I need to resaw some 6/4 Ash that is air dried from my local hardwood supplier that has been sitting in my garage for a couple of months. The Ash is about 5 inches wide and around 7 feet long and I need to get 2 pieces of 3/8″ inch material out of it. I am curious though after it is cut should I clamp the pieces together with the cut face exposed for a few days to let them acclimate to the environment. I do not want them to bow or twist and I wanted some input before I did anything .
Thanks,
Mike Francis
Replies
I don't think clamps will help, at least they never have for me. Here's what I'd do but others may have better suggestions. Resaw it at least 5/8" thick. Joint the resawn face flat and plane the other down until the boards are 1/2" thick. Sticker them with plenty of weight on top for 2 weeks. Plane to final thickness taking equal amounts from each face.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
Assuming the boards are already at an equilibrium moisture content, why would you sticker and weight? I would have thought, store flat and wait two weeks, but if you have to weight aren't they likely to move dramatically again after final thicknessing?
vulcan666
I'm jumping in here because I work with air dried wood almost exclusively, and resaw alot. When resawing a 6/4 board that was air dried, you are almost certainly going to find that there will be a little more moisture in the center of the board than the outside edges. Boards warp, or move, when moisture changes occur in the stock. By weighting down the resawn boards, you are simply restraining that movement until the interior of the original 6/4 board, which is now the exterior side(s) of the 2 new 3/4 boards, reaches equilibrium. Once MC is at equilibrium, the boards shouldn't move much, as long as no reaction wood exists inside.
I recently resawed a 16/4 slab of maple for a fireplace mantle. I wanted the shelf bookmatched. With about 6 inches to go until finished in a 7 foot long slab, both new boards bowed so much that the slab split from the force. It took about 6 weeks, but they did return to almost their original flatness.
Jeff
My experience has been that the cup/bow would straighten out after a few weeks or several days, provided there's no case-hardening/internal tension issue, which should be minimal since your stock is air-dried. Since it sounds like you have quite a bit of extra thickness to play with, it might save some time to, after resawing, remove most of the material during thicknessing from the non-resawn side to equate the moisture level on both side as much as possible. If you're book-matching, that's how you'd preserve the matched faces anyway.
All resawn stock moves. If you find some that doesn't, remember it because it will never happen again.
Leave yourself room to flatten and do your resawing well in advance of the start of the project.
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