Wood movement in preparing wood
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12 July 2023 at 11:39 pm #807247
Hi all,
Newbie question… I’m preparing beech all by hand. So, I’ve taken a rough sawn board from the sawmil and hand planed one face until it was truly flat (checked with winding sticks, etc.).
Then planed one edge and checked agains the previously planed face, until it was square, and used the marking gauge to mark the final thickness.
I then roughsawn the other face with the bandsaw, hand planed until the marking gauge marks, and hand planed the last edge until it was square with both faces.
At the end, something was wrong, and I checked the faces again, and one had a slight belly, while the opposite face had a hollow in it.
Is this normal to happen??Between these steps, it went a few hours, because of lunch hour, etc.
This plank had been in my shop for more than a couple of months, and I measured it with a moisture meter, and it showed 8%.How can I “prevent” this wood movement from hapening when I’m preparing the wood?
It seems that all of my hard work was for nothing.
Should I leave it with a slightly bigger thickness than the final one (after handplaning both faces), for one day for example, to allow wood movement to happen, and only then hand planed it to the final thickness?How do you guys deal with this?
Thank you in advance.
13 July 2023 at 3:08 am #807263I love beech and I think it’s under utilized. But sadly I think the way to prevent this is use a different wood. Beech moves, it’s notorious for it. Probably stores tension as it grows. Every cut can release tension and result in bowing and cupping. Small scale stuff is great, boxes, handles, etc, But anything big may run the risk of warping on you.
13 July 2023 at 7:07 am #807270Yes, I’ve realized that. But, what’s the best way to minimize this? I’m preparing board of 5 feet board and this is happening, but I see furniture made of beech (tables, beds, etc.)
13 July 2023 at 1:03 pm #807284How very fascinating!
Beech, thanks to how the trees suppress everything else and try to outcompete each other, usually tend to be quite straight grained, at least as long as the trees are on relatively flat land. The straightness, being relatively closed, and “hard” are often the reasons for beech being common in wooden hand tools. Birch on the other hand …Looking for American beech (Fagus grandifolia) rated as NHLA/FAS (North American Lumber Association [both faces good]) can be one way to non-problematic wood. It is mostly very straight grained, as it is difficult obtain that grade with other grain directions. The next lower grade, FAS-1, is a very different kettle of fish.
When dimensioning, using a planer and a thicknesser, it is often recommended to alternate the faces exposed to the cutter of the thicknesser, to reduce re-warp. Though a bit tedious, it can be done with hand tools as well.
Another aid to battle re-warp can be to leave the board 1/32 – 1/16 thick, and then finishing dimensioning closer to the joinery process. I like doing this with hand tools.
The purchase head at timber yard has a moisture meter that is in a very different league than mine. It invariably shows moisture contents to be higher than my measurements.
Just a photo of a maple with reaction (tension) wood due to growing on a slope.
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You must be logged in to view attached files.The dreaded post squaring movement. Some woods will always just move a round any time the stress changes alot. One of the ways to tackle this in the prep stages. For example if you need to resaw the piece, start with the resaw leaving things thick since you know it is going to move. When working with a piece a peices that will need a 1/4 in or more off the second face after the reference face is flat but not enough to resaw, I will flatten the reference, then just flatten the second face but not to thickness. Let it sit over night or even a week, then reflatten if needed. After that work evenly from both sides till I hit thickness.
7 August 2023 at 10:18 pm #809753Hello everyone,
Thanks for the tips.
Now I have another problem… I dimensioned the boards as you indicated, and it actually went very well.
I reduced them to the desired thickness (25mm), and then glued them two by two, long grain to long grain, because the furniture I am making has to be 40cm deep.
After gluing them, I just planed some parts, and everything was fine. I finished that yesterday.
This morning I went and they are cupped again!
The garage where I work is not thermally insulated, and I often work with the door open.
At the moment we are experiencing a big heat wave, with temperatures of 40 degrees.
The humidity is around 40% at most.
When I started working on these boards (a couple of weeks ago), the temperature was normal (below 30 degrees), and with a little more humidity.
At night I leave the boards resting up high, slightly tilted against the wall, so that the 4 faces get air circulation.
The floor of the garage is concrete.
Is it because of this heat wave that the boards are cupped?
I confess it’s demoralizing, especially as I have no joiner or thickness planner, and everything has been dimensioned in a workmanlike way. with hand tools (scrib plane, smoothing plane, etc.I only have a bandsaw.Will they return to their normal state when the heatwave passes?
I just feel like leaving this project and telling the client that I can’t do it, under these working conditions 🙁Attachments:
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