Easy Way to Straighten Lumber After Drying UPDATE
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ธ.ค. 2024
- Here is a very simple way to take crooked, warped, cupped, lumber and straighten it out. Someone told me all you have to do is leave it out in the rain. When it soaks up water it will straighten out. In the first part of this series, I tested that idea. I had some ponderosa pine boards that I milled on my Woodmizer LT15 sawmill. They warped horribly when they dried. After I left them out in the rain, I was surprised to see how well it worked. In the next video we confirmed when they dry out again, they will warp again. In this video we do an experiment to see if we can get them to dry straight. See the surprising results in this video.
Here is the link to the moisture meter I use in this video.
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Thought I’d watch a short video while I have my breakfast. In a surprise twist to my original plans, I find myself dedicated to the outcome of four pieces of rough cut pine half way across the world. Hello from Australia and thank you for some breakfast based entertainment Wilson Forest Lands.
It’s good to know I am twisting up breakfasts all the way in Australia. Thanks for watching and commenting from the other side of the world.
Another Australian here. I bought some 30x70mm (roughly inch and a quarter x 3") pine from a big hardware chain. Chose the straightest lengths I could find, surprisingly very straight. Left them a few months in the room I was going to build a divider wall in, laid flat, no sunlight, and every one of them had twisted in that time. Quite a substantial twist, to where I can't use them as they are. I'll give this a try rather than spending another couple of hundred dollars. Thank you for this helpful video.
late on the reply here, another Aussie ( North QLD ) and by golly the number of times I've had "straight" lumber delivered here only to find it like a pack of strangled pretzels a week later is just terrifying - similar to yourself, kept dry, out of the sun, definitely frustrating.
Bunnings?
@@olin777 ……. Yeah Bunnings! ……. H3 treated pine 150x25 mm, (6” x 1”) ….. 6m long for pool capping twisted after few days, suggest wetting it and fixing temporarily to help straighten. Then removing, painting and refixing ! Thoughts ?
I am a woodworker myself and I can tell you this:
The distortion the boards went through while drying free of constriction was the result of the shrinking of the fibers of the wood according to their orientation in the board.
Wetting the board again to the same humity as sawmill time brings them back to the orginal straightness (if cracks haven't already formed in the board thus altering the continuity of the fibers)
Drying the boards while constricted in a position different from the natural one is going to accumulate tension within the board.
To a certain extent the wood structure can handle those tensions, but they want to be released somehow and they would naturally try to release a little bit every time the board gets through a humity change by getting distorded again.
Now, about the usage of that lumber and how the tensions would release accordingly:
minimum to no size reduction:
if you just use them as they are or just slightly reduce them by size and :
1 get them fixed in a flat position by nails but have them get through big differences of humidity in the course of a year: tension will release partly by distorting again pulling the nails in time and partly by forming cracks in the board
2 get them fixed in a flat position by nails but have them not get through big differences of humidity in the course of a year: tension will release in a small part by distorting again pulling the nails in time and mostly by forming cracks in the board
3 get them fixed in a flat position by screwd but have them get through big differences of humidity in the course of a year: tension will release mostly by forming cracks in the board but also try to release by getting distorted again. Since the screws won't give getting pulled either they hold and all tension get released by the cracks or (and this happened to me) the board will snap the screws and get distorted
4 get them fixed in a flat position by screwd but have them not get through big differences of humidity in the course of a year: tension will release by forming cracks in the board.
If you try to rip saw the boards by any significant amount tension will release by bending the wood either arching against or away from the saw, and potentially suddenly snapping along grain whel little wood remain to be cut resulting in dangerous working. (I say from experience, some oven-dried 50 mm larch can accumulate a lot of tension...like a 10 cm cut board arching 3 cm while sawing it from the larger board)
Your best use for such wood are shor pieces which will tend to be straight even if you let the boards dry freely and so accumulate no tension within.
Second best is to have them fixed by screws in a stable situation on the wet side of things.
Definitely good tip on cross cutting them into shorter pieces. Often times warped long pieces can be cut into shorter straighter pieces and work just fine.
Thank you, good information. It may be interesting to do some experimenting attaching with nails and screws to show what you are saying. I may need to find more crooked boards to experiment with.
You're both very welcome.
About the boards pulling the nails, i often see it in a traditional roof cover in my area, where long boards are nailed to small square pieces running perpendicular to the roof slope. If twisted boards were used, they will stay for some time (talking months, years or even decades according to board quality and to ambient condition) but will end up pulling the nails and twisting giving the roof the look of a ruffed up bird.
Wish I could understand the message here. Sounds like this water method wont turn out well in the long term?
@@DieLuftwaffel correct. The lumber will have a ‘memory’ of how it dried originally. That’s why when lumber is milled it’s needs to be stacked and stickered immediately. Then very heavily weighted or (preferred) strapped.
I watch your videos because you have a good mix of fire wood , milling. And forestry ! You are a good land owner and take good care of your land.
Thank you, I appreciate the feedback.
I think you should rip saw one and video tape how much the wood moves as they are cut. I believe there is tension in the wood.
That is a very good suggestion. I should do that. Thank you.
There is always tension around knots.
It is the way. 😅
Great demonstrations and thanks filming the process.
There's always tension around using a table saw.
I think that the tension il well distribute along the fiber structure of the wood.
You can feel the tension release when ripping lumber.
Glad to see the update. I had a hunch they'd straighten out for you. I had 5 large eastern white pines cut, and then milled them into 4/4 wide plank (some are 17" wide). I ended up with about 3,000 board feet. I stickered and stacked them right away, and covered them with a tarp for a season. Then I re-stickered and stacked them in a humidity controlled basement. Two years later, I re-stacked them, getting rid of the stickers, and they were all straight as can be. I've been using them for various projects over the past 5 years and I don't worry about them warping at this point. They're very stable.
All i wanted to know was how to straighten one side of my shoji screen and landed here in a 3 part series of bowed wood... Never knew I wanted this knowledge. Science project at it's finest.
😆
Love the experiments, watched them all. The next simple experiment should be getting the boards wet again and let them dry on their own just like you mentioned.
Looking forard to watching the next one
I may do that with one of the boards and do some other things with the others.
This is what I been looking for: no-nonsense, useful videos. Thank you for keeping it simple, you got a subscriber for that
G’day mate, thoroughly enjoyed your videos on your efforts to straighten lumber. You mentioned the comments that you received from folks that bend wood via steaming etc. For your information a lot of people tell you it’s tension within the wood and they are correct but here in Oz we just call it the Timbers memory, quite a few years back I built a hut out of stringy bark (an Australian hardwood tree, I debarked the trees and scraped some of the shaggy bark off of them with a sharp shovel, I used the bark to light a small low heat fire the size of the sheets of bark about 8’ x 4’ I then used a few short pieces of star picket posts driven into the ground with others attached to make something to suspend the sheets of bark on. 5:53 I laid the bark onto the frame and allowed the smoke and heat to affect the bark, probably only about 10 minutes or so for each sheet of bark they softened and laid flat on the frame they started to smell of the resins, quite nice actually and it was also a good clue that they were almost ready to remove from the heat, I then laid them onto a flat surface and as you did I put sticks between the sheets to allow for airflow around the cooling sheets. I left them for a few days ( I probably didn’t have to though once they’d cooled).
The end result was I had beautiful flat timber, I had changed the timber’s memory from being I’m wrapped around a tree to I’m now a flat sheet, I built a hut 40’ x 20’ and used the sheets nailed to a frame, the hut stood for about 10 years and the bark sheets never twisted, when I pulled the hut down I had the sheets stacked on the farm, in the weather and again they never shifted, from time to time I’d put one or two cut to shape in a horse float excellent gripping surface for the horses, well those sheets laid straight and true for over twenty years. I later discovered some of the really old homes in parts of the region had used this same method as roofing for their homes and the timber was still in excellent order after over 100 years of use. So it’s really just a matter of reprogramming the Timbers memory into being what you want it to be.
I’d love to see you try this as it’s an awesome technique and quite simple and very fast.
Cheers
Keep up the good work.
I agree with you; more people can benefit from this information if they just know about it. I do it from time to time because wood just naturally bows when it dries due to knots and whatever. That’s why the boards on the top of the stacks at the lumber stores are bowed and the ones underneath are mostly straight. My grandfather always stacked his lumber on sawhorses or cinderblocks then covered it with sheets of tin (or whatever he had handy) and put more cinderblocks (or whatever he had handy) on top of the tin to keep it from blowing away and keep the boards straight till he was ready to use them. A bucket of sand or dirt would serve the same purpose. I appreciate your helping others see a practical way to keep from wasting materials. Theres sooooo much waste in the world. Especially of wood I think.
Well, thank you so very much, my brother, been around lumber and kind of sawmills a little bit, but never knew that. God bless you.
I really love what you’re doing here 😊 saved me a ton of trouble with my project
Great Job! I didn't know this. But I have got a lot of messed up wood that will benifit greatly from this. Thanks.
Man, thank you for doing this experiment and for showing the results.
Hip, Hip, Hurrah, the twist has gone away!
I stayed from beginning to end of the stream of experiments, learned a bunch, and really enjoyed the presentation. Many thanks for taking the trouble, and good luck with your channel, I think it's great. One day I would love to have land to work with wood as you do, and I'm inspired by the visual treats. I love the fact you pop up saying 'one more quick thing' at 5:00, and just casually whip out the moisture meter in front of possibly the most beautiful backdrop I've seen in years.
Thank you!
Oh and I also subscribed because of the no nonsense presentation and because you didn't ask to do so.
Keep up the great work.
I believe you forgot to add this video to the Playlist, just a reminder.
Thanks for these experiments, I will be waiting for the next one!
Great video! I appreciate that you're doing these experiments and that you're sharing them. It's one thing to hear something and a whole different thing to actually see it. It takes a lot of the mystery and uncertainty out of it. So, thank you for sharing this!
I wasn't sure what would happen and am very impressed. It will be interesting to see if the boards retain their shape in the future.
I will be interested to see that too. Someone else suggested ripping one to see if it has internal tension still and moves when it’s cut. That could be interesting too.
This video is rather timely. I've been wondering how the great lumber straightening experiment went.
I was getting comment on the previous video, people asking about it. I decided it was time.
I commented on the earlyier video about drying them out of the sun or shaded before I watched any of these later videos. Im not sure the weight is what kept them straight but allowing them to dry slowly without the sun drying one side faster than the other. Gratz on your now straight boards.
1:45 nice looking madrone! Love those trees
God bless you, sir
I'm glad I came across this video. I have driven myself nuts trying to get straight and flat boards for a few years now. I do a lot of woodworking as well as tree falling. A good friend of mine has a Woodmizer saw like you do. I cut some pretty good sized spruce and tamarack trees and ocassonaly I will take some eight foot long logs to Gary and he will saw them up for me. The trees we cut are always dead, but it takes years for tamaracks to get dry inside once they die. So I bring the boards home and sticker them and put hundreds of pounds of weight on them inside my shop that is heated and has plenty of air circulation. I have even put small fans in place to move air around the stacks of boards. I check them after several weeks to a couple of month later and get real low moisture readings. I will un sticker them and stack them up for later use and when I go to use one the are warped to heck again. I have NEVER soaked boards with water like you are doing in this video, so I am going to do that the next time I get some boards from my buddy and give that a try. Wish me luck. Thanks for this video, it is appreciated very much.
Jim
Baker City, Oregon
It would be interesting to see how other species like tamarack respond. Best of luck.
Can you turn down the heat? Anyway to use double or triple the weight you currently have? Have weight on them when you unsticker
Nicely done! Thanks for taking the time to run this experiment!
I love how everything we think we found a better way to do things, our European ancestors had already been doing it for centuries
When I get bent boards I stack and sticker them with weight on them and let the rain hit them for a few weeks. Then I cover them and weight them heavily with cement blocks. Gets them mostly straight.
Knots placement, and size can create these specific tensions, especially when exposed like this on any cut wood; just distinctly displayed through the length/surface areas. Beautiful pine!
Just for future reference:
There are way too many factors involved in proper cutting (plain sawn, quarter sawn, etc), drying methods, stability of various species, storage, etc. to go into here. From the brief views of the board ends, it appear that the growth rings (early wood/late wood) are quite large, as opposed to tight rings, indicating slower growth. That made your endeavor difficult right from the start. In my opinion, the difficulty we all have obtaining straight, stable, dimensioned lumber from suppliers is largely due to stock coming from fast growth/fast harvesting operations.
For anyone producing their own lumber and/or purchasing wood and trying to dry and store it, I HIGHLY recommend a book titled "Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley. It is a highly respected tome, addressing all of those issues and much, much more.
Good experiment , I’ve done it a few times and it worked , but once the wood got damp it started twisting again. I think the ones that do that have a lot of stress in them. Thanks for sharing
Great success!!!! Thanks for the update!! Stay Hydrated and Have a Safe Day
👍
Two Brothers beat me to it -- I was going to comment on the "Turbo-Wilson Mode" of unloading the stacked off cuts.
Another likeroo.
As I told them, it happens after I eat those bay nuts. They are packed with energy.
LOL; packed with something!@@WilsonForestLands
Sticker and stack and add weight. Nothing new there, but this video is GREAT - showing that indeed you can straighten a crooked board. Subscribed! :D
Thank you for this very informative set of videos. I unfortunately have a lot of boards that I thought were going to be ruined because we took 6 feet of water after getting flooded by the Trinity River Authority here in Goodrich, TX. This gives me hope that not all is lost. My lake house is fortunately 9 feet off the ground.......
Thanks, Wilson.
Great Video: Very Informative! Well filmed and edited also. Thank You - John 3:16
That’s great to know. I’ll have to try that for the wood coming off my mill.
Makes sense when you brought up the steam bending application
Looks like you achieved desired results Michael! I think there are high end instrument builders that use this process, or something similar. I know Gibson has a Limited Run Les Paul that they soak the wood for a certain time length, they are 4 grand, so definitely high end.
Thanks for these vids. Really interesting. Lovely environment you're in too. Where is this?
I sure could use you around here to stack lumber in your "fast" mode. I can't believe how fast you unloaded that trailer. Oh, good job on straightening the boards. 😉
It happens after I eat those bay nuts I was collecting in a video a few weeks ago. They are packed with energy.
Great experiment
In the old days kiln drying was just air drying with sticks in between the wood. I have a book somewhere showing bunks of wood drying in this manner and calling it kiln drying. Whatever. I know from my friends milling that we air dried the same and then stacked and stored without air space. Over time he milled enough and dried enough for his friends smallish barn. He still hasn't built it. The top layer has twisted a bit but the rest are perfect. Always store flat and weight on top and they are ready to use.
I love the experimental attitude. It used to be my business. So, how do you suppose the technique will work on hardwoods ?
KUDOS! So much WORK! Thank you!
On kiln dried vs air dried, I once read an interesting point that kiln drying is of course not permanent. Once kiln dried wood is placed in a different environment it will come to equilibrium with the new moisture levels. So I quit being concerned with my shed dried slabs, I have the time to let it dry, and I’ve had no problems with any of the furniture I’ve made.
if you use them for something like a fence where they are only supported in a couple spots they will start warping back to the twisted state after the first rain. the only way to keep them kind of straight is to use them in places where they will be anchored down in multiple places along their full length and even then over time will find a say to distort in places where they are not anchored. i've got fencing boards that i have straightened multiple times then hung them in the heat of summer fencing boards that were straight but by the end of first winter the boards that started out straight stayed straight but the ones i straightened had reverted back to their distorted state, one of them even pulled the nail out of the cross support it was nailed to as it curled, warped wood is warped wood.......
Great experiment, great vid. Thanks!
Hey ol Buddy . Another great video. Very informative and interesting on the status of the crooked lumber. Please keep up the enjoyable videos. Looking forward to the next one.
Thank you for the encouragement.
I was wondering if you rip them length wise would they start to warp. And or have built up tension in the wood hindering cutting. Good video by the way
What a cool experiment. I wonder if you just used several ratchet straps, it would save a lot of work moving the weight... Just a thought.
I thought about that but didn’t have excess ratchet straps to spare or a good surface out here in the woods to strap them to. If I was going to do this more than once it would be good to set up something like that.
Constantly have this Twisting issue with Pressure treated Pine. comes in soaking wet and is guaranteed to warp. The only thing I have found is stacking with stringers in between and weighting them with old 4x4's. I've even had to side clamp rows to keep side bowing from happening.
Hi ,in the sixties I was in the Navy In Chatham dockyard In this Yard they built Nelsons flagship The HMS Victory In the Yard they had a Mast pond as it was called It was a long flooded dock and the mast timbers were left in it for a time before they were used this stopped them from bowing Then taken out and seasoned slowly
great video. thank you for the simple and straight forward info
It would be interesting to see if they will remain that way in the next couple of weeks, now that the pressure is off. Maybe you could do several different experiments at the same time.
yeah ! why dont' you wait a couple of weeks keeping these guys in a dry environment ? i think they are stubborn enough to get back to their twisted selves again ! just make another video after 2 weeks starting from now @WilsonForestLands hi from Tunisia
I am thinking I will probably do different experiments with each board.
That is a good idea. They have been sitting in a dry place for at least a week now. We’ll see what they do in there then go from there.
@@WilsonForestLandsis there any news? I'm struggling to make a straight panel for my project (only 17"x17") and I'm highly interested if there's a way to prevent it from warping...
The update video is here.
th-cam.com/video/Q6ksn64IcS4/w-d-xo.html
Phew, the suspense was killing me 😁🤣
It was starting to get to me too. 😁
I’ve been wanting to try salvaging oak pallet wood from work, so this has been super interesting. I wonder if I can fix cupping the same way.
I would be curious to know that too. If oak would be as easy as pine. I am picturing narrow boards. I am thinking they may need more weight than pine to keep them from cupping. But only a guess since I haven’t worked with oak lumber.
Was at Lowes once to get some lumber and me and another guy were digging through the stack for a few straight ones. After hoping through about a third of the pallet he turns to me and said "if I was building a boat these would be great" . He was so right went through over half the pile to find my 4 and his 6 pretty sad.
I think a key is to keep wood stacked until ready to use. whenever I leave unused individual pieces around they start to warp.
One nice experiment would be the effect of surface touching the board. This is, probably one source of twisting effect. You let water get out from wood freely on one surface (air contact) and much slower on the opposite surface (supoort surface contact). By adding those slats you let air contact on the bottom surface making it as free to evaporate as the other surface. A nice test would be letting it dry hanging, perhaps from a nail on its top, see how bad it would bend under pure effect of gravity (as well as wood fibers).
Nice! Really good results
Build something with them and see if they revert to their former shape after installation and maybe affect structural integrity.
Thanks for the update..i did watch the other videos on this topic and was wondering if there would be an update..😁👍
Had to wait for the lumber to dry and mostly wait to come back from being at the coast much of the summer.
Worked out great. I was gonna suggest a steam box , but yah that would be a lot of work to set up.
A lot of people suggested using steam on the previous videos. I wouldn’t even know how to go about making steaming equipment. Now that you mention it, that may be something to look into. Could make interesting videos.
@@WilsonForestLands it's real popular in wooden ship building.
Great thing about the internet is it can keep you from reinventing the wheel.
What you do is truly a lost art.
I've heard something about straightening boards getting them wet and weighing them down on a flat surface to dry back out. Haven't tried doing that myself. I wonder if this would work on boards that have a crowned side. or the narrow side having a curve from end to end. I don't remember what that's called. Maybe a bow? When they kiln dry boards I think they stack them on something flat, and separate them so they're not sitting flat on top of the boards under them to allow for air circulation between them. Interesting video. A successful experiment.
More experiment please! What happens if they are cut? Do they spring out again?
Someone else suggested that experiment. I may do that one.
Wow! I agree.
Now that they dried again and are relatively straight, isn´it a good idea to seal the wood with varathane or some product like that to keep moisture out ?
Thanks gor the experiment.
Have you thought about taking a stack of crooked wet boards of the same size and compressing them together with clamps? Maybe they'll average out
great practical testing
What about the thicker board you had with these initially?
Would soaking them down with linseed oil have the same straightening effect but perhaps keep them from drying out again?
you know how you burn would it twists if you get it wet will it go straight
if you wet the wood, how much time do you leave it drying, and how often can you use it after drying? because from what i know you can't use any wood over 14% humidity, i would love to know thank you
I wonder what would happen if you covered them in wood glue (PVA) whilst they were wet. I wonder if the glue all through the fibres from the wetting out of it in water would be enough to pull against the tension in the wood as it dries. Then flip and repeat. I have some warped plywood but I don’t think that would quite work the same 😄
I wonder if this would work for warped pressure treated lumber..?
They are straighter than anything off the rack at Home Depot.
Just curious, what do you do with all that slab wood, firewood?
Fixing the boards in place for their intended use might stop a lot of the movement anyway?
Usually when the mills kiln dry their lumber they seal the ends so the moisture leaves via the face of the board and not the ends.
I am a old sawer and if you want straight boards you must sticker the wood properly. The stickers must be straight and in a straight line from top to bottom. My guys would get mad when I would tell them restack a bundle just because the stickers were not in line. I have 20 years experience, the customer wants straight boards and that's what they pay for 😊.
These were the few that didn’t get stickered, for experimental purposes.
Nice. Useful. No frills, concise.
Can you still straighten a wood that have been warped for over 10 years? I went scavenge hunting and found wood that is gray, dry, and warped for years.
I think this method has been used in shipbuilding, but in the opposite direction. Wood is wet, and then shaped and curved to what is needed for the design of the ship. I don't know if that method is still used, but it has been historically.
What are the small horizontal wood support strips on your sawmill for? I just put logs right on the metal supports but now you have me curious :)
It’s a good question but brace yourself for a very uninteresting answer. 😁 The mill was wet because it had just rained. I put some dry stickers on the mill to keep those boards dry.
Ty for this video!
I'm coming friend
Once the boards have straightened. Then preserve the moisture content by sealing them and the board will not warp and retain its shape. Its not great for every application as the high moisture content can defeat some uses but definitely will help utilize some of the warped material.
I know this was a while ago but my guess is they will come out flat but, given enough time and change in humidity levels, if left alone, will warp again.
Soaking them in water will straighten them out but when you let it dry they will warp again. However, I think after weighing them down dry if these boards get rained on or the sprinkler hits these boards, I suspect that they will want to warp again.
what happened to 2x4 , over course of wetting and drying it seems had walked away from experiment
It didn’t fit in nicely with the other boards. I would have had to make its own sticker row. I decided not to include it.
I'd imagine the wood movement from here forward would depend on how much grain runout/torsion is in the board. Seems like it wouldn't change much if it's handled correctly
Is them boards treated?
If it rains it should twist right?
Good channel subscribed.
Question is will they warp back with time despite having dried this way ?
Nice!
Most likely they will warp and twist again over the next few weeks as they continue to dry not weighted down. The tension in the wood that caused them to warp is still there so I wouldn't want to try ripping them at all. They'll spring apart and bind on a table saw.