Thread: Warped Panels

Photos might help:

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Hi Luke ,
next time keep them all stacked face to face . on a scrap sheet of board or two , chip board or MDF . and cover them with the same leaving only edges exposed until you want to join them up .

The cupped ones you now have , I would try wetting one side, the concave side, the side you want to expand back straight, and lay it down on a concrete floor .
Or let it sit wet side down on some grass with the top getting some sun . it can swing back the other way very quickly so watch it carefully .

The concrete way May be safer , try a little water at a time , not sitting in a wet pool of it . if you can get it straight and close to dry at the same time stack between boards and check the next day

Rob

That's not a screw-up Luke, that's just red gum particularly river red gum as opposed to the forest variety. I've seen a red gum table gradually lift one of it's legs off the floor during the day, put it back down during the night and do it all over again the next day!

Auscab has given you some pretty good suggestions as to a possible fix, but whatever you do don't put it in the sun. If you put it on the concrete floor convex side down with some weight on the ends this may well be enough to straighten it sufficiently to make it usable. A couple of days may be long enough. I'd be very interested to hear how you get on with it.

Cheers,
David

It works , but catching it before it goes to far is tricky , check it every 15 minutes .
I do it on my wooden floor . And Im usually doing it with Oak , cherry or Walnut , or red cedar

Red gum is a big mover . Ive never tried it with that though .

Rob

+1 for the water and floor method but, as mentioned, keep an eye on it or it'll cup the other way.

Once you get them flat(ish) again, keep them stacked on a flat surface with sticks between each one (and between the bottom one and whatever you'r stacking them on) to allow airflow over all surfaces.

Ok well that's all good to hear...

So I'm planning on dovetailing this all together with lots of dovetails and having the bottom nailed into a rebate, then making a top which works in a similar way. The top will not be a flat piece of wood but an actual shallow "tray". It's a campaign style chest and I plan to use the inside of the top of the box for storing longer tools etc.

Here's a photo of the general idea:

http://images.onlinegalleries.com/gfx/142629.jpg

Is this a crazy idea? Is this wood simply too dynamic for a project like this?

Cheers,
Luke

Are you going to do the brass ? I like that , you could do it yourself instead of buying it , those boxes had quite thin brass .
A lot of the boxes like that Ive worked on ,same as that, the Antique ones, were made from Camphor.
I googled antique Camphor chest and your pic is in there . There a pretty common type of box , smell great inside . the wood camphor warps and moves around quite a bit itself, so Redgum should be good . Heavy !

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=A...IVBZSmCh0JrQ9L

Rob

Originally Posted by auscab

Are you going to do the brass ? I like that , you could do it yourself instead of buying it , those boxes had quite thin brass .
A lot of the boxes like that Ive worked on ,same as that, the Antique ones, were made from Camphor.
I googled antique Camphor chest and your pic is in there . There a pretty common type of box , smell great inside . the wood camphor warps and moves around quite a bit itself, so Redgum should be good . Heavy !

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=A...IVBZSmCh0JrQ9L

Rob

Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. It's definitely going to require several guys to move it... Hopefully that doesn't have to happen too many times.

Good to know that I haven't chosen a fundamentally incompatible timber. Starting over would've been less than ideal.

Cheers,
Luke