How big to mill dimensional

[BeeBazaar]

I'm going to be milling some walnut for baseboards at my house.  I have limited experience as I am pretty green, no pun intended🙄

If I want 6" tall x true 1" thick by whatever length, how big should I mill to have room to finish process.   Planning on jointing planing and finish cutting on the table saw.  I just want to limit scarp or maximize use.

[maineshops]

 Just finished 800 bf of papal and fir. I set o 1 in which gave me a 7/8 in board. Ran it through my parks planer 3 passes that gave me a 3/4 finished board. I had a few arms with saw marks on one side and I just put that face down or cut that portion out. Dan

[ladylake]

 You might want to make it thinner, most houses the walls aren't straight and a full inch wont  bend very easy.  Steve

[SawyerTed]

The top of a 1" thick baseboard will be a dust collector!     

Have you mocked up a 1" baseboard to see how it looks?   If 1" base has a quarter round or shoe molding at the bottom, it could begin to look heavy.  

Go thinner and stretch that walnut.   

[BeeBazaar]

I haven't mocked anything up.  I would probably put a radius on the top tho.   No toenail or quarter round will be used either.  Just curious how much extra I should build in to the rough cut to get the end result 

[Nebraska]

Usually Hardwood scale 1" (which on my mill is  a thick 1 1/8") will finish  down to about an inch.  I'd saw to 6 1/2 " or a little  taller to allow for some movement  while drying.   Then you can true it up later before processing. Depends on your Walnut supply how stingy you need to be.

[JRWoodchuck]

Length will also matter to how wide to cut it. If the logs are short you won't have to straighten them up as much. 

[terrifictimbersllc]

I cut 1-1/8 for flooring intended to be 3/4. Wider and/or quartersawn i usually try to talk to customer into 1-1/4, or ask them at least to talk to whoever is going to make the flooring To get their recommendation.

I suggest if you have time that you make some of the finished product first to both decide on how to mill it in the beginning and confirm the overall plan.

[Den-Den]

I would consider 1-1/4" x 6-3/4" the minimum for straight grain walnut to finish up 1" x 6" and increase the green size if the logs are not top quality.

[Don P]

Walls and floors have never been straight. 3 piece base was the solution. Often 7/8 thick x 8" tall, stiff and straight. The base shoe conforms to the undulations of the floor along the straight base. The base cap conforms to the undulations of the wall.

[scsmith42]

To answer your question, for drying related shrinkage in hardwood, the rule of thumb is to expect at least 1/16" and up to 1/8" shrinkage per inch of thickness / width.

So, if you want a 1' x 6" dry, rough sawn board, mill it at 1-1/8" x 6-3/4" green.  It will shrink down close to 1x6 as it dries  (probably just a little bit over).

Each species shrinks a little differently in terms of radial versus tangential, so the actual amount will vary depending upon where in the log the board was milled.

For millwork, in widths less than 10" you usually remove 1/8" per face, so a dry 1" board will fully surface on two sides at 3/4".  A lot of people have a better recovery than this (1/16" per face), but 1/8" is a good standard to use.

[Stephen1]

I did cherry baseboards, very simple 1-4. I have squared them my selfs and they are 3.5" x 3/4 but as Ted says the dust sits on top of the 3/4" . Cathy has cleaned the tops a couple of times now and has suggested it might be my turn next time to clean those baseboards..