Hi everyone,
First post on this forum ! My name is Willy and I’m really exciting to be able to talk to this community with all this knowledge and skills.Thanks in advance to anyone who will take the time to explain and give advices.
I’m starting to get more and more interrested about woord working, I am an industrial designer and I would love to spend more time designing and making furnitures or little objects.
I started by making a surfboard rack to store my surfbaords, I used a straight lumber, drilled holes to fit the poles and fixed it to the wall. I finished the lumber with a butcher block oil, I already had it and I like the color it gave to the wood.
My issue is that the lumber started to twist after few days when it was staight at the beguining.
I only applied the oil on one side, could it be the reason why it’s twisting ?
How can I avoid having the wood twisting ?
Thanks a lot !
Willy
Replies
wood twistiing
I have found that in most cases you cannot keep wood from twisting, curling, splitting (moving) because the wood has a moisture content and it will release moisture to the environment (or absorb it) until its moisture content stabilizes with its environment. It is that change of moisture from the cells of the wood that causes the movement.
You can sometimes help this process of stabilization by buying kiln-dried wood - that is frowned upon by many woodwrkers for various reasons - or you can allow the wood to stabilize by letting it rest until it is stable.
THEN you can begin to mill the lumber to your desires. Most of us will not go to final thickness immediately but will let the wood rest again for a while.
While finishing both sides of wood will help some, many woodworkers do not since they have let the wood stabilize.
I suspect your lumber was somewaht 'green' to begin with or it had a very different moisture content that your house.
There are many articles on FWW on this subject and how to deal with it.
Forrest
You should use a properly adjusted jointer to make perfectly square edges on the wood board.
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