[Woodworkers] Christmas present help needed!!

[Chuck Steger]

Sorry to reply to my own post but I just unclamped and (as expected) is
still warped. By way of more information, there are 9 boards ¾”x3 ½”x 24”.
If you’ve ever worked with construction lumber, they notorious for including
the pith in the boards (and some had it). I knew this so by selective
milling I ended up with 2 quarter sawn, 3 rift sawn, and 4 flat sawn boards.
Part of me says soak the panel with water using a sponge and leave clamped
on the bench but that could make it worse, right? I remember a tip in a
magazine that said if you put a cupped board in the sun, it could un-cup it
(but I don’t remember with side goes up!). You can tell I’m grasping at
straws but, unfortunately, do not have a lot of experimentation time.

 

Chuck

 

From: Woodworkers [mailto:woodworkers-bounces at lists.sawdusters.org] On
Behalf Of Chuck Steger via Woodworkers
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 1:13 PM
To: A place where woodworkers talk about woodworking
Cc: Chuck Steger
Subject: [Woodworkers] Christmas present help needed!!

 

A little long but please read as I need help!

 

I’m making a photo board for my granddaughter (believe it or not they are
actually printing pictures and the Polaroid is making a comeback). She likes
rustic so I was going to make it out of pine (knots and all) and put a barn
wood finish on it. Since it was going to be rustic, I figured I could skip a
milling step and purchase 1x4 boards at Lowe’s. Most were badly warped but I
found 3 - 10’ boards that were relatively straight. I thought that since
they acclimated in the store, they should be good to go. Plus I was going to
chop up into 2’ lengths so I could manage the warp. I set them aside in my
climate controlled shop and went to finish the concrete truck for my
grandson. When I went to retrieve the boards, they had warped badly. I knew
better but I used them thinking I could force them straight at glue up. When
I went to clamp them up, my heart-of-hearts knew it wasn’t going to work
because they were warping at glue up. I had gone this far so I glued up,
clamped down to a flat work bench and hoped for the best. Sure enough, when
I removed the clamps, the panel was badly warped (unfortunately, I was not
surprised).

 

I realized I should have done what I planned to do in the first place and go
get 2x4’s so I could mill the warp out. I got pretty straight 2x4’s and
chopped into 2’ sections and ,milled down to 1 ¼”. I stickered on my bench
and let acclimate to shop for a day. Encouraging because as you looked at
the stickered stack, they did not appear to be warping at all. So next day I
milled down to just under 7/8” and stickered again overnight. Again stack
looked good so I milled to final thickness of ¾’. As I was gluing up, I was
very encouraged as the glue up was flat. No need to clamp to bench (I did
anyway) but was very encouraged. Yesterday morning I unclamped and held my
breath but, hooray, a flat panel. I sanded panel to remove glue marks and
set aside to practice texturing sample boards for the barn wood finish
(still nice and flat). This morning, I went into the shop and the panel was
warped!! As I write this, I clamped the board flat to my bench and started
to bring the temperature up in my shop. If I’m not working on anything, when
I leave the shop for the night, I hold temp to 50 degrees but if I’m working
on something, I hold temp to 61. Why 61? Because I bring up temp in 3 degree
increments to get to 70. Why 3 degrees? I don’t know, I just do.

 

So I have questions: What happened? Is it the temperature fluctuations (and
does 9 degrees really make a difference in warping)? But most importantly,
what do I do now? I have less than a week to finish. I could do again with
new 2x4’s but I’m not comfortable I wouldn’t have the same issue. As I send
this I’m going back out to unclamp from the bench but I don’t expect it to
stay flat.

 

Chuck

 

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