Wood moves (twists, warps, cups, etc...)
I went to Maverick's house on Wednesday night to start joining and planing our maple. Some of the wood didn't seem to want to be made into a bed. Since we had brought it back from the wood lot and stacked it in the shop almost half the pieces had developed alarming deficiencies.
We aren't sure why the wood has twisted and bowed so much. It had been sitting in a covered shed at the lumber yard. It is supposed to be kiln dried. Three of us examined each piece to make sure it was relatively straight. We moved it into Maverick's shop that he swears has a high humidity level and stacked it with spacers. Could the problem be drastic changes in the moisture content of the wood? Most serious wood workers have moisture meters that allow them to very accurately measure the amount moisture content of the wood. We don't have one.
Another depressing thing is the fact that there was some worm/grub damage. We probably should have caught that.
We started out by trying to pick out the best pieces to be used as the long bed rails. The first 4 or 5 pieces that we looked at were so screwy that if we tried to join them they would end up being 1/4 inch thick. Eventually we found some decent pieces and got to work.
We had to run the first side through about 5 or 6 times to get it smooth and flat.
After reflecting on the choice of maple for the beds Maverick has some regrets. He is convinced that because maple is such a hard wood that it will destroy all of his tools. So far so good. The blades on the joiner still look relatively sharp after joining 4 or 5 boards.
After joining one side and then an edge we moved over to the planer.
I fed it through and Maverick collected it at the other end.
After a few passes through the planer we ended up with something that looked like this:
For the bed rails we need 7 x 1 1/2 x 80 inch boards. After the joining and planing we still have plenty of thickness (most boards are over 1 3/4 inches thick). We are going to have to glue 2 pieces together to get to 7 inches wide.
Even after joining and planing the wood it seemed to have developed a slight bow, so far, though, no twisting.
We aren't sure why the wood has twisted and bowed so much. It had been sitting in a covered shed at the lumber yard. It is supposed to be kiln dried. Three of us examined each piece to make sure it was relatively straight. We moved it into Maverick's shop that he swears has a high humidity level and stacked it with spacers. Could the problem be drastic changes in the moisture content of the wood? Most serious wood workers have moisture meters that allow them to very accurately measure the amount moisture content of the wood. We don't have one.
Another depressing thing is the fact that there was some worm/grub damage. We probably should have caught that.
We started out by trying to pick out the best pieces to be used as the long bed rails. The first 4 or 5 pieces that we looked at were so screwy that if we tried to join them they would end up being 1/4 inch thick. Eventually we found some decent pieces and got to work.
We had to run the first side through about 5 or 6 times to get it smooth and flat.
After reflecting on the choice of maple for the beds Maverick has some regrets. He is convinced that because maple is such a hard wood that it will destroy all of his tools. So far so good. The blades on the joiner still look relatively sharp after joining 4 or 5 boards.
After joining one side and then an edge we moved over to the planer.
I fed it through and Maverick collected it at the other end.
After a few passes through the planer we ended up with something that looked like this:
For the bed rails we need 7 x 1 1/2 x 80 inch boards. After the joining and planing we still have plenty of thickness (most boards are over 1 3/4 inches thick). We are going to have to glue 2 pieces together to get to 7 inches wide.
Even after joining and planing the wood it seemed to have developed a slight bow, so far, though, no twisting.
posted by PMH | 5:17 PM
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