Wood movement in Mission Style Furniture
JWhitish
| Posted in General Discussion on
I’m planning on building a mission style bed with vertical slats between the top and bottom rails of the headboard. The slats will be about 1/2″ thick x 1 1/2″ wide and I haven’t decided yet to mortise them in indivdually, or use another technique. My main question is this: Should I allow for expansion and contraction across the width of the slats with some loosness in the width of my mortise? I’ve reviewed a lot of mission style plans and it looks like the slats are usually in tight, which is good (no rattle) but I still wonder about it. Can someone please help me out here? I would really appreciate it.
Replies
Congrats on taking the time to consider seasonal wood movement during design. Some species of wood move more than others, flatsawn more than rift more than quartered , but a ballpark average is 1/8" (.125") per foot. Over 1 1/2" the "average" seasonal movement will be .125 times (1.5 / 12) = .0156" or about 1/64". Wood that's been stored in conditioned space for several months likely is about midway between maximum expansion and maximum contraction, so each 1.5" wide slat "on average" would expand and contract about 1/128" annually. Flatsawn beech would expand and contract more, quartersawn cherry less. Hope someone will check my arithmetic and correct if wrong . . .
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