I resawed 4/4 red oak in my basement shop and it immediately took on a bow, such that I cannot use it. The lumber was kiln dried, stored in a warehouse (southern Ontario). I bought it Monday, stored it beside my furnace overnight, jointed, and planed and at that point it was perfectly flat. As soon as I resawed it took on a bow.
I encountered the same problem in August when I resawed 8/4 red oak.
Any suggestions on what’s going wrong?
Replies
Hi I may very well be wrong,but the mistake you may be making is that you are storing it beside you furnace then resawing it and storing it elsewhere.I know that if you bring wood in from a cool climate to a warm climate it can warp very easy.The next time you do this,put it in the coolest place in your shop for about a week and let it acclimate to room temp before you work it.Then be sure to stack and sticker it and put some wieght on it to help hold it in place until you are ready to use it.Some wood will warp in climate changes much quicker than others.I have had this happen to me in the past and this is what I started doing and it helped out quite a bit.Good luck.
Ken
To woody and forestgirl - - thanks for your comments. I probably was in too big a rush to complete this project and re-sawed after only one day in house. But I had a similar problem with 8/4 red oak I re-sawed last August. It had been in my basement shop at least a month. Maybe it's a characteristic of red oak.
Hi you should still stack and sticker after you saw it as I suggested and let it again set for for a few day's or so depending on the humidity and room temp in your basement.Some woods are more prone to warping than others,I never had two much trouble with oak though.Where I used to live up north my basement was always damp and walnut gave me a fit.Also make sure you seal the endgrain while waiting to cut it to the final demensions.Good luck and feel free to email me if I can help.
Ken
My impression is that it's a good idea to let the wood acclimate to your shop environment for a few days before milling. I definitely would not store wood next to a furnace.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Another proud member of the "I Rocked With ToolDoc Club" .... :>)
You have received good advice so far. I have had similar things happen, even with stock that has acclimated to its surroundings. It seems that even a slight differnetial in moisture content (which will happen naturally in any stock) will result in warping. Unless the wood was poorly dried, you should be able to sticker the wood with a little weight and it will turn out just fine.
Thew
Most likely it's case hardened willy, or reverse case hardened. Not a horrendous example of case hardening, but case hardened all the same.
Do you know what a fork or prong test is? If not I can describe this for you later-- I'm pushed for time right now. It's a good way to test whether or not deep resawing is likely to be successful or not.
Storing the wood by a heat source overnight won't have helped, and not letting the wood settle for a week or two prior to using it is always a good idea. However I always drum into my learners that a fork test can be vital in all circumstances to tell whether or not you're wasting your time trying to work a batch of timber.
Anyway, I've done a bit of editing here and there should be an image for you information in my next post. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 1/19/2006 4:58 pm by SgianDubh
Well, b*gger it. I can't seem to upload any images from my hard drive, which is an ongoing problem for me here at Knots, even if I turn off all Firewalls and all that rubbish. I'll email the image I'm trying to load to another Knots contributor and see if they have time to, and are willing to try and load it from their end. Otherwise you'll just have to manage without the pretty picture and read up about case hardening, etc., elsewhere. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Image from Sgian Dubh
ty - I got the picture -all the way from Australia. Communications in this day are mind-bogling.
The image originated in the UK of course, so it's been on a bit of a trip-- 3/4 of the way around the world, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
...............What the heck does "4/4 red oak" mean? Thanks.
In 'Mercaland rough sawn timber (lumber) is sold by its thickness, as in the rest of the world but thickness in the US is defined in 1/4" increments, i.e.,
1" thick = 4/4 = (in the metric world) 25mm.
2" thick = 8/4 = 50 mm, etc.
Rough sawn Wood in the US is also sold in board feet (BF, bd ft, or bf.) Therefore 1 board foot could be a plank 4/4 X 12" W X 12" L = 144 ins³ or 1/12 of a cubic foot. A plank of 8/4 X 6" W X 12' ft L = 1728ins³ = 12 bd ft = 1ft³.
There are (in other words) 12 bf per cubic foot. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
................Thanks. I'm learnin', I'm learnin'.Life may be short but it can be very wide!
Bodgerman, the Yanks (and possibly the Canucks) are the only people I know of that have the convention of listing their wood dimensions in this order: thickness X width X length, eg, a plank is descibed and written on cutting lists as 3/4" X 1-3/4" X 35".
I never did get used to that order during the years I lived in the US because I have always used the convention that I think is used pretty much everywhere else in the world which is, L X W X T, eg, for the plank above I write, 35" X 1-3/4" X 3/4".
The truth is I don't usually write it that way either as I mostly use metric measure, 890 X 45 X 18 mm, but I do switch about between the systems quite a bit and use whatever is convenient at the time. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard,<...the Yanks (and possibly the Canucks) are the only people I know of that have the convention of listing their wood dimensions in this order: thickness X width X length...>I'm curious: In what part of America did you encounter that? I've always seen it as L x W x T, just like any place else in the world. And every reference I've ever read always tells the reader that the standard way to list dimensions is L x W x T.So...you've stimulated my curiousity about what part of the US lists dimensions in that fashion.Thanks.James
Texas, but I see it in American woodworking magazines too if there are cutting lists attached to projects, so I assume it's the same all over. That statement I suppose brings to mind the fact that I haven't really read an American woodworking magazine for years now so my memory could be playing tricks. There again apart from a quick browse through to see if something catches my eye I don't any more really read woodworking magazines from any country aimed at a mostly amateur readership.
Anyway, moving on from that side issue, US furniture/woodworking businesses I worked for before starting my own Houston based furniture business meant dealing with woodworkers and suppliers in TX and other states that created cutting lists and the like with dimensions in the order, T X W X L. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard, Thanks. I'll have to pay more attention to the cutting lists; never noticed that before. On a slightly different subject, I enjoy your replies/comments: great experience and technical knowledge tempered by common sense. Very refreshing.James
Did they specify the materials this way?example: White Pine #2 Select, S4S, 1x6 - 8'? Most of what I had seen when I worked at a lumber yard was spec'd that way on lumber lists. If it was for trim or anything over 1", it was 5/4, 6/4, 8/4, etc, unless it was for framing members. 1" is assumed 3/4" thickness, 2" is 1-1/2", etc. The American Lumberman's Association is where the dimensioning format originated, IIRC. Then, they realized how much more $ they could make by cutting the lumber 1/2" thinner and call it the same thing by adding "nominal dimension before drying" to it. What do they call a 2x4-8' where you are? Is it metric and do they round up or down? (50mmx100mm-2.44m)Anything to be different, I guess.Or, was it different because "everything is bigger in Texas"
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
highfigh, I've seldom had to concern myself with pre-prepared material such as 1 X 3 or 1 X 4 as it's designated in the US, so your example: "White Pine #2 Select, S4S, 1x6 - 8'" is one where I recognise the terminology and what's specified but not what I'd typically deal with.
My dealings with lumber suppliers were almost all along the lines of requiring a number of bd ft of rough sawn lumber at 4/4, 5/4, 8/4 thickness, etc., with minimum widths and lengths in mind and also a grade like FAS.
My comments addressed the issue of specifying at the building stage of projects where I would sometimes be the builder, or the staff we employed, or the work was subcontracted to other furniture/woodworking businesses. In all these cases as far as I can recall the order of writing dimensions on cutting lists was T X W X L. I always had some trouble with this order simply because it always looked bass-ackwards to me and didn't scan right-- that's simply a reflection of my background and training where the order was reversed.
Here in the UK where we use metric for the most part I see the counterparts of Home Depot like B&Q sell their PAR (planed all round) stock which is the same as US S4S with actual finished sizes listed, eg, 2500 X 44 X 32 mm.
When it comes to rough sawn material most of us switch between systems to suit the job in hand. For smallish orders I tend to work in imperial, eg, I'll order 10 cubic feet of 1", or 1.5", or 2" thick rough sawn at the grade and minimum width I want-- that's 120 bd ft to you. We don't use the US style 1/4 system for designating thickness.
Working in cubic metres is clumsy, but it's the 'standard' unit and fine for those businesses buying by the truck load or greater. Cubic metres are awkward for small quantities because there are roughly 35.35 cubic feet per cubic metre, or ~424 bd ft.
I'm not sure I answered your question, but these seemed to be the right response to your post. Let me know if I went off an an uninformative tangent and I'll try and put it right tomorrow or whenever I have time. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
That wasn't uninformative at all. I haven't been to that side of the pond yet and although I remember reading that wood was measured by actual volume where you are, I had forgotten. "Two continents, separated by a common language", eh? I don't have any problem going between linear or cubic meters and feet but I tend to work in inches and feet. Somehow, I have acquired the ability (or is it actually the indication of some odd ailment?) to mix fractional and decimal units on the dimensions for the same part. Rain Man!
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Sgian,
Lumberyard nomenclature:
Fellow goes into the office at the lumber yard.
"We want some four by twos."
Guy behind the counter scratches his head, "You mean two by fours?"
"I dunno, better go outside and ask my buddy Roy." Comes back in, "Yeah, yeah, two by fours."
"Okay. You want Spruce, pine, yellow pine, or fir?"
"Dunno, better ask Roy." Back inside, "Pine."
"Okay, how many you want?"
"Better ask Roy." Comes back in, "Couple hundred."
"Okay, couple hundred two by fours, pine. How long ya want 'em?"
"Better ask Roy."
Back inside again. "Roy says we want 'em a long time. We're buildin' a house out of 'em."
Cheers,
Ray Pine
They say the old ones are the best Ray, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
Richard,
That's what she said...
Cheers,
Ray
Ever hear of EMC ? Equilibrium Moisture Content. Its not the temperature change folks, its the moisture change.. therefore, allowing the wood to stabilize in the shop is a good first step. the dry furnace air will surely drive out the moisture more quickly than the wood will like
generally a flat condition in 8/4 will never be a guarantee that it will remain flat in a thinner resawn condition. the thinner the resaw.... the more likely the problem of any distortion. if you must resaw, cut the board in half, the re-join and re-plane it. repeat that process until the desired thickness is reached.
think of it this way: internal forces in the board may be(and often are) balancing each other, i.e the forces are symetrical keeping the board flat. when you change the balance of forces via resawing... you get what you get, dependant upon how slowly and evenly the boards where dried in the first place...that is where the forces get introduced....in the drying process. us poor bast&^%s have no control over this, but there are some practical solutions and these facts will help you select what you need.
plain sawn lumber is inherently less stable than quartersawn..
yes, oak is less stable than...lets say mahogany
buy your lumber in as close a thickness to finished as possible. anyway, why pay top $$ for 8/4 or 12/4 when you are going to slice it down anyway.
resaw in 1/2 as described above.
buy a moisture meter and keep checking the EMC.
for those of you who really wanna understand this phenomena, buy "Understanding Wood" by Bruce Hoadley
PS. the fork test seems pretty cool too..that is if the dude lets you hack up the lumber before you buy it
Never thought my query would generate 22 hits - - it's been a very educational topic. Maybe it will generate an article in FW!!!
Thanks for all the comments; they are much appreciated.
Did you resaw both sides of the board?
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