optimum sizes for wooden blanks?

[Gert Fitcher]

For a member of another forum looking to saw some exotic timber down for blanks - he's thinking 20mm x 20mm x 150mm, which I think is wasteful. What's the consensus?

 

[flexi]

That's a stock size for most blanks these days...yes you can go thinner for slimlines or shorter for Sierra's but your limiting your market, once cut it's a glue up job to get bigger....I always try to be economical with waste but it's not always possible..

 

[Gert Fitcher]

What about length? You can't get three finished 50mm pieces from a 150mm.

 

[Gert Fitcher]

A merchant near here is selling thuya burr in 25mm square, which seems wasteful to me. I queried it but they were adamant that's the best size.

 

[ValleyBoy]

I like a minimum of 18mm thick and prefer 19-20mm if possible. I agree 25mm is a little on the large side for most scenarios. Ultimately the thicker it is to start with then the more time and work is required to get it down to the final size.

As for length the most common from what I’ve seen is 130mm or 150mm long. I think this works for the majority of kits. When I’m making a custom wooden pen I like to have 125mm minimum to allow a few mm waste for kerf and cleaning up the ends.

Cheers
Ash

 

[jrista]

A merchant near here is selling thuya burr in 25mm square, which seems wasteful to me. I queried it but they were adamant that's the best size.

Even for a beefier pen, 25mm does seem a bit large and wasteful... Especially with burl, where you want to be as efficient as possible.

Wonder how they are cutting their blanks? If they are using a wider kerf table saw, that might waste enough wood that they don't want to go smaller. With a bandsaw, though, and a nice resaw blade, you could trim blanks out of a larger block with very minimal waste to kerf.

 

[21William]

Part of the problem is that some pen turners starting out, struggle to drill a blank centrally. A larger blank allows for pretty bad operator error. You wouldn’t need to be far off to ruin a blank. Personally, I like to turn a blank between centres first. This not only makes drilling easier, but you get a fair idea of what the blank is going to look like as a pen.

 

[Neil Lawton]

I used to sell a lot of wood blanks and asked on here and elsewhere what everybody's preferred size would be.
The general consensus at that time was 22 X 22 X 130 long. I cut loads to that size and was then inundated with requests for 25 X 25 X 150 instead.
I generally season my own pen blanks so cut them a bit bigger if I know the grain is going to warp and twist the blank, then it's still useable once dry.

 

[geordie0928]

There is nothing worse than buying a blank or a number of blanks only to fined or see that they are to small for the pen that you are trying to make.