[Woodworkers] Christmas present help needed!!

Sun Dec 17 17:07:24 PST 2017

Jason,

   No, I glued it up flat on the bench. I know what you mean, normally I
glue panels on my Bessey clamps so they are elevated. In this case I offset
the boards by 2” (alternating boards – picket fence style) so I cut two 3/8”
dados (top and bottom of boards) for a 3/8” cleat that ran across the back
to keep it aligned. Honestly, I also thought that would help keep it flat.
So when I glued it, I did it face down on the bench so I could ensure the
cleats were seated in the dados. Interestingly enough, the panel was flat
coming out of the clamps and all day that day. It was flat when I left the
shop that night.

Gary,

   Yes, I have a joiner and planer so my first milling was to 1 ¼” and sit a
day, then >7/8” and sit a day, and then final ¾”. But your point is well
taken, I should have purchased them much earlier. The irony is I have some
2x4’s and a 2x10 in my shop that had been there for a while. I keep cheap
wood like that to make prototypes. I knew I had them but I thought I would
just go buy new and keep what I had. Lesson learned! In fact. I may go buy
more to have in the shop just for occasions like this (my daughter and her
family lean to the rustic). I did not alternate grain but I did use cauls.
Thanks for the offer to call. I may still do it!

   I ended up spending the day trying to rescue what I had. The one panel
made of 1x4’s is twisted and can’t be fixed. But the one I made out of
milled 2x4’s had a cup in the center. Quite frankly, if the convex part of
the cup was on the show side. I probably would have called it good. That
would have put the sides flat against the wall and stable but if you looked
from the top or bottom, you would see a gap in the middle. No one would see
if from top or bottom (much) so I would have settled. However, the convex
side was on the back so the middle of the panel would hit the wall first and
it would have been wobbly. Given my time crunch, I decided to try to take
the cup out using a jointer plane, finish plane, and a belt sander. I know
that would have made the middle boards thinner than the end boards, but
against a wall, who would notice. I was not successful doing that. So I
decided to cut the panel  in 2 (which cut my cleats also but now I only had
to align 2 panels, not 9 boards), plane it flat, and re-glue. This kind of
worked. The problem was the planer pushed the panels flat so they were still
not totally flat. So then I had this idea to use the TS as a jointer. In
other words, If I hold then end of the ½ panel flat against the TS, it
elevates the cut end a little (1/8”). I then did the same to the other ½
panel. In effect, what this did was when I glued both panels back together,
the ends stayed flat to the table and the joint closed with no gaps. If you
look under the panel, you see the ends fat on the table and the middle
raised by about ¼”. I will find out tomorrow if this worked. I hate to even
admit I’m doing it that way and with more time, I would remake from scratch
with all of your suggestions. But, alas, time is not my friend. If I get the
panel to look flat against the wall and not rock, I am going to call that
success! Stay tuned.

Chuck

From: Woodworkers [mailto:woodworkers-bounces at lists.sawdusters.org] On
Behalf Of Jason Beam via Woodworkers
Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2017 6:08 PM
To: Chuck Steger via Woodworkers
Cc: Jason Beam
Subject: Re: [Woodworkers] Christmas present help needed!!

Did you leave the flat panel on a solid surface without equal airflow on
both large faces?

I did that once to some cherry panels - and got me a Pringle the next day

Jason Beam
Sacramento, CA

On 12/17/2017 11:13 AM, Chuck Steger via Woodworkers wrote:

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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