Choosing between helical or straight cutters is a matter of matching the geometry and cost to your work and budget.

Sales for this group of companies amounted to $38.49 billion for the year 2010, a decrease of 6.4 percent from 2009 sales of $41.12 billion.

Q. Is it possible for a dull sawblade to cause stress?

Q: I have started making furniture out of beetle-killed pine. The blue streaks add character indeed. Unfortunately, the suppliers pine is about 16 percent MC and I think I need to get the lumber down to 7 percent MC. The supplier cannot or will not do this for me. What can I do?

Teaming up with your neighbors may be one of your most powerful business tools.

Q: We are experiencing raised "pimples" after machining Sycamore. It occurs on 1 to 5 in 100 pieces. It is always on glued rails and on flat sawn grain. It is very random but appears to be associated where glue has dried. The problem also appears only on the sap not the heartwood. We also run sap gum and silver leaf soft maple into this product but have never seen these random raised pimples.

Q. Is oak lumber from stored logs as good as lumber from fresher logs? We think that there is a difference in processing as yields seem lower.

Q. We just received some lumber that has a color issue. We see that the core is normal in color, but the core of the wood is considerably whiter. This contrast in color, shell is darker than the core, is giving us fits and looks poor in the finished product.

Design-driven shows display path to success.

Q Can you suggest a species, or what to look for in a species of wood that will be used for outdoor furniture. The furniture will be protected from the rain.