elementary school also called Skyview.

My mother is a breast cancer survivor. Her mother died of breast cancer as did her mother before her. 14 years ago my sister died of breast cancer when she was 26.

I am heading out of town for a week. I'll send an email when I return.

[Troy]

I want to go back to the conversation about glues.

I have found that the Titebond III is a good glue if the joints are very tight, but if there is any variability in the joint, then the Titebond does not hold very well.

I attribute that to the fact that Titebond is NOT a gap filling glue and polyurethane glue is.

For those of us that are cobbling together boxes out of anything we can find, the polyurethane glues work better. They'll fill in minor gaps and hold everything square even in the face of the wood wanting to cup and bow a bit.

I've had some boxes that cupped rather badly (I guess they were still a bit wet when I assembled them) and the glue joint held while the wood actually cracked open.

I presume the bees will just propolize these cracks anyway, so this box is going back into service.

[Swobee]

Well, Troy... I'm with you on the glue opinion. Agreed, polyurethane glues are a little on the pricey side. But if you use them correctly, so little is used compared to the standard or water "resistant" glues. Just a small amount will do a fine job of gluing. No need to glob it on like gravy on potatoes and I do like gravy!

I use T-bond II on frames, but haven't tried poly glue on boxes yet. I have used poly glues for a multitude of other projects and like the gap filling and water proff capabilities. I've used it on inner covers, telescoping covers and would on migratory when we start using some of those covers. I could swing for either T-bond III or poly on exterior exposed items, but prefer poly glues a little more.

I think I'm going to try the locking miters & polyurethane glues on some brood & supers to see how it performs. I still feel end grain shouldn't be exposed, period and agree that finger joints are extremely strong due to the jointing surface areas provided.