removing bow from pine
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I have a piece of pine that has bowed quite badly, which was going to be part of a flat panel, any tips for making it flat again? I even covered the ends with paint, but this didn’t stop it from moving,
it will be part of the joiners tool chest so it has to be close to flat, I’d appreciate any tips or advice.
I am using only handtools as well,
regards,
Ben.
Hi Ben,
That happens sometimes and I don’t know of any good way to flatten a bowed board except with lots of planing. Usually not too practical, especially if you started with S4S material but I don’t know how close you already are to final thickness. Generally, if I can place a bowed board next to the other panel boards and squeeze the bow out with just hand pressure, I don’t worry too much about it. But try to have a flat board on either side of it in your panel. If you put it as the first or last board in the panel, it may cause you problems.If you’ve got a real banana on you hands, you’re better off just getting a replacement and using the bowed one for something else. Good luck with it.Are your pieces already cut to length, or near it?
If you are looking at a full length board it’s tough to imagine how much bow you have to take Out.
my pieces are oversize in thickness by 5mm, but the bow is around 4-5mm in the centre, the length is also oversize, what bothers me is how much I’ll need to hog off from both sides to make it acceptable, this will be one of two of the long edges on a large chest, it’s quite a wide board but will be laminated and only one of the 3 pieces have bowed, hope that helps, and thanks for the advice so far.
Ben, that doesn’t sound that bad to me. It’s good that you’re using pine. It doesn’t put up as much of a fight as oak or maple would. I think if you let the board with the bow be the center board in the panel, you will be able to push a good bit of that bow out – maybe almost all of it. I would go ahead and joint the edges of the boards and do a dry fit as a trial. If you clamp both ends of the boards and put one clamp in the center, you should be able to push the bowed center board down into alignment, or at least get it pretty close. The entire panel might end up with a slight bow but don’t worry, you can take care of that when you plane the panel down to thickness. Hope it works out for you.
Is this the joiner’s chest that has two raised panels and you are gluing up the material for the raised panel?
Raising the panel means removing material all the way around the perimeter of the panel to form the bezels. If you stare at things the right way, you may be able to see a way to glue up with the bow in place, but then when you raise the panel, all the problems go away. You just need the central field to be right. Even then, because of the stile that divides the lid in two, you can’t see the two panels butted up to each other. That gives you some leeway to actually lower the field of the problem panel by a bit to get a smooth field, even if it might be a bit lower than the other panel.
Have a hard squint at things. You may not really have a problem.
Hi Ed, no it’s not the one with the raised panels, it’s simpler than that, just laminated boards that are dovetailed, a true chest, just a giant dovetail box really.
I am pleased to report that I managed to reduce the bowing significantly to about 2mm, so I can now crack on with the project, I’ve used a heat gun on the curved up side in the centre and left the underside on a cold concrete floor for a few hours, then I used pressure by clamping it to my benchtop and left it overnight, it’s a lot closer to flat now, and the extra pressure from a clamp in the centre during glue up will make all the difference, thanks guys.
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