Woodworking

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NataliePortland

Window sills material (self.woodworking)

submitted 9 months ago by droopy4096 to c/woodworking

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I'm trying to make my own window sills in our new house. We have windows rather deep so depth is around 9in and wide - 42/60in. I'm looking at read oak vs douglas fir. Red oak is mainly available in sub 8in cuts. The only one I found in 9in is 3/4 thick. Would that be sufficient to support plant pots or potentially human sitting on them? However Fir I can get in various sizes so I was looking at 1in thick.

Which one would be more practical? Oak at 3/4 or Fir at 1in?

My reading was that fir is sufficiently softer so plant pots may leave imprints etc. or am I wrong there?

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[–] NataliePortland 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

3/4” of fir will be plenty strong enough that it won’t break . I have a stool made of 3/4” cedar and that’s close enough. I think yes plant pots could leave small marks though that’s true. Really you can’t go wrong with red oak. It’s strong and cheap and you can even stain it. I say Doug fir will work but you might as well go for red oak. Will last forever.

I made my computer desk from pine and you can see letters on it from where I’ve written. Yaa go for hardwood