From Tree to Table

From Tree to Table is a woodworking class that we teach at ASMBLY, a nonprofit makerspace in Austin. This series is the written companion from Fells Hardwood Supply: you will learn why hardwood thickness is named in quarters, how board-foot pricing works, what grades tell you, and how sawing and drying affect the boards you take back to your shop.

The chapters follow the order used in the class. We start with tree anatomy and sawing, then cover quarter thickness, milling labels, NHLA grades, board-foot math, drying, grain direction, hardness, and wood identification.

Chapters

1. Tree anatomy for woodworkers. Earlywood, heartwood, pores, rays, and figure on the faces you actually pick from a bundle.
2. How hardwood logs are cut. Plain, quarter, rift, and live sawn cuts change grain, price, and how much the board moves indoors.
3. Thickness and milling terms. What 4/4 means on a tag, and how rough, S2S, and S4S describe work left in your shop.
4. NHLA grades and color sorts. How FAS and Common set clear yield, and when mill color sorts sit on top of the grade.
5. How board feet work. The volume formula dealers use, and why nominal rough thickness still drives the math after surfacing.
6. Drying and defects. Kiln-dried targets for furniture, air-dried tradeoffs, and defects like case hardening that bite in the shop.
7. Reading the grain. Read direction before you plane, and practice the same board-selection habits that pay off when you are picking boards at the store.
8. Janka hardness. Compare dent resistance when you are choosing species for tops, floors, and hard-use furniture.
9. Wood identification basics. Why face grain alone is unreliable, and what end-grain anatomy adds when tags are missing.

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