furniture making help needed

[charles]

so, iv got an alaskan saw mill and been milling some trees into slabs to build a 4'x5' rolling kitchen island out of solid hardwoods. iv got some red oak, cedar for accents but i really need some solid cedar bc what i have, i think it more for junk that anything, gotta locate some hickory, i think i have some cotton wood, but don't know bc all the bark is gone and even though its kinda tore up, it still won't fit in my 36" mill, but its freakin heavy (my tractor has a 3000# lift with no counter wt. and the log is less than 8' and it exceeded my lift until i put my 700# grading blade for extra counter wt on the back) and iv got something that i think is elm, but not sure until i find a live elm to harvest. i just felled another red oak that is 32" and has 30' of good straight trunk and some of the limbs are over 10" across. anyhow, i was thinking of taking the big limbs, debarking them, jigging them and kiln dry them to hold their shape. and with the rest of the oak, i was thinking of milling out 2 4" slabs and making a solid oak conference table, but i have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to wood working. does anyone on here know or know someone who does know about wood working and building furniture out of solid wood? the reason i wanted to tackle building the kitchen island is bc i need extra storage space and it would hold all my meat processing equipment on 1 side and all of our pots and pans. the island isn't or doesn't seem hard to build and I'm not paying $1500+ for hardwood particle board structuring that will break down over the years of processing meat and food.  so if someone knows a lot about taking raw lumber and turning it into furniture, i would be obliged for any help. i need to buy a few wood power tools, and have to find a place with a planer that can accept wood up to 30" across.

[jdt]

i've been loggin and sawmilling for over 20 years . hickory no matter how dry will never act right . there was a craze here about hickory hardwood floors  about 6-8 years ago . good hickory logs sold good for the first time that oletimers could remember . before that they only brought crosstie price ... wasn't long till the new home builders realised what the natives had known for generations ... it won't stay where you put it .

     if its just for your own use and gonna be inside you can  use most anything handy, but the allaround best wood is red or whiteoak or poplar .  i don't know anything about cottonwood because we don't have them here .

[charles]

jdt, where bouts you located? as for the hickory, it will stay where i put it. its gonna get samiched between red oak and whatever this other tree i slabbed out. its a pretty red color when wet, but as it sun dried, it turned more golden, but when i put water on it to simulate a stain, it turns a nice pinkish/red. i wish i could find more of it, but without knowing what it is, its hard to know exactly what it will do for making furniture, but I'm gonna give it a try. i was thinking of contacting the forestry service here in central texas and send them a sample of the wood and peel of bark. only bad side to the bark is though, most of it was smoothed out from being dragged around by the construction company expanding I35 near waco.
 JDT, also, do you know a cheap method for drying slabs of wood? a guy in waco has a kiln, but he wants $.50c per board foot (144sq inches), so using him aint really in my pocket book unless i can work out a deal with him for red oak, something he doesn't have in stock, mostly bc, it doesn't grow in our area. 
what do you know bout sweetgum for furniture? don't have any, didn't plan on felling any either unless it wood be a wood that doesn't warp or split bad. only thing we ever used gum for in east tx was fire wood.

[jdt]

charles i'm about an hour south of fort cambell . when i say hickory won't stay where you put it i mean it is apt to move and twist more than other species . example i built a log home out of 8x10 poplar and 7 years later it is still changing a little with the seosons , i have seen log houses built from kiln dried logs out of colorodo do the same in this humid tn climate .

another example, i used 1-x poplar boards for an upstairs subfloor that were 11% moisture ,( when they build cabinets it is 7-9 ) . now there are 1 inch gaps between some of them .

 as for sweet gum we use it for lathing on pole barns ( tin roof ) and very little else , nail it down green and in the dry .

 now we used to have virgin red gum that the oldtimers said was good to use , but i don't reckon there is any such thing anymore .

if you want something out of thick lumber to build a counter top out of then it will have to be air dried for a good while then kiln dried and then you wil have to cull through to get what you need depending on the quality of green wood , time of year it was cut etc to start with . of course you could just build it and caulk the cracks as needed . lol

i'm mostly a logger not a lumber/furniture man .

[Semmes]

Sweet gum=toilet paper....
 
No use besides pulp wood.

Red oak is best fire wood there is.

Good for floor and furniture as well.

Gum puts out no heat for fire wood and too much water % for wood working or burning

[charles]

Load the wood heater with dry red oak, add some gum after the fire gets rolling and it works just for heating. Its used more for a filler, like corn in dog food.

[Goose87]

Gum does hold water bad, Charles if you can find some books on Amish wood working they will help you out a good bit, like JDT mentioned wood has a funny way of reacting to the environment and atmosphere around it...


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