So I had my order all lined up: 123 board feet of kapur wood. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Why? The price. The total cost of the lumber needed for my workbench would have been $212. Maybe that’s not a lot; I don’t know what lumber costs are like where you are. But it’s about $50 more than I expected to have to pay, and in our world, $50 is a lot of money.
While I was there, I did find out that they have four different kinds of wood: nyatoh, selangan batu, kapur and “oti”. This oti was the cheapest by far. In fact, if I selected this wood for my workbench, the total cost would have been $120.
When I inquired about this oti, I learned that it is in fact “O.T.” which stands for “other timber.” I tried to learn what this meant – is it different species of wood all lumped together? All I could learn is that some of the boards are light in color while others are dark or red; some boards are harder while others are softer.
So here’s my question for you experienced woodworkers and armchair wood jockeys. Do you think I’d be okay using this “O.T.” wood for my workbench? I’m thinking that since we’re in Malaysia, most if not all of the wood here is hardwood. And I would be able to choose the individual boards. And they still would plane it down for me so it’s all of a uniform thickness.
I don’t really care if the wood isn’t all the same color. This is a workbench, not a work of art (I just heard some of you workbench lovers gasp). And frankly, I don’t care if it isn’t all the same species. Of course, I might be forgetting to consider something, which is why I pose these questions.
So I’ll either go back to the lumber yard this week to select the O.T. boards for the bench, or I’ll save up my money a bit longer and then go back for the kapur.
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
June 21, 2009 at 9:35 pm
The Village Carpenter
If you wind up buying the O.T., you might consider choosing the lightest color. In Chris Schwarz’ book, he brings up an important point that it’s easier to sight down the sole of a plane and adjust the iron when you have a light colored background (your bench). It’s much more difficult to see against dark wood.
You’ll probably be fine with the cheaper wood. I built a sturdy bench years ago out of 2×4s and it’s held up great (although it does get dinged easily).
June 21, 2009 at 10:06 pm
ma
Not being a woodsmith, for me the deciding factor of which wood to use would boil down to 2 questions:
1. would this be a one or two year investment, or five??
2. would the bench be moveable to another home??
The accountant in me mentally amortizes the cost over “x” number of years of anticipated use.
But I’m sure YOU already thought of that! Good luck!
June 21, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Bob Easton
My workbench is built from some of “the Borg’s” cheapest, knottiest, construction lumber. The bench does its job wonderfully, and I feel absolutely no remorse when it gets banged up a bit. To “ma’s” suggestion of amortizing the cost, I really like the value I see in this approach. The bench will last a very long time and the money that could have been spent for better lumber went instead into boat building projects.
My workbench: http://www.bob-easton.com/blog/?cat=11
June 22, 2009 at 11:08 am
Eric
Thanks Kari, for reminding me about getting a lighter color for the top. A lot of the wood here is reddish, but there are varying shades of reddish.
Ma: I’d like to think this is a 10+ year bench, but there are a lot of factors that would determine that! But as long as I’m in Malaysia and working wood, I would imagine this’d be my bench. And yes, if we moved (within Sabah anyway), this bench would follow.
Bob: What a beauty! Love that bench you built.
June 22, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Gye Greene
It tickles me that they have a category of “miscellaneous” at your local lumber yard.
What everyone else said makes sense to me. Esp. since you can pick the individual boards, and they’ll plane it to thickness for ya — sure! why not…
(Personally, I tend to go for the oddball, no-name bargains…)
–GG
August 10, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Stuart
I can completely sympathise with your situation/decision – had the same thing when I finally thought I might ‘go for it’ with my workbench. Priced it up, saw three zeros, and walked away!
I’d be tempted with the OT timber – as much as there is a variety of timbers/colours/hardnesses, if you are careful with your mixing and matching, you’d end up with a unique-looking bench, and by assigning hard timbers to the top and softer timbers to the base (or the other way around if that is preferable) you can also deal with that variety without compromising your bench.
And the price is right!