I am planning a six drawer bedroom chest of Red Oak. Found some air dried boards at a sawmill 18 inches wide. The boards were sawn in 1989! I am very much tempted to use them without ripping into 3 boards, flipping center board, and then gluing. The books, my training, and practice is to never use a board wider than 8 inches for the side of any piece of furniture. Always glue up for sides of furniture!These have such nice grain and my planer will take 18 inch boards. What has been your experience?
Hatchet
Replies
It is not clear whether you are planning to use the wide board for the outside of the chest, or for the drawers.
My experience (battle scars) was with the drawers, not the sides, and was with poplar, not red oak. I had boards wide enough for the drawers (around 8 inches), so resawed or planed down to thickness. By the time I had cut the dovetails, etc., it was a couple days to assembly. By that time the drawer sides had warped enough that it took some serious clamping to flatten the wood for assembly. The glue has held the sides flat for several years now, without problem.
If you are working with the side of the chest itself, and will be able to use the boards without major milling, then I would assume that they are stable and rejoice that they can be used "as is."
________________________
Charlie Plesums Austin, Texas
http://www.plesums.com/wood
Hatchet... it'd be a sin to rip a board that size without a DAMN good reason. At that age, I'd imagine that if it hasn't moved by now it probably never will. Personally I'd be inclined to give each side a light skim to keep any farther drying in balance, leave it sit for a wee while, then have at it.
Jon Arno should be better able to advise.
Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Mike, I sense a bit of confusion in this thread. The fact that the stock is thoroughly air dried solves one of the problems that result from the stability characteristics of wood. In other words, the wood has been brought into equilibrium with its environment. But the other issue is that wood is hygroscopic and the varying amount of moisture it contains, resulting from seasonal changes in humidity, will affect its dimensions. The dimensions of wood are always in flux no matter how well seasoned the original stock was.
So, I guess the key here rests in the design of the piece. Wide boards are perfectly acceptable if you pay careful attention to the joinery. Any components of the piece that mount to these wide slab panels with grain that runs perpendicular to the grain in the side panel (such as interior drawer rails) must be attached in a way that the side panel is allowed to float. But this would still be a problem even if the side panels were composed of narrower edge glued stock. The merit of edge gluing is that it helps to minimize cupping across the width of the panel, but it doesn't alter the expansion-contration attributes of the width of the panel when exposed to changes in humidity. You have to resort to a frame & panel design (or plywood) to achieve that.
Another consideration to keep in mind is that, since the width of the side panel will be in constant flux with changes in humidity, the depth of the case will be expanding and contracting on a seasonal basis...and this affects drawer design and/or how the back panel of the case is mounted. Offset drawer fronts that stop the drawer before the drawer back reaches the back panel is one simple solution, but there are others.
JonMy apologies for the confusion; I'd a rough idea of how to go about it but didn't have the time to express it properly. If I were biulding a piece like this, I'd secure the drawer frames to the sides with either stopped or through parallel sliding dovetails, gluing them into position but only at the front. For the back, I'd build a frame with 2-3 ply panels, rebating the frame into the sides. I wouldn't attach the back to the drawer frames. Bearing in mind, I've never done this before (but I'm facing having to do it shortly), how am I doing? Close?Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
Mike, I didn't mean to imply that your post was confused, but rather that the flow of the thread was off course. I just picked your post as the vehicle for responding, because you had mentioned my name.
Throughout the thread, though, it seems the emphasis was being placed on how well these wide boards had been seasoned, when the real issue centers more on wood's natural expansion-contraction characteristics, regardless of how well it has been seasoned. Wood moves the most in its tangential dimension (i.e., across the width of a flatsawn board) and you have to deal with this reality in the joinery you decide to employ...no matter how carefully seasoned the stock was or how dry it might be at the moment of assembly.
As for the solutions you offer in post #8, I think they're right on the mark.
<relieved sigh...Meds haven't messed me up as much as I'd thought
;)Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
What is rebating? Do you mean rabbeting?
Hatchet
Sorry Hatchet.. English spelling; same profile, different spelling, i.e. open sided groove on the edge of the board.Mike Wallace
Stay safe....Have fun
HI Jon,
Re: confusion, just wanted to check something with you as I might have the bull by the wrong end, but this was drummed into us in trade training as gospel.
I assume that this piece will be built in a non-airconditioned shop, but believe that most of your homes are fairly dry/lower humidity inside (air conditioners / furnaces?).
In that case, as the board dries out further from it's previous eq'm moisture content, the board will cup. (always away from the heart of the tree as it loses moisture)
By placing the board with the heart side out, the corners of the boards will be 'cupping' against each other and stay closed, as well as brace each other to keep the side of the carcase flat. If you build the piece heart side in, then the sides of the carcase cup outwards, producing gaps in the joinery and non-flat panels.
The main exception to this is if the wood's quartersawn, in which case, there is a lot less movement.
For this reason, don't join quartersawn and back sawn panels of this width
Have I missed something?
eddie
No Eddie, I think you have the bull by the right end...As you say, putting the pith side out will keep the corners tight...and, functionally, it's a good rule to follow.
...But the use of quartersawn stock in an edge glued panel is a bit of a mixed blessing. It is true that the overall shinkage will be less across the width of the panel, but the downside is quartersawn stock splits easier...because the weaker earlywood runs from face to face.
I avoid perfectly quartersawn stock in edge glued panels...both for this reason and also because the figure tends to be too linear.
Edited 7/27/2004 11:38 am ET by Jon Arno
The question about using wide boards on a 6 drawer chest is in regard to the sides of the chest. I "normally" use a blind dado for all the drawer/frame rails. I use mortise and tennon to put the drawer/frame rails together. I was considering dropping a piece of thin plywood inside the drawer/frame rail to make a dust shield between drawers. That dust shield would be tacked with a few brads to hold in place. It would provide no strength to the structure. I never allow my drawers to touch the back of the chest. There is always at the least 3/32 between the drawer side end and the case back. I could make a dovetailed dado with a small amount of glue near the spot where the dado stops 1/2 inch from the front edge. Oh the Red Oak is flat sawn to get as much figure/grain as possible.
Hatchet
Hatchet, 3/32" clearance at the back of the drawers is cutting it pretty close. The average tangential shrinkage of red oak (green to ovendry) is 8.6%. Starting off with well seasoned stock, it's doubtful you'll experience and expansion-contraction range of more than 1/4" per foot of width...but it's better to be safe than sorry.
Flat sawn Red Oak? You're asking for trouble.
What is your meaning of asking for trouble? Because of movement (shrink-expand) in the sides? I used 3/4 red oak plywood in the last chest(Lingerie' chest) and was very unhappy with the irregularities in the surface. I could feel every hard growth ring ridge! Perhaps I should NOT have bought the plywood at the local lumber yard (Alexander Lumber). I think I can get a flatter and smoother surface before sanding than that plywood.
Hatchet
Red Oak moves too much for my taste, regardless of how well that movement is accommodated and regardless of the 'reason' it moves. It moves. A lot. Period.
Edited 7/27/2004 8:00 am ET by cstanford
Hatchet,
Use those boards as is!
Not often when you get lumber in the condition you've found. I would use all my good Marine Corps training to kill for 18"wide boards that have been allowed to air dry for 115 years.Plane those boards and use them as is.
Those daring young men in their flying machines!
Hatchet,
I'd use them as is, with the heart side facing out - that way, as they dry further, they will cup 'inwards' and make the corners tight - to use them heart side in is to have the corners/side cup 'out', resulting in gaps in the carcase corners.
Regards,
eddie
Edited 7/25/2004 7:56 am ET by eddie (aust)
Whatever your reluctance, get over it. If and when you find wide stock that is otherwise suitable then use it. Glue panels only when necessary.
Edited 7/25/2004 12:00 pm ET by cstanford
As Jon Arno said, it's the movement with humidity that's the problem. I don't care whether the heartwood or sapwood is out, though I do consider it. I brace the board in question, generally by tenoning it into a dado in the top of the dresser and with drawer guides or other bracing in the middle and at the bottom of the piece.
BTW, I don't use dust dividers unless I have some structural reason. They came about, best I can tell, as a marketing ploy in the 50's and I have never seen the use of them. If I kept my clothes in my woodshop, perhaps, but really— does your house have that much dust?
The growth rings will flatten as the wood dries out, so in summer with air dried wood I would allow for both shrinkage and further cupping and place my bracing & fasteners accordingly.
BTW, technically the figure in oak shows as it is quartered while the grain gets more comblike and regular. The grain gets more pronounced when flatsawn.
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