reactionary quarter sawn white oak

[jim mills]

I've got some thats almost unusable. I mean about 500 BF. I've had it for about 5 years, and finally decided to use it. It's all 4/4 kiln dried and been stacked/stickered since. I started pre sizing stile & rail stock about a month ago, cutting everything 1/2" oversized. Skip planed to remove the scab. Boards come from large trees, at least 12" planks with little to no sapwood. Now that I'm working it, I cant get a straight board to save my life. Every board is reactionary! I've tried everything. Milling it down to within 1/8", then letting it sit for a week, re-jointing & planing it....nope, it moves! What frustration!

[Lee Schierer]

Have you checked the moisture content. It may not be as dry as you think it is. Are you milling equal amounts of of each face and edge?

[jim mills]

MC is 12-13 ish. Which is about right for the midwest. The lumber is 4/4, and I am trying to get 7/8" out of it, so I'm hardly taking anything off it.

[peter gagliardi]

It has a lot to do with the quality of the tree it came from. How straight were the logs? Was it growing on a bank? was it growing on the edge of a field?
Growing situation is the first place to look for answers to problems.
If good, the drying and storing may have induced stress.
Quality trees make quality lumber, generally.

[jim mills]

Growing situation is the first place to look for answers to problems.
If good, the drying and storing may have induced stress.

I understand the issues improper drying can cause, but how can storing induce stress?

[Brian Holcombe]

The stress is permanent, aging has no
effect. Qswo is generally difficult, if I can manage it safely I will joint the bellied side before planing, which will relieve some of the cupping or bowing and induce less of it during thicknessing.

As soon as thicknessing provides a clean face, I flip every .030” until I’m at my dimension.

Even then, some boards just prefer to be difficult.

[jim mills]

The stress is permanent, aging has no
effect. Qswo is generally difficult, if I can manage it safely I will joint the bellied side before planing, which will relieve some of the cupping or bowing and induce less of it during thicknessing.

As soon as thicknessing provides a clean face, I flip every .030” until I’m at my dimension.

Even then, some boards just prefer to be difficult.

That pretty much sums it up. I've tried every technique I can think of, including setting it out in the sun for a day between passes. It just wants to move...

[Mel Fulks]

I follow same thing as Brian ,with a slight difference. After facing on convex side. At planer ,after dressing the still rough surface ,all the remaining wood to plane of is removed off the convex side. Sometimes a board will change convex sides with every pass. And occasionaly that method just does not work.

[John TenEyck]

12 - 13% RH seems high to me. What's the RH in your shop? It would have to be 65 - 70% for your wood to be at EMC. Sort of hard to believe you have 500 BF of reaction wood, unless it all came from one nasty log. But if you are only taking 1/16" off both sides and it's moving like you say I'm inclined to believe it's MC related.

John

[Lee Schierer]

12 - 13% RH seems high to me.

I had the same thought. I have air dried hickory boards that were stored in an unheated building for 20+ years. When I brought them home from being milled the MC was 12%. All the lumber was stacked and stickered in my shop. I saw some movement in some pieces as I started making things back in January in my heated shop so I worked very slowly. By February the MC was down to 10% and I quit having problems. The boards now read 8%

[jim mills]

My meter is a $200 lignomat scanner type. Nothing special, but it can give me comparative readings from when I bring the wood to the shop, then when I use it. I've never really trusted the thing. Since I have had this wood so long, I haven't really been monitoring it. How can it still have a high moisture content after being stored for 5 years in a non airconditioned and only slightly heated (50 deg F.) warehouse? I think I will grab a few boards and head to the mill this week and see what they have to say.

[Ed Labadie]

I'll wager your lumber came from a "bad" tree that shouldn't have been milled. Probably a leaner lots of internal stress due to the offset pith.

Learned a long time ago milling my own lumber, if the pith isn't perfect, there will be stress. One learns to "read" the boards as they are milled.

Sadly, buying QS lumber you never see the pith, have to take for granted it was a good log to begin with.

Ed

[Andrew Hughes]

That's a bummer because it's a lot of wood to have no certainty with.
Maybe it was kiln dried wrong
Could you share a pic of this unruly misbehaving wood?

[Kevin Jenness]

"How can it still have a high moisture content after being stored for 5 years in a non airconditioned and only slightly heated (50 deg F.) warehouse?"

Easily. 12-13% does seem a bit high for a heated building, but whatever the MC is it reflects the average humidity of the storage conditions. If you doubt the accuracy of your meter you can do an oven dry test on a sample. In any event, it would be wise to get the material down to a lower MC before working it if it is to be used in a more tempered space than the warehouse it came from. If the equilibrium moisture content in your shop is lower than the current MC of the lumber that is probably contributing to the problems you are having.

[John K Jordan]

... If you doubt the accuracy of your meter you can do an oven dry test on a sample. ...

I was about to suggest the same thing when I saw that message. I recently did this on some gaboon ebony I received coated heavily with paraffin. I was happy to find out the wood inside was well air dried for this weather. The dealer had bought a pallet full that had been stored in a shed and he coated it with wax since that evidently made it more attractive to buyers.

I would definitely test the oak. I put some pictures and info on the oven-dry method in this thread in case it will help. Just skip over where the thread somehow morphed into drying green bowls.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread....ven-dry-method

If you have less precise scales just use a bigger sample pieces.

JKJ