power of a drying board

[woodshop]

I milled and stickered this oak Sept 2006, and all but the few 8/4 boards were already down to 14% MC this past July 07, but I still havn't pulled it apart yet. In the middle of the stack in the pic below, I was stacking 6 inch wide 6/4 two at a time side by side. I had one short board, so I just stuck a small piece to support the rest of the stack above it at the end of the board below it, and gave this short one it's own set of stickers. So... all boards still supported through the whole stack. However, on that short board the end 2 ft started to bow upwards as it dried. Regardless of the 7 boards on top of it (estimate 300+ bls at first), it just picked the whole stack above it up on that end. I didn't have any more weight on this particular stack other than the boards themselves, but I get the feeling in this case that whatever weight I would have stuck on top of that stack would still have been lifted by that one bowed board as it dried.

Bottom line is, as was discussed in a recent post, often when wood wants to move, there is nothing you can do but let it. Even if you keep it clamped solid, in some cases there is still tension building in that board, and when you unclamp, it will still move to where it wanted to in the first place.

 

[Sprig]

Great pic and story there Woodshop! Yup, I'm always amazed at fiber power.
When I was doing a bit of reading years back about rock splitting (I really have no idea why I was studying this at the time lol) I ran across a blurb about how wooden wedges were used to split granite rocks, they'd drive in very dry wooden wedges then soak them with water, pop goes da rock! (eventually, I'd imagine it wasn't a really fast process umpkin2: ) Perty cool stuff!~



Serge

 

[Trigger-Time]

Dad bought a new 24' goose neck trailer. End of one board
on trailer curved up (like in Woodshop's picture) it pulled the
3 screws into, we clamped it back down and put 5 screws in the
end of board........heads pulled threw board in about 3 weeks.
Took trailer back to dealer, they installed a new board.

 

[Ianab]

Bottom line is, as was discussed in a recent post, often when wood wants to move, there is nothing you can do but let it. Even if you keep it clamped solid, in some cases there is still tension building in that board, and when you unclamp, it will still move to where it wanted to in the first place.

Yup, and even if you did manage to get it to dry straight, the tension is still there internally. As soon as you resaw or plane it you change the balance and it goes all wriggly on you again, not to mention if you get moisture changes in a piece after it's finished. :bang:

Some boards just aren't worth the hassle

Cheers

Ian

 

[wdchuck]

Rocking cradle, that natural bow will have great strength.

I've kept wood just because it moved its own way.

 

[woodshop]

Rocking cradle, that natural bow will have great strength.

I've kept wood just because it moved its own way.

Well I suppose if I could cut the board to length and get the other end of the board to bow like that also, instant rocker. I wouldn't hold my breath though.