Wood gone wonky – an idiot level question

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78
Location
Maplewood, NJ
I'm trying to make some old-fashioned wood storm windows for my 1902 garage.

I bought a couple of 6" 5/4 pine boards at Home Despot, made sure they were nice and straight in all directions, took them down to my shop and ripped a 2" piece off of one of them.

That piece immediately skewed by about a 1/2" in two directions.

What did I do wrong? I know it's not a moisture issue... the wood is quite dry.

Did I just buy the wrong wood in the wrong place?

Thanks!
 
Thanks, Don. My problem now is that, should the rest of the wood behave in the same fashion, it's going to wind up being useless to me. Wooden frames meant to hold 26" X 27" panes of glass need to be flat.

Would I be better off using different wood? Would it help to buy it at a lumber yard rather than a borg?

And, yeah, it really was 5/4, a full 1 1/8" thick, which surprised me. I was expecting it to be a bit thinner.
 
Brian
I had written a fairly long post on this and hit the wrong key..

But as Dons says there isn't much you can do with the wood at this time, and yes every piece will probably do the same thing. It is caused by what is called "case hardening" and it happens with cold rolled steel as well. When you remove the surfaces countering the internal tension it just goes wild. If you can find something air dried or at least dried slowly you have a chance..... This wood was ruined before it got to you. Some of the fast growth wood is hard to dry without internal stress...or so I have heard...

Even plywood does it today which used to be unheard of...Look at the twists in the plywood piles at the borg....

Find a local sawyer and good luck....

Wood may well be cheaper as well...
Garry
 
Thanks guys. I'm out $32 for the wood, but maybe I can find a use for it that doesn't require ripping it, or where it won't matter if it warps. It's a comfort to know there's an alternate solution.
 
I think Don got it right. I would get some poplar And use it for the frames. Just be sure to prime and paint them with a good exterior grade paint. Sometimes you can luck out with pine 2x wood from a lumber yard. I have gotten southern yellow pine once that worked well for a similar project.

However you must remember that the lumber buyers for the big yards and the borgs are buying in large quantities and from several different sources so you get "white wood" of various species, mostly pines or spruce trees. The sources are spotty at best in my opinion when it comes to drying the wood properly. Also a lot of the 2 x 4's are made from smaller trees that have lots of knots and stress in them. When I am planning a project like yours a I will sort through a lot of wood to get clear and straight boards. That is still no guarantee that they won't warp.
 
If you are going to paint the shutters HD has primed 5/4 6" wide stuff that is made up of a number of glued up pieces. I used it on my exterior window trim. No problems with it at all.
 
Brian, I just finished the 33rd storm window, 13 more to go, for a historical site nearby. I bought all my 5/4 from lowes and have not had a problem other than a knot spliting out when I put a screw through it. Maybe a bad batch at hd?
 
Brian
The boards you have left, if any, take and rip a 1/8" off of the out side edges and then rip to finish width. What you do to one side of a board you MUST do to the opposite side or it will warp. Sometime even this does not work completely.
The boards you have cut, try wetting the side with the inside curve or the cupped part. This sometimes works.
Regards
Joe
 
Y'know... I've used that primed stuff from HD before, and in 5/4, too! Just kind of slipped my mind.

In the meantime, I went to the local yard, bought some poplar, did a really nice job of cutting exactly to the measurements I require... and then remembered I was supposed to add 1 1/2" for the tenons.

I'm sometimes amazed at how addicted I am to a hobby that makes me feel so incredibly stupid.
 
Joe has the right of it - if you rip wide of the mark and then let it set overnight and then re-rip you'll take the stress out and expose the initial warp. Takes more wood, but thats the way the cookie rolls. Unless you know you have really clear stress free lumber this is usually a good idea anyway (you never know you have stress free lumber :rolleyes:)
 
i will second the idea of wetting the warped wood and flattening it,, definitely in a glued up panel ,,just clamp even and go beyond where you want it to be so it will dry in the right plane.. i had a panel that was out by a 1/4" on each end in a span of 24" wetted it down clamped it flat with a 1/4" spacer in the middle. left to dry for 3 days and then released it to dry out with stickers, a week later its still flat..
 
Locally we have a mill that does a lot with juniper. I love the look of the stuff but Oh My does it move a lot. I have a cnc router and was doing a project on a piece that had been 'dried' for a long period of time. I ran the job and it came out just terrific. When it was through carving I left it clamped in the machine and went to bed. I got up the next morning and released the clamps! OUCH! The 5 foot piece now had a 1 inch bow in it! The carving relieved the stress in the wood alright! I had three more pieces to go so now my knees were a knockin'! They carved perfectly with no bows, go figure! I still love doing stuff in juniper I just by extra wood for any project. Russ
 
This is fascinating.

I do all the cooking in my house. I was just saying to my wife the other day that when a recipe says, "Brown the potatoes," it almost never says, "Make sure their cut surfaces are dry. It's a good idea to get the pan hot first, then pour the oil in right before you put the potatoes in so the oil doesn't get a chance to burn, then crank up the heat to allow for the temperature drop caused by the potatoes. And whatever you do, don't crowd the pan or they'll never brown."

I do all that by instinct. It's the result of forty years experience in the kitchen.

But when it comes to woodworking, I still haven't learned what's NOT said when somebody says, "Rip a two inches off a board."

But this is a good place to learn. Thanks.
 
Oh... and for the record...

I bought some 5/4 poplar from a local yard, and some 5/4 primed, finger-jointed pine from HD.

The poplar ripped perfectly.

The first rip off the pine skewed and I got nervous. All the other rips went reasonably well... a tiny bit of bowing, but within tolerances. I can used the skewed piece for shorter pieces.

I'm going to go with the poplar. The yard's a little farther away, but the price really isn't that much different and the end result seems to be more reliable.
 
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