Resawing and wood stability

[Phil Thien]

Been experimenting w/ resawing. I noticed that several pieces of oak (flat-sawn white) went great. They didn't move a bit after being sawed in half.

Then I tried some 1C alder and maple I had purchased (same source). The alder went okay but it moved quite a bit after getting resawed. In fact, it was bowed about 1/8" over a 36" board after the cut. After sitting in the shop for a day or two it was bowed in the OTHER direction by about the same amount!

I attributed that to higher moisture content on the inside of the board.

Then I was cutting some of the maple and it actually moved quite a bit while I was cutting it. It actually "popped" at the end of the cut. The last 1/8" or so actually didn't require sawing, the stress of the board popped it apart.

Is this typical for maple? Or do I have some maple w/ a lot of built-in stress? Or is this moisture related?

I don't have a moisture meter so I can't know for sure what the moisture content is.

[Jamie Buxton]

As far as I've ever been able to tell, it is just a mystery. Perhaps the board has been exposed to changes in humidity, or perhaps it had stresses cooked into it in the drying process. I've sawn boards which looked the same, from the same source, and had some bend and others behave. All I can conclude is that sometimes resawing makes nice thin kindling.