Sitka Spruce Slab

Sorry, not a great picture

Just a before shot of a live edge slab of sitka spruce, about 1 3/4" thick. I can't wait to get this thing into its finished form, for reasons that will become apparent in due time.

Sitka spruce is kind of uncommon in the Midwest. It's fairly common in the Pacific Northwest. The wood is light, 27 lbs/cubic foot (compared with 44 lbs/cubic foot for red oak). It's pretty soft too, with a Janka hardness of 510 lbf (compared with 1,220 lbf for red oak). That means its about 61% as heavy as red oak, and less than half has hard.

It, like pine, is described as being difficult to stain. The grain structure lends itself to blotchiness, apparently. Luckily, I have no intention of staining this piece.

Now the trick will be finding spruce in non-live-edge-slab-form...