Monday morning quarterback

[Tim Farrell]

Doh!
I just thought of something that I have a sneaky feeling I will be regretting.

I did the glue up on a portion of a jewelry box over the weekend that I have been working on for the past 2 months. I live in So. Cal. and as you may have seen we are getting poured on with more rain than we have had in 20 yrs. Living in a very regular climate, I don't usually think much about allowing for wood expansion and contraction. Here is my question...

With all of the extra moisture in the air, will I be in trouble when the climate dries again over the next couple weeks? Is there any preventative maintenance I can do to make sure my joints remain solid etc.?

any help is appreciated.

[Ted Shrader]

Tim -

What sort (grain orientation) of joints did you glue up?

If only edge grain joining you will be OK. Wood movement is greatest across the grain as it expands and contracts (and varies greatly by species). Even if you glued all four sides together, those joints will be OK.

Where you might have a problem is the bottom panel. If it doesn't have enough room to float, it could split out the sides. However, once your normal weather returns the wood will dry and shrink - possibly causing gaps at the edges of the bottom panel. But since this is a small box, you are probably OK no matter what your weather ends up doing.

So the bottom line is, "It depends...." Not much help. :) :( :)

Ted

[Tim Farrell]

Ted - thanks for the response. I will just have to keep my fingers crossed.:o
Most of my joints are either blind dados which receive a crosscut piece or rabbets.

The wood is cherry.

[Carl Eyman]

The good news is that since you are going from wet to dry you can expect shrinking, not expansion. The expansion would in most circumstances I can think of cause warping and twisting. Shrinking most likely would cause cracking or splitting. This, on a bottom piece, for example, might not even be noticed.