Glueing up Panels

[Michael Parr]

So I started cutting panels and running the ends over the joiner about 3 weeks ago. Then my son is born and I dont get back to the wood for 3 weeks. When I do come back the wood is twisting and wont lay flat now. What is the best approach to fixing this? Should I split the wood down the middle one more time and create smaller pieces to make the panels with. Any advice would be appreciated.

PS I am using a Domino to assist with the edge joining of the wood.

[Brian Peters]

Once wood is twisted it's rather sketchy to fix it. Even if you could now that it is twisted it could come back. How thick is it? How wide is the glued up panel? Is it already to finished thickness? Just sitting around for a few weeks shouldn't have twisted it up, I'm guessing it was either not stored flat or you have a lot of humidity in that area or the wood wasn't fully dry. By the way you don't need a biscuit or domino for edge gluing, it is rather strong as just a glue joint.

[Michael Parr]

SO I use metric. Each piece of popular is 130mm by 600mm. It did rain quite heavily in the bay area. They where stacked on top of each other on a flat surface.

[Peter Quinn]

NEXT time, shrink wrap the boards together tightly paying special attention to the ends with your basic 6" cellophane packing wrap. Seems to help keep the wood flat better than stacking.

This time, given its poplar, I would repurpose it for other things and mill new stock if it is at final dimension, or use it as kindling for a nice fire pit cook out, or something, but not panels. Trying to bang together a bunch of twisted poplar into panels using dominos or biscuits to keep them in alignment is asking for problems IMO. Can lead to warped doors, just a general PIA situation. Cut your loss and move on would be my approach.

Oh, congratulations on the birth of your son!

[David DeCristoforo]

"Cut your loss and move on ..."

Good advice. Twisting ("winding") is the most difficult kind of distortion to deal with. If you can sacrifice some thickness, jointing and planing to re-flatten the pieces is your only good option. If you have to rip them down first due to limited capacity of your machines, you can do so. But that alone will not correct the problem. As Peter so rightly points out, poplar just ain't that expensive.

[J.R. Rutter]

Just wanted to add that even if they stayed flat, you would want to joint a fresh edge on those boards before gluing. 3 weeks is long enough to oxidize the wood and make a poor glue joint. Poplar is porous enough that it probably isn't a big deal, but harder woods definitely need it.

[Chris Padilla]

Where in the BA, Michael? It's always good to meet fellow Creekers. :) It didn't rain all that much! ;)

[Michael Parr]

Chris I'm in Santa Clara. The last couple of weeks where nice but it did rain a lot more here (At least talk of a drought has subsided). Where are you in the Bay.