Hello, I am getting back into wood working after a 30yr hiatus from high school, ha. I live down on the gulf coast and it’s very hard to buy wood at that hasn’t already started warping and bending. It’s very frustrating because my budget does not allow me to buy a planer/joiner at the moment.
Is it advisable to use wood immediately after buying it, so that it doesn’t warp/bend any further? I bought a straight piece of pine once and let it sit in an air conditioned environment for 2 months before finally using it and it warped/bent so much that I could only use about 2ft of it, and it was an 8ft board!
Are there any sealers, etc. that would help me prevent my stock from warping so much?
Thanks,
Steve
Replies
Steve,
There is no short simple answer to your problem.
It would take a dozen or more pages to cover in detail how to choose wood that will remain relatively stable, and a another several dozen pages to cover the various ways to minimize or deal with wood movement. There have been a number of good, but not great, articles on wood movement in FWW over the years, you should search the back issues.
A few basic guidelines: Choose wood that is straight grained and knot free and that has evenly spaced rings. If you can't avoid knots entirely, small knots are less likely to cause trouble than large knots. At least a few boards out of a pile will probably be at least partially quarter sawn, use these for the most critical applications. I will often pick only one board in twenty out of a pile, some days I just give up.
If you have an air conditioned shop, you are better off letting the wood stabilize by stickering it in the shop for several weeks before you use it. Some of the wood may warp, but you are better off knowing that before you begin to use it, if it warps while you are working with it it will be very hard to do good joinery. You need to learn how to design and construct furniture so that it won't be damaged by wood movement, there is a lot to know but it is commonly written about.
There is no wood finish, or drying method, that will appreciably alter the tendency of wood to warp. Some days there is no substitute for a jointer and a thickness planer, except for hand planes of course.
John White
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