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hard maple with hidden defect.

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Keith Thomas

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73
Location
florida
I did a glue up of some maple for a drawer front. the wood looked fine. I did the glue up and then when it was ready I started to trim it to size. I was squaring up one side with a 1 inch cut. At first I thought my glue failed but then realized
it was the wood. it just snapped in 2. so I made another 1" cut and looked it over. could not see any crack but when I stressed it , it snapped in the same place. so did the next 2 cuts but I cant see anything wrong with the board. By matching up the board to the cut pieces to see where the weak spot is I "think" I can just barely see a crack on one side. But its so slight I'm not even sure. There was no obvious check in the plank it came from. it is really dis-heartening. It is the worst batch off maple I ever had to dig through to get wood. the shop said the price keeps going up and the quality down.
 

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I think I see some paint on the ends of some of those boards - the ends of the boards as they came from your supplier? The ends will often check or crack in the drying process so it is a good practice to always cut off the first 2 to 4 inches and inspect the ends for defects. DAMHIKT :censored:
 
Rennie Heuer said:
I think I see some paint on the ends of some of those boards - the ends of the boards as they came from your supplier? The ends will often check or crack in the drying process so it is a good practice to always cut off the first 2 to 4 inches and inspect the ends for defects. DAMHIKT :censored:
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yes. all the wood at this supplier has a painted end. The end with the paint was trimmed off when I squared the panel I did cut it close but was only going to square it up and decide how much to take off each end after I trimmed it for width. I think it was over a foot was bad. . But there was no visible check in the board when I glued it up. thats what surprised me. and the crack I think I saw after the fact was only on one side and very hard to see.
 
Keith Thomas said:
yes. all the wood at this supplier has a painted end. The end with the paint was trimmed off when I squared the panel I did cut it close but was only going to square it up and decide how much to take off each end after I trimmed it for width. I think it was over a foot was bad. . But there was no visible check in the board when I glued it up. thats what surprised me. and the crack I think I saw after the fact was only on one side and very hard to see.
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Yep, they can seemingly come out of nowhere. I understand your approach, you were going to trim it off anyway, been tempted to do that myself a few times. Experience has taught me to always take off a few inches first to inspect the ends. Those checks can be mighty hard to see in the rough cut painted end.
 
Keith Thomas said:
They said the quality has been going down hill. I think the mills are just pushing out what they can with out much concern.
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The other dynamic that's going on is that retailers cannot restock like they used to. Typically, when a 500 board foot unit goes on the floor, the first 300 to sell is the best of it. Now, instead of replenishing, the tail-end is left languishing on the shelves. I don't blame them -it's better to have something on the shelf than a goose egg, but still...
As best as I can tell, the grade isn't being pushed at the sawmill level 🤷‍♂️
 
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