Will this panel STAY flat?

[Wade Lippman]

I enjoy going to auctions and have pretty well filled up the basement with bargains. I mean, who could resist 50bf of cherry for $25? Even if half turns out to be firewood...

My wife has put her foot down; not only can't I buy any more, but I have to get rid of what I have. Well, I am compromising; I won't build anything I can't make without buying commercial lumber, but will continue to look for bargains.

My current project is a cherry china cabinet. It will take about 100bf, and will pretty much exhaust my cherry hoard. I am nearly done, and nearly out of wood; so I am trying to make do with the dregs.

I just made a 3' long panel out of 4 4" wide pieces. Two of the pieces have about 1/2" of bow to them. I tried clamping them together for a day with a shim inbetween, but it didn't really help.
So, I made my panel up with them next to each other in the middle going opposite directions. I stuck 5 biscuits in each joint and clamped the edges.
After drum sanding the panel is perfectly flat. In use it will be a divider; so it will be secured at the top and bottom, as well as by two shelves on either side.

Will the whole thing blow up one night?

(4 years ago I made a butternut library table. To cut the cost and make it stronger, I made the interior out of oak and made several panels out of oak with an inch of butternut glued to the edge. An old time woodworker assured me that one night it would simply blow up; it has happened to him. Maybe, but it is okay for now.)

[Jason Beam]

I don't think it'll blow up ... but I do think you may find that those shelves will be tough to adjust (if they're adjustable). If they're fixed, you may not have a problem. The bow may not look like it's back, but could manifest itself more as a racking of the entire assembly - assuming it's forces can overcome the weight and other opposing forces in the assembly to begin with.

You'll probably be fine - but i'd keep an eye on it.

[Chris Padilla]

Wood: a fickle medium!

Move on with the project and hope for the best but expect the worst! :D

[David DeCristoforo]

"Will this panel STAY flat?"

Only if you have satisfied the gods sufficiently. How, exactly, you would do this depends on your particular faith. But I can tell you this much. Anyone who is willing to guarantee you that it will stay flat is someone you should not make any bets with because that person either knows something that no one else knows or has a trick "up their sleeve".

YM

[Sam Yerardi]

Wade,

Essentially, you've done pretty much all you can do. If it is going to move as others have indicated, really very little we do can stop it. We can slow it down and try to predict which way it will move but it is still a guessing game. The great James Krenov himself said something to the effect that '...to expect that we make a living thing like wood do what WE want it to is fooling ourselves..' Or something like that (can't remember his exact words) :)

[Joe Chritz]

Have you tried sacrificing a chicken?

KFC does wonderful for satisfying this requirement.

A fixed shelf would do a lot to keep it from moving. Using it as an adjustable shelf would give it a lot of room to move around.

Joe

[Greg Cole]

"Will this panel STAY flat? Anyone who is willing to guarantee you that it will stay flat is someone you should not make any bets with because that person either knows something that no one else knows or has a trick "up their sleeve". YM

Or it's someone you don't want to be taking advice from 'cause they're diving in the shallow end of the gene pool.....:D

You've done whatcha can, the dice have been cast...it'll be lucky number 7 or snake eyes.
Greg

[Roger Lance]

Agree with all the above...especially the chicken sacrifice at KFC...but for future projects remember that the whole idea behind planers, jointers, and table saws is to remove the natural forces in boards that cause them to be out of straight and flat...building with these correctly prepared materials helps greatly in achieving success...relying on clamps or other devices to take the uncooperating forces out of non straight/flat stock can result in that midnight blow up...on to KFC grasshopper and send a chicken to its glory for us all.

[glenn bradley]

It may just be me but, I have (almost) never forced a board to do something it didn't want to do without paying the price later.

[Peter Quinn]

Hey, Look on the bright side. I have made perfectly flat panels out of prime wood that I believed was well acclimated, knew to be dry, used my best technique and down the road they still moved. If you want something that you can guarantee wont move make the divider out of stainless steel or granite. Or even a piece of cherry plywood, or veneer your own plywood or stave core.

The Egyptians used to break massive stones for the pyramids with little more than shallow holes and oak staves. Wood moves, do your best to design for it as others have said, then sharpen a knife and get your chicken ready...

Or in the words of Clint Eastwood, "Question you gotta ask yourself is do ya feel lucky? Well do you?"

[Karl Brogger]

My wife has put her foot down; not only can't I buy any more, but I have to get rid of what I have.

I'd get the divorce papers at the ready.

[Chris Padilla]

Or in the words of Clint Eastwood, "Question you gotta ask yourself is do ya feel lucky? Well do you?"

"Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?!" Outlaw Josey Wales

:D

[Eric Larsen]

I'd get the divorce papers at the ready.

Print them on book-matched cherry veneer!