Help - Warped Board

[John Finley]

I am in the process of making a bed out of walnut. To get the size I height of rail I wanted, I had to glue up two boards on edge. After glueup, I planed them down to get the desired thickness. After planing, I noticed that my footboard rail has a twist to it. the twist is probably 3/32" over the lentgh of the board.

I am planning to joint the posts and footboard with a mortise and tenon. I am worried that the twist in the board is goiong to carryover into the overall frame.

Should I take the twist into account when cutting the mortise and tenon, or cut the joint as normal and hope that the rest of the frame will help straighten it out. is there a way to straighten the board? I already have the board to thickness and height dimension, but I have not cut it to length yet. I am leaning to making adjustments on the joint, but I am a little unsure of how to do this.

[Joe Jensen]

I assume that the head and foot boards will be bolted or fastened to a bed frame rail and that will pull it all straight. I would not offest the mortise. good luck..joe

[John Finley]

Yes, the side rails will be bolted together. The trick is that the footboard is 9.5" wide, and 1.5" thick. This is a pretty thick board to be pulling straight. I don't have a ton of experience, but it seems if that board wants to twist, it is going to twist. Please correct me if I am worng...it would sure be easier if it did straighten out.:D

[Chris Padilla]

Make a sled, shim it, plane it back to flat on one face, plane the other face. 3/32" out over 1.5" thick isn't much and you won't miss it. Actually, after all the planing, you might lose 4/32 - 6/32" on that 1.5" thickness. Not bad, me thinks, to get the board back to coplanar.

What concerns me is what caused the wood movement in the first place. Is the wood acclimated to your enviornment? What is the moisture content? Will it move further? Assuming all your walnut is sourced from the same place and treated the same, might you have more wood movement issues in your future?

Wood: a fickle medium! :)

[Joe Jensen]

I agree with Chris. Since the board is so thick, you need to make it flat again. Having the board be thinner is less of an issue IMHO than having it twisted...joe

[John Finley]

I worked on it last night and found that the twist is more than I originally thought (my first estimate was a guess). The twist is closer to 1/4". I think this is too much to try and remove at this point.

The good news is that I think the twist stems from my inexperience.:confused: After glueing up two boards on edge, I had quite a bit of surface to remove to get the boards to thickness. I am guessing that by doing that, I relieved some stresses and allowed one of the boards to warp. Originally, I let the boards acclimate in my house for ~2 weeks before I worked on them. That should be long enough, right? If the material removal caused the twist, I am hoping that it will not get any worse.

Does this sound reasonable?

I figured out a way to make the tenons using a router and a jig that will take the offset into account. I think I am going to try this. If it doesn't work, I will cut the tennons off and try something else (I have extra length to work with). Someone please stop me if I am off my rocker.:)

[Chris Padilla]

John,

Can you post any pictures? Maybe we can spot something in your glue-up...maybe not. :)