Thread: Bent timber

Originally Posted by wundy

Good day all, I would appreciate some help. I am building a door for the hobby center in our motor home, it consists of 18x70 pine frame, box jointed corners and rebated to accept a 9mm ply infill.All was going fine until I rebated the pine on the inside edges, one piece decides to bow. At present its clamped to my workbench in an attempt to straighten it, but I'm not hopeful. There is a lot of stuff on the net about straightening timber but all confusing. Any comments will be appreciated.
Cheers Wundy.

I doubt you will straighten the bit of pine. If the bow is in the plane of the door just glue it to the ply panel to hold it straight.

Hi Wundy, yeah I'd just cut another one, it may come good but it's probably not worth the hassle. Oh and welcome to the forum

It can be a bit disappointing to discover that a piece of wood has a bow in it after you cut it. I have had that happen to me in a bit of pine and it was just quicker to cut another piece and continue on what the task at hand.

As per the other posts , cut a new 1 from a different piece of stock , when you cut and machined the timber you have released internal stresses, and the timber has bowed,

You could clamp everything and glue in the panel , but the timber stresses will still be there and if the glue lets go , well you can guess.

Jeff
vk4

For a one shot deal = start over, if you can.

50 yrs ago, I was helping my Dad steam bend wooden boat parts like ribs & keels.
While it works like a dream, you don't want to go there for a one-off. Or do you?