Thread: Bowed camphor laurel

Bowed or cupped?

Bowed.
If it was cupped I think i'd dump it but being bowed I might have a better chance of saving it. I'm just not sure how to go about it.
Marty

Just to be clear, by "bowed" you mean the curve is on the long axis of the board? The best way to deal with that is to find a use for several short pieces, the shorter the piece, the less material that needs removing to straighten the edges.

The most common causes of bowing are either the presence of sapwood or reaction wood along one edge. You can maybe wet or steam such boards and straighten them, but they'll return to being bowed as soon as they dry because of the natural tension in sapwood. Perhaps the best course in your case is to put the bowed boards aside for some other project & get a couple of fresh, straight boards for your current project. Trying to battle on with wood that wants to warp or twist just makes life difficult & inevitably detracts from the finished article. It took me a long time to accept that, being the cheapskate I am, but in the long run, it often ends up costing less, especially to your temper....

Cheers,

I have had some degree of luck with bowed boards by thoroughly saturating them with water then applying weight in form of brick stacking on a hard flat surface such as my patio until dry,but I am talking small Jarrah boards.

Bowing over a distance of 50cm with a width of 40cm sounds like a very contankerous bit of stick. Cupping I could understand.