So I've taken a trip to
Working The Grain Hardwoods in Bentonville, Arkansas,
to pick up some supplies for the workbench I've got coming up. This is Mr. Mark Puente of
Working The Grain Hardwoods. - Hi everyone. - He's going to educate us a little bit on coming to a hardwood store. Or especially for me, it's
intimidating coming to a store that you really don't know a lot about, and you're worried about
what if I look like a dummy or what if I don't look
like I know what I'm doing? I'm a woodworker, but
I don't know everything there is know about wood,
'cause we can't know everything. Well, Mr. Mark's an expert. He's here to educate us a little bit about what we should do,
some questions we can ask to kind of put us at ease
at coming to a store. - Sure, absolutely. - One of the questions was
as a first time customer coming into the hardware store, what can they do to minimize
the intimidation factor? Like why, why is it so intimidating walking into somewhere to buy wood? - Well, I think a lot of times is because they don't know
quite how to work with it. And so I encourage to ask questions. We're here to help, and answer
those questions, and guide. Ultimately in the end
it enables the customer to come out with a finished
product that they're happy with. And we talked through processes of gluing up and also finishing. So that information is valuable, where you can get it here
within our particular business. And you don't have to go out somewhere and try to seek it online. It takes out the guesswork. - Mr. Mark is an educator at heart, I say, and he knows his stuff. And so if you have a question,
feel free to ask him, you can email him or call him. He will answer to the best of his ability. But he'll also, if you have a question on if you're trying to
build a certain project, whether it be a table, or mallets, or cutting boards, or whatever, then you can help answer those questions versus what types of wood would be best or not use in a certain projects, right? - Yep, absolutely. - So somebody wanted to
know the do's and don'ts of actually visiting the store. - I would say the don'ts
are don't feel intimidated. Ask the questions. If you're not getting the
information that you need, that may not be the outlet
for you to purchase from. There are a lot of outlets available. The dos is keep an open mind. And oftentimes a piece of
wood will tell a story, the grain pattern and
what you're looking at. For example, this mat right
here, this is Cadillacs. - Yeah, that's beautiful. I saw a piece of that while I go. I love that that's got that, it's almost looks like a
Maple mixed with a Walnut or a Purple Heart or something. - And the medullary rays
in the formation here, plus the sapwood, it tells a story. And that's where you
need to keep an open mind when you come into a hardwood store. This is something you won't
experience in the home centers. - No, you won't. You're not getting anything
like that in the home center. So the one of the main questions I got, I put it down in the community asking about coming to a store like this was how do I calculate board feet? And so that was one of the most things, like it's so confusing to a
lot of people on board feet. How do they know what to calculate? How do they know how to calculate it? Can you explain that? - Absolutely. So most of your projects, Matt, let's start where you're buying
wood from the home centers. And that's usually a two-by-four, which we know isn't
really a true dimension of a two inch by four inch. But it was an industry standard
that was started years ago. When the mills finally said, we're going to have a
full two inch by four inch and we'll construct it for houses. Over time we were able to
take that dimension down to 3 1/2 by inch and a half, and then apply some type of a finish, like drywall or paneling
on the other side of it, so it's now set for houses. When you get into the hardwoods, we induct into a process
called board feet. And that is a true 12 inches
long by 12 inches wide. And they get a board foot,
it should be one inch thick. And so if we take a look at
this particular piece here, it shows just that. But let's say it's not 12 inches wide and it's truly six inches wide. It can still be a board
foot if it's 24 inches long. - Right, so you took the 12
by 12 and stretched it out. - Absolutely. And so this would be
considered a board foot, and so was the first example. Really the calculation that
you're looking for here, is board foot, it'll be
the thickness, one inch, by the width, which is 12 inches, by the length, 12 inches,
divided by 144 for square area. Or if you want to do it by 12,
you get your board foot area. And that is for your one inch thick. - [Matt] So if I'm calculating
board feet for a project, which of these two formulas would I use? - I would take the bottom. The bottom is the easiest to figure out. - So divide it by 12.
- Divide it 12. - A lot of people want to know if they come to the hardwood
store to buy lumber, is it already surfaced
three sides, four sides? Can you do that for them? How does that work? - Yes, absolutely. There are different grades of hardwoods. And when you come in, usually our product line here
at Working The Grain Hardwoods is finished on two sides,
straight lined on one side, and then it will be rough on the other. So it would be an F-3-S. - So they can take it and only have to actually mill one side if they're making something small. - That's right, they can cut
it down to a size they need. It makes it easier for the customer to go ahead and handle that wood. - I got a lot of questions on if they ordered from your website, which is wtghardwoods.com, if they order from you on your website, how do they know that they're
getting a quality board and not some scrap piece? - Absolutely. So wood is a product that's from nature, and it does have knots in it. And to get a quality piece of wood, you should have at least a
clear section without knots that should be 66 inches at minimum. And so when they order something from us, we actually take the best part of the tree and that piece of lumber that they have, and we'll cut out that knot and then ship them what
they are asking for. So to sell it by the board foot. - And you got a description on how you actually get
lumber from a tree, right? - Yes. So this is a branch of a cherry tree, and this is the center,
which is called the pith. And it is the undesirable piece. - It is the armpit of the lumber. - That's right, that's right. And oftentimes when the
lumber mill cuts a log up, they will try to get rid of the pith and maximize the number of boards that they can get out of it. And their goal is to have
as much yield as possible. So this is a flat sawn example,
and this is a long board. And then this is the two sides, they would be on the
either side of the pith. - [Matt] So what, you got
some stuff wrote on there. - [Mark] That happens to be Lilac. - [Matt] Okay, so it's just the material, or the type of wood. - The date that this log was sawn. - So a lot of times when I go, I know to my local lumber store, especially on spruce boards, you see that armpit as I
called it, the little circle. And then if you look on
the face of the board, you see that brown streak that's darker than everything else. That's something you want to avoid, right? - Like this example right here, this is an example of
what you're talking about. Right there's the pith. And in dimensional lumber,
that will be included in. And this board will move. - Early on I would buy those boards, because it had the unique
grain look on there. And it would be the
first one that was split. As soon as I started messing with it, it would break right in half, every time. I'm like, aw, I grabbed her on one again. So you got to avoid that. Another main question I got was
beginner friendly hardwoods. Would you recommend a certain species that they would go with if
they're just starting out? - Yes, Walnut is always a fan favorite. Everybody enjoys the colors. - It's pretty, hard Walnut. - The purples that you can
get in Walnut, the white, the contrast of the dark, deep
browns that are available. And even sometimes a
deep, almost black color. Contrasting too that would
be your Maple and Cherry, which is the medium. It's much like what we have
here as an example, the Cherry. Those are our go-to boards that you would like to use for domestics. - One viewer wanted to
know about spalted wood. Where does spalted would come from? - Well, spalted wood is a
process of decay in the wood. So it's actually had a chance
to set for a period of time and a fungus is actually
growing through the wood. And it starts on the surface and then it makes its way through, into the wood itself, deeper. If you were to plane away some of that spalting to dimension it, it would actually disappear unless it sat for a long enough period of time. - Really, I didn't know that. So it doesn't actually go all
the way through and through. Well, Ambrosia is not
spalted, in a way, right? I guess in a way it is,
but in a way it's not. Or am I wrong? - No, Ambrosia is from a beetle. And the Ambrosia beetle and
a fungus that it carries. - [Matt] So it is fungus. That kinda as the beetle moves through, he leaves it behind, I'm assuming? - That's correct. And that happens in nature
as a natural part of it. And so Ambrosia Maple, you don't know that you have it until you actually fell the tree and you're able to cut it up. - So they're just cutting
the Maple tree down, thinking they're getting Maple and they start cutting,
ah, I got this stuff. - Well, man, ironically enough, the same with Bird's
Eye and Figured Maple. - Wood changes in price. As you have to pay more or less, the prices go up and
down based on the market. So people wanted to know
about your price list and how they can get that price list. - So if anybody wants a price list they can simply email me request one, and I'll send them the most current one. - I'll put an email right here
on the bottom of the screen. - Matt, the hardwood
industry is more stable than the commercial lumber industry is. - A lot of people was asking me about the futures of
lumber, or the futures of, I was like that's not hardwoods, that's construction-grade lumber is what they're talking about
in the futures of lumber. So the hardwood lumber
stays fairly consistent. Back to the online ordering. I had one wanted to
know they have a problem with trusting someone
they're ordering from, even some of the bigger retailers. When you're buying lumber online, you don't know what you're going to get. And we talked about that as
far as you actually hand select what you're shipping to people. It's not just you grab it off
a shelf and throw it in there, because you know what you've got. And if they're wanting a
specific size or piece, all they have to do is tell you and you can help them pick that out. Probably send them pictures if they want a specific grain pattern. I asked you earlier, but a lot of people want to
know why Baltic Birch plywood comes in five-by-five sheets. - And that's for the cabinet makers, Matt. They're are able to make a 30
inch deep cut for a cabinet and then mirror it on the other side. So that is the perfect size for them. - My question then is
what about the blade kerf? Is it that there's a
little bit allowed there? - There is, there is. - So it's actually a little over five? - Yes, well, it's not
a little bit over five, but it allows for the depth, because most of the time
you're putting on a door. And so that counts as
part of the depth of the- - I'm not a cabinet maker. Somebody wanted to know what the strongest and the weakest hardwoods are. - So when we talk about hardwoods, we have to take a look at
what's available domestic versus import, which they call exotics. And it's really determined
by a Janka rating, which is a measurement that was developed at the turn of the century for determining the density of a wood. So the grain pattern and how tight it is, which is a part of that
process of testing, we can see some woods in the world that are up to 3000 Janka rating. - Be hard on the blade. - Yep, it'll dull a blade in a heartbeat. And then some that are as
soft as being in the 700s and still considered to be a hardwood. - So a Pine, where
would it be rated about? - Be in your 700 to 800 range. 'Cause there's so many
different types of pine that you have available. The harder pine structurally rated that you'd find in home centers would be your Southern Yellow Pine. Softer one would be your White Pine, the white woods we call it. - It where's Walnut, Purple
Heart, where do they rate? - American Walnut will
be in the 1200 range. And then you had mentioned another. - [Matt] Purple Heart. - Purple Heart is a little bit harder. It's gonna be up in the 1400 range, depending on where it's coming from. - One viewer said that
they would gladly pay for a sample pack of little like offcuts or six inch pieces with a
paper or some type of list explaining each wood and what they do. Do you have anything like that available? Or would you put something
like that available to them if they wanted it? - Yes, we offer sample
packs that are available and we'll ship them out. We also offer a variety pack, which we list the species
of the wood on the end. On our website, we have the Janka rating for each one of the species, plus a picture of that wood. So they're able to get a general idea of what the grain pattern's like. - I have one wants to know what's the most fun wood name to say? - [Mark] I think Chakte Viga. - Chakte Viga, I like that one. All right, we know you ship some woods. What's the maximum size wood you can ship? - It would be an eight foot
long board by 12 inches wide. That generally is the
longest that we can ship. - So a lot of people who walk into one of the big home stores and everything's dimensioned for you, it's two-by-fours, two-by-eights,
two-by-sixes, whatever. When you walk into a hardwood store, your terminology is different, right? So if I want a one inch
thick board, that would be- - A 4/4 board. - [Matt] And you've
got us an example here. - [Mark] Correct, on the top line here, we have 1/4, times 1/4,
times 1/4, times 1/4, or plus in this particular case the language equals 4/4 or one inch. If we were to go down to
an inch and a quarter, we would do that five times the quarter. 5/4, or inch and a quarter. Same for inch and a half, which
would be quarter times six, equals 6/4, or inch and a half. Over here, we have an example
of what that looks like. This is a 4/4 board, or one inch. This would be a 5/4. Then we have a 6/4 and an 8/4. - [Matt] So all the way
from one to two inches. - That's correct. Takes out the mystery of
guessing what quarters mean. - Mr. Mark has a lot of
good selection of woods, both domestic and exotics. And I'd like to show us
around while we're here and show what you have available. - Absolutely, Matt. On this particular side of our store, we have the most amount
of wood for domestic use. We have our Walnuts, our Hard Maple. We have our White Oak, flats on, Cherry, Soft Maple, and also Ambrosia Maple. - I noticed, Ambrosia's my
favorite, you know that. I noticed that everything's vertical. I don't know if this even makes sense, but you go to your home center
and everything's laying flat and you've got everything standing on end. Is there any reason? Is it just space? - It is for space purposes. We could lay them flat, but in hardwoods, the boards are different widths, where they're more uniform
in the home centers. So a two-by-four is exactly the same size. - So if they were all
laying on top of each other, you'd have to dig through the stack to figure out which one you wanted to get, which width and all that. - We have our exotic section here, which is the heart of our store. And we carry woods that are
from Mexico, also the Caribbean. We have some domestics
here with our Birch, and then we have some of
our South American woods. We also have one from Africa. - [Matt] What's that wood from Africa? - [Mark] Iroko, which is
a Teak substitute, Matt. - [Matt] And you was telling me that Teak is actually on the endangered list, so that's why we only
have substitutes for it. - That's correct. Over here, we have Purple Heart, Matt, and that seems to be a favorite for most- - A lot of people love Purple Heart. Now you were telling me about, before we was discussing woods, you were talking about
natural oils in the woods that would come out if you
didn't do it certain ways, especially like glue ups. - That's correct. On our exotic woods, we
encourage you to clean it up. Acetone is a good product
to use before you glue up with a Titebond if you're
making a cutting board. So that the glue adheres
to the fibers of the wood. - Because if you don't clean it, plane it, sand it, something, if you glue it up, the oils
actually break down the glue and can release on your cutting boards or whatever you're
making, it's interesting. - [Mark] We have Paduak from Africa. We have Cadillacs. - That Cadillacs is, I like that. - Amazing deep purples medullary rays, and that's from Mexico. - So what would you make
out of like that piece? What would you suggest someone, if they come in and
they like, I want that, but I don't know what to make. - That would be a beautiful
musical instrument. It could be a cutting
board or charcuterie board. It could be anything you
really want it to be. Over here we have Yellow Wood, which is a substitute for
Yellow Heart, called Mora. And then we have Marblewood,
which is from South Africa. - And you were telling
me about Marblewood. The reasons it's in thinner
pieces, or narrow pieces. - Yeah, because the tree
doesn't grow very wide. And so it's a harder, denser wood, so you have to get
thinner strips out of it. You'd need to glue up to
make a longer, wider board. And then we have Sapele here,
and then African Mahogany. We have Leopardwood here. - [Matt] Ms. 731's favorite. - And then we also have Black Limba. And then we have Shedua. Jatoba, which is a Brazilian Cherry. - Jatoba's pretty fun to say. - [Mark] It is, and it's heavy. - Yeah, it's very heavy, it's very dense. - Next to it. We also
have Peruvian Walnut, which is from Peru. Wenge or whinge, whatever
we want to call it. - [Matt] I like Wenge. - [Mark] Zebra Wood as well. - And you said it has
the veins in there, too. The little cracks, I call them. You said they're veins. You would need to seal that with an epoxy or stabilize it somehow. And you also have blocks for turning. - We have pen blanks. We sell them for $2 each, And there's exotic as well as
domestic woods that we have. So a lot of fan favorites,
like a Sycamore, which tends to have quite a
lot of medullary rays in it. - [Matt] When you say medullary rays. - Those are the grain pattern
that you would normally see in like a White Oak that's quarter sawn. This is natural in this wood. And so these are affordable
if you're turning pen blanks. And this is one from one
of the favorites from 731. - [Both] Leopardwood. - So I see like this here
is like more elongated where on the other side it's real tight. Is that the way it's grown? - That is correct. So this would tend to
be a quarter sawn piece where these rays are able to be showcased. - [Matt] You also, this
is something fairly new that we're talking about
working on a project together. You're wanting to put together bundles, especially for beginners
or someone like me who's never made a cutting board. A woodworker that's never
made a cutting board. To actually be able to buy a bundle, pre-cut with different strips. And then I can order these
from you from your store or come by and buy these and be able to make a
cutting board that's already, I can just rearrange these in whatever pattern my wife likes, right? - [Mark] And designed
to your favorite liking. And so as you put these
together, they're dimensioned, so they're an inch and a half. And this is edge grain, and the face grain, it becomes the side. So this would be an inch and
a half, and we have half inch, and then a full one inch
pieces that are here. - [Matt] What woods are in these bundles? - [Mark] So this one here is a Bloodwood, Purple Heart, Maple, Wenge. We have Paduak, another Wenge,
Purple Heart, Mora Yellow. And it just repeats the pattern. - [Matt] This is Maple, and then Walnut, and what's this, these two? - [Mark] Okay, this is Cherry here, and this one is Bloodwood. - [Matt] And then this
one's pretty striking, too, but it's kind of similar to that, but the outside's different. - [Mark] That's Paduak. - [Matt] You also sell glue and- - [Mark] Other products. For each one of the kits that we sell, we include a small four
ounce bottle of Titebond III. - [Matt] So that'd be enough where they could actually glue it up, all they'd need to do
is clamp it, let it dry, and then sand it, and put some oil on it. - [Mark] That's right. - [Matt] When the wood gets
to you, it looks rough. - It's in the rustic state. - So there still has the live
edge on it, things like that. - And it has saw marks on it. And we go ahead and plane
it down and dimension it. We make it to a F3S and then also an F4S. - And you said some you can't,
we talked about earlier, I don't know if we covered it on camera, but certain maples and things you don't actually want
to send through a planer because it'll tear it out. The Quilted Maple in
certain things, right? - We send that through, correct, because of the pattern that's
in the wood, it would ruin it. So we actually sand that
through a drum sander. - [Matt] And you also carry plywood. Of course, I don't know
that you could ship four-by-eight or five-by-five plywood. - [Mark] That's correct. - But you do sell it
locally here in Bentonville. - We do. - And it's all it's Baltic
Birch, and Walnut, Cherry... - Hey, if you like this video, click that box right there,
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