Twisted lid after moving the box
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Hello everyone,
I finally finished my box. Problem is, after I moved it upstairs, the lid, which was perfectly closing before, started doing some crazy things. It ended up with a gap of a 1/4″ on left front side and a little less on the other side. After fixing the “bidding” on the top rim, I still ended up with my twisted lid, not closing nicely as before.
Does anyone experienced the same? And if so, how to fix this?
The lumber was stored for 2 months in my basement shop, the humidity difference to our living room seems to be the problem. After all this work, this kinda freaks me out…
So now…build a new breadboard ended lid? Or a frame construction like in the tool chest projekt? Or removing the twist by planing (which seems a little difficult with the dust sealing allready glued and nailed on, also the final thickness problem).I have no idea.
Thanks for your help,
Stefan
3 August 2016 at 1:35 am #139018Could the floor be uneven? If the whole box is flexing that could stop the lid fitting.
If you re-make and stick with the same construction, the best method to limit thickness loss would be to rip the existing lid into strips, re-true, re-joint and re-glue.
It shouldn’t be too hard to bodge the fit, by planing the skirt on the lid and using a rebate plane to trim the stop on the main box you could split the stock removal to limit its visibility.
Matt
Hi Matt,
thanks for your reply and input.
The floor is ok, it is the lid itself.I thought that going with hardwood for the lid trim might be better on forcing it to stay flat (this time I used pine).
This re-sawing idea sounds also good, but I´am not sure if I could remove the lid trim, which is glued and nailed, without doing too much damage.
I wonder how this was solved back in time, especially with moving this box around so often, inviting the wood to move again.I probably will be re-sawing the current lid and build a frame with a raised panel out of it, hoping for a more “stable flatness” .
3 August 2016 at 3:30 pm #139042No doubt a frame-and-panel lid would be less likely to warp.
The design of the lid on the joiner’s toolbox makes no attempt to limit wood movement, except covering the end grain – it’s basically a great wide board floating in free space, and only careful acclimatisation to its home and selection of stable stock will help. I guess they did warp often but as utilitarian pieces it wasn’t a big issue.
All the best,
Matt
3 August 2016 at 4:42 pm #139046Stefan
One of the original reasons for frame and panel construction was to keep things flat. So that would always be a good option.The warp you are experiencing is due to a difference in moisture content from one face of the wood to another. I have experienced a freshly milled panel about 9″ wide (25cm) warping over lunch when left flat on a workbench.
One solution, that I used with student projects, that worked about 50% of the time: wet the concave side of the panel, place the panel concave side down on a nonabsorbent surface and place weight on top. Check the panel in 24hrs. Again this works about 50% of the time.
Best of luck
Hi there,
thanks again for your input.
10 hours after moving the chest back to my basement shop, the lid is flat and perfectly closing again. I assume it just wants to stay there with me, being what it was supposed to be, a tool-storage.Chris Schwarz puts the lid trim not on to the endgrain, instead screws the battens on to the underside in elongated holes. Alternatively he writes about using clenched nails and glue. He also uses strap hinges which, I suppose, also resist the lid warping.
However, I will have to built a new box. Might use a quicker approach with rabbet edge jointing and nails instead of dovetailing, and try out the battens from underneath the lid. And after that one a piece with frame and panel lid. I´ m curious how they compare in means of warping, stability and efficacy of building.
One reason for the trim around the lid is to help hide twisting. The lid trim overlaps the carcass so that some amount of twisting can be hidden and will not show up as a gap between the lid and the carcass sides. On this chest, there is top trim going around the carcass. If it weren’t for this top trim, I don’t think you’d notice the twist as much. The top trim gives a reference line for the eye and you see misalignment between the lid moulding/trim and the carcass top trim. If the top trim were not there, your eye reference is all the way at the bottom of the chest, and you’d likely not notice the small twist (as long as it does not open up a gap). Hope this makes sense. It’s not something you can change now, but I think it was a tradeoff in the design (increasing strength at the top of the chest vs. increasing the fussiness of the closure showing misalignment).
Hi Ed,
thanks for your thoughts on that issue. The way you describe it, makes the whole situation perfectly clear. So it actually would be an overkill having a frame and panel construction on a box without top trim.
I will try these things out to find the method which works best for me and eventually will share my results on that subject.Thanks again,
Stefan
It wouldn’t be excessive to use a frame and panel. It’s just a choice and a tradeoff between appearance, interaction of the parts, and amount of work it takes to build it. The frame and panel could be lighter or heavier, depending upon what you choose for the panels. It’s not black and white or right vs. wrong in any way. The other Sellers tool chest has a frame and panel top glued to the top of the carcass. It looks fine. Of course, I really think a lot of the motivation for the frame and panel construction in that tool chest is that it provides training for us! That one project has just about everything you need to build most furniture, except maybe tables: Dovetails, carcass construction, frame and panel, mortise and tenon, and drawers. It’s an amazing project. On the other hand, for a blanket chest, while there is nothing wrong with a frame and panel top, to my eye, it seems better to have a plain, flat top. So, for a blanket chest, I’d put trim around the lip of the lid and not put trim around the top of the carcass, for the reasons already given. But, nothing wrong with frame and panel for this, either.
Ed,
your way of describing the tool chest with drawers really wants one to tackle this as next project. I was a bit intimidated of cutting the dovetails, but after the joiners box I feel more confident I could actually try making it.Thanks for your thoughts and inspiration.
After a couple days cutting some practice dovetails and mortise and tenons, we did the paneled chest with drawers as our FIRST project. You might cut a couple M&Ts until you are comfortable if you’ve not done them before, but I have no doubt you can do the project at this point. Take the time to get your stock straight and true for the frames.
2 October 2016 at 12:08 am #141116I’m a bit late here…
When you layout your boards for the top, do you reverse the cup?
This is what I was taught to do to minimize warpage. When looking at the board ends, the rings should alternate with the cup up (look like hills) and cup down (rings look like valleys). That way the boards offset each other’s warp.
Cheers,
Rick G.
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