I have a delayed project that has left me with slightly cupped and warped boards that were initially milled about 2 years ago – 5 cherry boards for a dresser top (see photo). There is about 1/8″ cupping max of one board and slight warping of another. My question: should I re-mill the boards or glue up and either plane back down? Does it matter? How much risk is there to the glue joints if I weigh down the boards to even them up more during glue-up?
Thanks for any input!
David
Replies
They look like they were stored leaning almost upright and took a bow. Re-milling would be my choice. If that long-term bow is from gravity & not moisture the wood will probably be well-behaved. Unfortunately to get them flat you'll be giving up about 1/4" in thickness.
Forcing them into alignment for glueup is a bad idea. Hitting the lumber yard might be the way to go.
Steam the concave side of the boards to see if you can get the bow and cup to relax. Place barely wrung-out thin towels (still really wet) on the boards and iron them with an iron on its highest setting. You want to produce a lot of steam. Get two irons and a helper if the boards are long. You'll have to re-wet the towels a couple or three times.
If it's going to work, they'll start to straighten out while you're doing the ironing. If they're not moving after you've re-wet the towels three times, it's probably not going to work.
Worth a try.
If they do straighten out, get them into the project as quickly as possible. Be ready to re-glue the top right then and there. Don't worry about the boards still being a little wet from the steam.
I would go through the effort of remilling back to flat..
Steaming? Buy new lumber? Did you all see the amount of bow?
Depending on length of board but I don’t worry about minor bows. They are are usually easy to deal with, use biscuits and flex into position. Put the worst in the middle. Flat boards either side will take out the bow 95% of the time. If two boards are bowed, one up/one down cancels out the bow.
I’ve glued up panels with much worse bows than that no problem.
Cupping is entirely different thing. You’re best to rip the board down the center. Unless there is very unique grain, its usually not that noticeable.
Yep, I saw it. I'd still steam it, get it to relax a little, and glue it up.
It takes ten minutes, or less.
I'd definitely try steam before I started ripping boards. Ripping a bowed and cupped board in half will take care of *some* of the cup, but will make the bow worse. Rip a 5" wide bowed board in half and the bow will double an uncomfortably large % of the time.
I do a reasonable amount of veneering, so running an iron on wood isn't unusual for me.
Sometimes boards already at desired thickness move. You can't plane any more off it to correct without encroaching on the design. You need another strategy to salvage the material, especially if it's stuff for a fine furniture project -- clear, already selected for its position in the project, and also usually expensive. If you work out your steaming strategy on stock when that's not the case, then you have something comfortable to go to when it is the case.
Glue it into a panel forcing lightly each board even with the next one , planing will get everything straight and it won’t move, unless you really want to take your board to the sauna to relax them but then, how will you control their moisture content ?
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