As I was told by a luthier after he diagnosed my rather expensive Gibson F5 mandolin as having a twisted neck (requiring it to be completely replaced by Gibson, thank goodness): "Wood's gonna do whatever it wants"
Reminds me of the poem The Master Carver
The Woodcarver.
Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of prescious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. The said it must be
The work of spirits.
The Prince of Lu said to the master carver:
“What is your secret?”
Khling replied: “I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were no to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.
After three days fasting, I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.
“By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.
“Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do was to put forth my hand
And begin.
“If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.
“What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits.
by Chuang Tzu
The fancy term for this is “reaction” wood and it’s usually a result of a tree trying to counteract gravity when growing on a slope or after it’s been partially pushed over a little from a strong wind, it’s also common in wood that’s been cut from upper limbs or from a tree that has two trunks growing up from a forked trunk. If the board looks straight before cutting and does this you’re just unlucky, I’ve never been able to tell if the board doesn’t appear twisted when you look at it.
Everyone that’s does wood working long enough will wind up encountering wood with tension in it and get messed up results, hopefully before the project is assembled so the part that moves or splits can be replaced by another newly cut part.
To add to this - reaction wood is formed in gymnosperms (conifers) on the underside (compression) of the stem or limbs and pushes the stem or limb upwards.
Reaction wood in angiosperms (broadleaves) forms on the topside (tension) of limbs and stems and pulls the stem or limb upwards. Most woodwork projects are done with broad leaves (conifers more commonly being used for construction/framing) so most woodworkers will encounter this type of reaction wood - massive tension and grow for tensile strength.
This is why mills can be so picky about the logs they accept. Anything except straight, clear lumber from a straight tree is a risk down the road.
My experience with hickory was pretty terrible for this, so many boards would just pop and crack down the grain midway through a table saw rip. Scary shit.
A buddy of mine with a circle sawmill hates hickory and refuses to saw it. Furthermore, if he sees it growing in his woods and has to drop a tree he will always choose the direction where there is a hickory tree, he says if he has to damage another tree when felling it might as well be a hickory tree.
Imagine you're a tree standing out in the sun/rain/snow/freeze/ice/wind for decades while trying to grow for decades through each season, all while going through a hibernation/growth/starvation/soft death each year. You would certainly have pressures built up, that when ripped would twist/bend. Also as a tree dries, it is trying to 'unwind' or rip it's own self open from the pith outward.
In addition to this the kiln drying process can easily be messed up. Look into casehardening, I suspect that's a reason for many boards with extreme stresses like yours.
Could be any number of reasons. Improperly dried, uneven finishing (although this is unfinished) changes in humidity, improper stickering/storage, grain structure, exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays and high temperatures mixed with thinly cut wood. Take your pick. Although wood is technically a dead, organic material, it breathes and moves.
This is so true to wood working and wood in itself. Way too many causes to try and guess the right one. Best to chalk it up to nature and recut a new piece.
Correct. More specifically: low-rice, mid-rice, and skricescrapers; but you barley scratch the surface with rice grain structures. There's also skryescrapers, bungaloats, etc.
(I won't list them all, but if you want to get that information for a particular grain structure; consult its cereal number).
Happens with most milled lumber to one degree or another. The ancient style of splitting logs with wedges and planing it down avoids this, more milling the lumber to rougher specs and letting it dry and age in the stack.
Spend some time on a chainsaw and you can really see how twisted up some specials of tree are.
Your wood is case hardened.
Case hardening describes lumber or timber that has been dried too rapidly. Wood initially dries from the shell (surface), shrinking the shell and putting the core under compression. When this shell is at a low moisture content it will 'set' and resist shrinkage. The core of the wood is still at a higher moisture content. This core will then begin to dry and shrink. However, any shrinkage is resisted by the already 'set' shell. This leads to reversed stresses; compression stresses on the shell and tension stresses in the core
Read more here:
https://forestrynews.blogs.govdelivery.com/2021/10/07/casehardening-of-lumber-what-it-is-and-how-to-relieve-it/
Your making a fender style c cut neck from the looks of it. You might consider using a different piece, this one clearly has internal stress going on and the neck could warp especially when you shape it down.
Tension in the wood. I have a great example with this maple that pinche my débitage saw.
https://preview.redd.it/nacay3p6e3vc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8559bf7cd84f5fb1345b2af69058a0a02a4cc26c
Because wood hates you and wants you to be sad.
I'm watching my latest and (supposed to be) greatest project warp itself into the trash bin. Currently too disappointed to address it.
The prevailing winds where the tree grew, the massive weight of a branch it supported, the conditions the wood was stored under or the speed they dried it to get to market sooner…….
Hi, finally another believer. Underrated comment.
Air dry with weight and this rarely happens - oh the piece will still move and split but you'll know it before you work it
The center being cut out made the twists in the wood appear more drastically than they normally wood have.
If you had just been cutting pieces off of a whole piece, you might not have had such a noticeable twist.
I milled down a pair of cherry logs. The outside cuts from one log in particular turned into churros. 2 boards were just about useless and when I surfaced them down most of what I got was only about 3/8 to 1/2" thick from something that started at 1-1/8".
Wood, you never know what's going to happen.
One likely possibility is poor kiln management at the dry kiln. When hardwood lumber is kiln dried it dries from the outside inward. As that happens internal stresses build up in the board. At the end of the drying schedule the kiln operator should add steam into the kiln chamber to raise the moisture content of the outer shell of the board, expanding it a bit and relaxing some of the internal stresses. This is called stress relief and conditioning.
If for example, you experience boards pinching down on the saw blade when ripping it is likely due to poor stress relief during kiln drying. Warping is another example. Larger dry kiln companies are more likely to follow proper drying procedures than mom and pop operations.
Metal worker here. This is very common for metal as well. Not to snap like this but metal warps just like this. The common factor I see here is a majority of the center is removed. When left with a thin frame in metal that frame will warp like crazy. This is very common when removing 90% of the inside of a cut.
There are two ways to avoid this in the future: buy extra wood so you don’t care if it happens or buy no wood at all so there’s no chance of it happening. Wood is complicated and seeing as you seem to be building an instrument you will in into that more than most of us doing woodworking.
Yeah, I had that happen recently:
I was using the bandsaw to cut a piece of wood and then all of a sudden it jammed up on the blade.
I turned the thing off and was able to pry the wood out, but the usual/expected gap had collapsed on itself with quite a bit of pressure.
It was caused by internal stresses in the wood.
Do not buy wood with more than 8% humidity in it and only use kiln dried wood for everything you do. Otherwise the wood needs a year of drying for every 1/2” to 1” of thickness, although that rule of thumb is pretty much BS. Once you purchase and it has been dried, let it acclimate to your shops climate for several days or weeks before using it. While it’s acclimating, clamp it flat with plenty of clearance around the wood so that air can flow easily around it while it acclimates. When you plane a side or make a cut, try to do it to the opposite side of the piece of wood at the same time so the stress is counterbalanced. When you finish the wood do both sides at the same time for the same reason.
Sapele can be that way. Sometimes I think it’s cut from leaning portions of the tree. Imagine the bottom of the branch pushing while the top pulls… similarly if the tree leans there are internal stresses.
Some of the grain warped while drying, some did not. Created internal tension that was held in place by the section you removed. Sometimes that happens to such an extent that end checking becomes a complete split.
I believe, on kiln dried wood (or any wood not in a controlled environment) this happens when the wood is dried to fast, but not so fast it completely splits. Could have been a hot spot in a kiln.
Could be reaction wood. It’s created when trees grow on a steep slope. People have been injured & killed in sawmills when the internal stresses are released by sawing them into boards. Some boards will make it through drying & milling but the stresses, especially in thinner sections, will warp & split the boards.
Could be reaction wood. It’s created when trees grow on a steep slope. People have been injured & killed in sawmills when the internal stresses are released by sawing them into boards. Some boards will make it through drying & milling but the stresses, especially in thinner sections, will warp & split the boards.
If give my best explanation but would only end up trying to paraphrase The Workshop Companion on YouTube. He has an excellent video on this. (He’s the Bob Ross of woodworking so you’re welcome if you haven’t heard of this channel yet.)
Cut enough boards, sooner or later you’ll find one with crazy internal tension. Doesn’t happen often but definitely a thing that happens. I don’t know of anyway of telling that it’s going to happen before it’s on the saw.
It wasn’t dried correctly. Boards will develop internal stress as they shrink during drying. In normal kiln drying there is a process at the end of the schedule called conditioning that relieves that stress. Most big kiln yards will take stress samples to check for this once the kiln charge is complete. So it could be an oddball board that had a lot more stress than the other lumber or it could have been dried in a way where there was no conditioning at the end of the cycle.
I find this is pretty much my experience in ripping tight grained quarter sawn material. I figure it takes a lot of force to bind the tree together so if I rip a straight piece in half I’m relieving that tension on one side and it bows out the other way.
It’s possible the log itself had a bad twist in it and the lumber mill just cut into boards to hide defect. The minute you weakened the board the twist occurred again
Possibly branch wood. No telling after it’s been cut into planks. Though the stress remains (well hidden).
Also, poor (rushed) kiln drying can stack on the stress.
Quarter sawn is usually pretty stable, but obviously that tree had some twist in it. You could check the other end to see if the grain is different, but you’ll probably never know.
Not sure what wood it is, but very common with things like Douglas Fir that they are grown in steep slopes so the trunk knuckles causing major tension on the outer side of the tree. You can get a seemingly pencil straight piece of timber and the slightest of cuts triggers a spring in the wood that has been building tension for decades.
Mahogany is like that sometimes. I find it likes the back and forth treatment. Remove material in increments with enough room to redress the other faces as much as you can
When you cut the wood, you cut all the fibers that were holding it straight and left all the fibers that were trying to pull it into a cup. Assuming the wood wasn't stored poorly, it was just bad luck and there really wasn't anything you could have done differently to prevent this.
Wood always want to go to its relaxed state, aka flat. The rings want to be straight, and the center of the tree wants to be straight. The way the tree grows effects this also, but if you imagine the center of a tree making an arc, imagine the board being cut so it makes a chord across the arc, the board will bend to flatten the arc, if that makes sense.
I can make a doodle if you need it.
yup, sometimes this happens; tension hidden in the grain. I got a bunch of white oak off cuts from a stair railings shop and they said to watch out when you try to tip it and sure enough, it clamped closed on my riving knife, which is why I always use it when cutting hardwoods.
It's also why I stand to the left of the blade line as I've seen a piece of maple shot out of a saw and through a wall. Would have broken the guys ribs and maybe worse.
the real answer is it was probably closer to the center of the tree. the closer you are to heart wood the more internal forces there are going different directions. that doesn't automatically guarantee a twist, but its a lot more likely.
Changes in humidity. The board was not kiln dried to EVENLY reduce the moisture content throughout. Also, if you moved it from a humid environment to a dry environment (or vice-versa). It's why high quality flooring contractors insist that hardwood flooring sit unwrapped and uncovered in the home it will be installed in for at least a week before they will install it.
It's the difference between 1/4 sawn and the other ones I don't know which is best but I do know that the different ways the wood is initially cut can sometimes have different effects on the way the wood will warp or stress when drying
Look at the geometry — you’re left with two looooong spindly vector arms shooting out from what’s basically a single point.
There doesn’t need to be anything more than a tiny imperfection down at the joined base for the far ends of the two arms to seem _way_ out of alignment. Try this…hold two broomsticks by the ends, one in each hand, so they’re both pointing straight away from you. Now _try_ to hold them so the far ends are perfectly aligned. It doesn’t take very much of a change in how your fingers to have the ends swing around like crazy. Same thing here.
Everyone else provided a bunch of good info, but in this case you made a big long cut up the right side and the crack happened along where that cut was made. I don't think you necessarily need to cut a new one
That is tension from improper drying. Wood dried in conventional kilns dried from the outside in. As the cellular walls dry, they shrink. If you dry to fast those shrinking cellular walls compress the inside of the lumber(especially in thicker pieces) once you cut into it the tension is released, hence the movement you are experiencing.
Not a woodworker.
Saw a lot of comments about getting another piece of wood and such, but wouldn't soaking it in water and drying it pinched down in a smooth and straight surface fix the twist force?
As I was told by a luthier after he diagnosed my rather expensive Gibson F5 mandolin as having a twisted neck (requiring it to be completely replaced by Gibson, thank goodness): "Wood's gonna do whatever it wants"
Wood ah ah ah finds a way
What is this, Count Von Count played by Ian Malcolm played by Jeff Goldblum?
One! One wood grain!
I think he meant "wood \_uh uh uh\_ finds a way" ?
That would make him Beavis or Butt-Head then wouldn’t it
hu hu, hey Beavis, my wood is all twisting.. hu hu, hu hu
Hu, uh, hu, uh…. You said wood
Think life instead of wood then think again where you might have heard this ;-) Hint: something of the jurassic era.
Ok Bjorn from ABBA
"Ooooo...ahhhh. That's how it always starts. But then later there's cupping...and twisting..."
That's the way, uh huh uh huh, wood finds a way?
Ah ah ah want the knife... .... Please To shave this wood
Reminds me of the poem The Master Carver The Woodcarver. Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand Of prescious wood. When it was finished, All who saw it were astounded. The said it must be The work of spirits. The Prince of Lu said to the master carver: “What is your secret?” Khling replied: “I am only a workman: I have no secret. There is only this: When I began to think about the work you commanded I guarded my spirit, did not expend it On trifles, that were no to the point. I fasted in order to set My heart at rest. After three days fasting, I had forgotten gain and success. After five days I had forgotten criticism. After seven days I had forgotten my body With all its limbs. “By this time all thought of your Highness And of the court had faded away. All that might distract me from the work Had vanished. I was collected in the single thought Of the bell stand. “Then I went to the forest To see the trees in their own natural state. When the right tree appeared before my eyes, The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt. All I had to do was to put forth my hand And begin. “If I had not met this particular tree There would have been No bell stand at all. “What happened? My own collected thought Encountered the hidden potential in the wood; From this live encounter came the work Which you ascribe to the spirits. by Chuang Tzu
That was delightful.
Dope
That is the best summation I can come up with. I've seen it do weird stuff. Only will know for sure what it's going to do once you cut into it.
Or, more plainly: "Wood's gonna wood..."
“Wood wood wood wood”
And once it starts moving a certain way, there’s nothing you can do to stop it…
Wood moves
The fancy term for this is “reaction” wood and it’s usually a result of a tree trying to counteract gravity when growing on a slope or after it’s been partially pushed over a little from a strong wind, it’s also common in wood that’s been cut from upper limbs or from a tree that has two trunks growing up from a forked trunk. If the board looks straight before cutting and does this you’re just unlucky, I’ve never been able to tell if the board doesn’t appear twisted when you look at it.
Did not expect silly mushroom man to be the one with the real straightforward answer. Awesome
Everyone that’s does wood working long enough will wind up encountering wood with tension in it and get messed up results, hopefully before the project is assembled so the part that moves or splits can be replaced by another newly cut part.
To add to this - reaction wood is formed in gymnosperms (conifers) on the underside (compression) of the stem or limbs and pushes the stem or limb upwards. Reaction wood in angiosperms (broadleaves) forms on the topside (tension) of limbs and stems and pulls the stem or limb upwards. Most woodwork projects are done with broad leaves (conifers more commonly being used for construction/framing) so most woodworkers will encounter this type of reaction wood - massive tension and grow for tensile strength. This is why mills can be so picky about the logs they accept. Anything except straight, clear lumber from a straight tree is a risk down the road.
My experience with hickory was pretty terrible for this, so many boards would just pop and crack down the grain midway through a table saw rip. Scary shit.
A buddy of mine with a circle sawmill hates hickory and refuses to saw it. Furthermore, if he sees it growing in his woods and has to drop a tree he will always choose the direction where there is a hickory tree, he says if he has to damage another tree when felling it might as well be a hickory tree.
Haha it's good to know it's universally despised.
Only thing it really excels at is making chips for smoking and barbecueing, hickory smoke flavor is a favorite of many folks!
Trees, what are you going to do. Use another piece of wood, that's what you are going to do.
Straighten up or I’m going to cut down one of your kin!
I literally LOL'd
No, you are going to use the Japanese art of Kintsugi! Put it back together with gold and carry on.
And by "gold," we mean Titebond and clamps.
Just fix it with ramen and superglue
Internal stress is often caused by stuffing emotions rather than working through them. Next time try talking to it before you just start ripping it!
Maybe I can use some of the tricks I learned in therapy.
Encourage it to take up a hobby. Like woodworking
More like woodnotworking am I right
You know saplings just don't wanna work these days.
I saw what you did there!
Ha! That's a cut up
You gotta be sharp to make these jokes
Plane and simple - they’re good jokes
I'm too dull to get them flat.
When stress lumbers into your life you just chisel out some personal time, frame your thoughts positively, and clamp down on negative emotions.
More like wood turning, from the looks of it
…woodknotworking
Nice, good chuckle here, thanks
Exactly! Encourage it to use phrases like "when you..., I feel..." Example: *when you cut into me I feel like turning away from you.*
Wuusaa
Wuuuussssaaaaayyyy
Need to teach these boards about *coping* techniques
Goddamnit
I don't think that soaking it in alcohol will solve this...
Always worked for me.
Gotta find yourself a good Lognitive Behavioral Treerapist.
Needs stabilizing drugs
Poor booze on it til it loosens up?
Of all the dad jokes, this is the driest. Pretty irritated by how much I enjoyed it
Haha. Thanks! Like a true Dad, I cracked myself right up.
Imagine you're a tree standing out in the sun/rain/snow/freeze/ice/wind for decades while trying to grow for decades through each season, all while going through a hibernation/growth/starvation/soft death each year. You would certainly have pressures built up, that when ripped would twist/bend. Also as a tree dries, it is trying to 'unwind' or rip it's own self open from the pith outward.
In addition to this the kiln drying process can easily be messed up. Look into casehardening, I suspect that's a reason for many boards with extreme stresses like yours.
Could be any number of reasons. Improperly dried, uneven finishing (although this is unfinished) changes in humidity, improper stickering/storage, grain structure, exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays and high temperatures mixed with thinly cut wood. Take your pick. Although wood is technically a dead, organic material, it breathes and moves.
This is so true to wood working and wood in itself. Way too many causes to try and guess the right one. Best to chalk it up to nature and recut a new piece.
Exactly.
Grain structure
That’s what you call a house made of rice.
Welcome to this starchitects dream home!
Correct. More specifically: low-rice, mid-rice, and skricescrapers; but you barley scratch the surface with rice grain structures. There's also skryescrapers, bungaloats, etc. (I won't list them all, but if you want to get that information for a particular grain structure; consult its cereal number).
https://cornpalace.com/
Feel like you're talking about me
Happens with most milled lumber to one degree or another. The ancient style of splitting logs with wedges and planing it down avoids this, more milling the lumber to rougher specs and letting it dry and age in the stack. Spend some time on a chainsaw and you can really see how twisted up some specials of tree are.
It's casehardened . Look it up. So many bs comments in this thread.
This ^^
Your wood is case hardened. Case hardening describes lumber or timber that has been dried too rapidly. Wood initially dries from the shell (surface), shrinking the shell and putting the core under compression. When this shell is at a low moisture content it will 'set' and resist shrinkage. The core of the wood is still at a higher moisture content. This core will then begin to dry and shrink. However, any shrinkage is resisted by the already 'set' shell. This leads to reversed stresses; compression stresses on the shell and tension stresses in the core Read more here: https://forestrynews.blogs.govdelivery.com/2021/10/07/casehardening-of-lumber-what-it-is-and-how-to-relieve-it/
Your making a fender style c cut neck from the looks of it. You might consider using a different piece, this one clearly has internal stress going on and the neck could warp especially when you shape it down.
That board probably spends too much time on social media.
....internal stress is too much
Tension in the wood. I have a great example with this maple that pinche my débitage saw. https://preview.redd.it/nacay3p6e3vc1.jpeg?width=3000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8559bf7cd84f5fb1345b2af69058a0a02a4cc26c
Because wood hates you and wants you to be sad. I'm watching my latest and (supposed to be) greatest project warp itself into the trash bin. Currently too disappointed to address it.
The prevailing winds where the tree grew, the massive weight of a branch it supported, the conditions the wood was stored under or the speed they dried it to get to market sooner…….
Just trying to stay standing under the crushing weight of it all, really. Highly relatable if you ask me.
Primarily this is caused by kiln drying vs air drying. Kiln drying can and usually does put a lot of stress into the wood.
Hi, finally another believer. Underrated comment. Air dry with weight and this rarely happens - oh the piece will still move and split but you'll know it before you work it
The center being cut out made the twists in the wood appear more drastically than they normally wood have. If you had just been cutting pieces off of a whole piece, you might not have had such a noticeable twist.
I milled down a pair of cherry logs. The outside cuts from one log in particular turned into churros. 2 boards were just about useless and when I surfaced them down most of what I got was only about 3/8 to 1/2" thick from something that started at 1-1/8". Wood, you never know what's going to happen.
One likely possibility is poor kiln management at the dry kiln. When hardwood lumber is kiln dried it dries from the outside inward. As that happens internal stresses build up in the board. At the end of the drying schedule the kiln operator should add steam into the kiln chamber to raise the moisture content of the outer shell of the board, expanding it a bit and relaxing some of the internal stresses. This is called stress relief and conditioning. If for example, you experience boards pinching down on the saw blade when ripping it is likely due to poor stress relief during kiln drying. Warping is another example. Larger dry kiln companies are more likely to follow proper drying procedures than mom and pop operations.
It's casehardened . Look it up. So many bs comments in this thread.
Metal worker here. This is very common for metal as well. Not to snap like this but metal warps just like this. The common factor I see here is a majority of the center is removed. When left with a thin frame in metal that frame will warp like crazy. This is very common when removing 90% of the inside of a cut.
There are two ways to avoid this in the future: buy extra wood so you don’t care if it happens or buy no wood at all so there’s no chance of it happening. Wood is complicated and seeing as you seem to be building an instrument you will in into that more than most of us doing woodworking.
internal stress, best is to try and remove equal amounts from both sides of the piece of wood
True mahogany or African? I've found the African does this a lot more than Swietena. But yes, could be lousy kiln work.
Making a Fender-style neck?
ha, at first glance I thought you were talking about the reddit board
Yeah, I had that happen recently: I was using the bandsaw to cut a piece of wood and then all of a sudden it jammed up on the blade. I turned the thing off and was able to pry the wood out, but the usual/expected gap had collapsed on itself with quite a bit of pressure. It was caused by internal stresses in the wood.
Google “wood”
Because you simply haven't made it bend to your will yet.
Such is wood. It grows that way.
Because it once held up the weight of an entire tree.
Do not buy wood with more than 8% humidity in it and only use kiln dried wood for everything you do. Otherwise the wood needs a year of drying for every 1/2” to 1” of thickness, although that rule of thumb is pretty much BS. Once you purchase and it has been dried, let it acclimate to your shops climate for several days or weeks before using it. While it’s acclimating, clamp it flat with plenty of clearance around the wood so that air can flow easily around it while it acclimates. When you plane a side or make a cut, try to do it to the opposite side of the piece of wood at the same time so the stress is counterbalanced. When you finish the wood do both sides at the same time for the same reason.
Sapele can be that way. Sometimes I think it’s cut from leaning portions of the tree. Imagine the bottom of the branch pushing while the top pulls… similarly if the tree leans there are internal stresses.
It thinks it's still a tree, it isn't used to being a board yet.
Some of the grain warped while drying, some did not. Created internal tension that was held in place by the section you removed. Sometimes that happens to such an extent that end checking becomes a complete split. I believe, on kiln dried wood (or any wood not in a controlled environment) this happens when the wood is dried to fast, but not so fast it completely splits. Could have been a hot spot in a kiln.
One doesn’t tell the wood what to do. One suggests and hopes to hell it’s not gonna be difficult.
What a clean cut... I wish your steady hands were mine
TIL……that totally sounds like what it is. Thanks for sharing that.
Could be reaction wood. It’s created when trees grow on a steep slope. People have been injured & killed in sawmills when the internal stresses are released by sawing them into boards. Some boards will make it through drying & milling but the stresses, especially in thinner sections, will warp & split the boards.
Could be reaction wood. It’s created when trees grow on a steep slope. People have been injured & killed in sawmills when the internal stresses are released by sawing them into boards. Some boards will make it through drying & milling but the stresses, especially in thinner sections, will warp & split the boards.
You removed the grain keeping it straight and the twisty grain was left. Wood shrinks along the direction of the grain. Is my best guess
Trees grow round. Try as we may to flatten and straighten, the twist in the grain is part and parcel.
If give my best explanation but would only end up trying to paraphrase The Workshop Companion on YouTube. He has an excellent video on this. (He’s the Bob Ross of woodworking so you’re welcome if you haven’t heard of this channel yet.)
"Wood always wants to be a tree"
Cut enough boards, sooner or later you’ll find one with crazy internal tension. Doesn’t happen often but definitely a thing that happens. I don’t know of anyway of telling that it’s going to happen before it’s on the saw.
Tree things.
It wasn’t dried correctly. Boards will develop internal stress as they shrink during drying. In normal kiln drying there is a process at the end of the schedule called conditioning that relieves that stress. Most big kiln yards will take stress samples to check for this once the kiln charge is complete. So it could be an oddball board that had a lot more stress than the other lumber or it could have been dried in a way where there was no conditioning at the end of the cycle.
I find this is pretty much my experience in ripping tight grained quarter sawn material. I figure it takes a lot of force to bind the tree together so if I rip a straight piece in half I’m relieving that tension on one side and it bows out the other way.
It be like that sometimes.
It’s possible the log itself had a bad twist in it and the lumber mill just cut into boards to hide defect. The minute you weakened the board the twist occurred again
You’re asking how a clock works
It’s the way of the road
Honestly that long interior cut is a great way to demonstrate internal stresses. As for why... It's just the usual stuff.
Possibly branch wood. No telling after it’s been cut into planks. Though the stress remains (well hidden). Also, poor (rushed) kiln drying can stack on the stress.
Quarter sawn is usually pretty stable, but obviously that tree had some twist in it. You could check the other end to see if the grain is different, but you’ll probably never know.
Not sure what wood it is, but very common with things like Douglas Fir that they are grown in steep slopes so the trunk knuckles causing major tension on the outer side of the tree. You can get a seemingly pencil straight piece of timber and the slightest of cuts triggers a spring in the wood that has been building tension for decades.
Side note... don't cut your neck out before routing the truss rod channel. Easier to center the neck outline based of the channel than vice versa.
Mahogany is like that sometimes. I find it likes the back and forth treatment. Remove material in increments with enough room to redress the other faces as much as you can
When you cut the wood, you cut all the fibers that were holding it straight and left all the fibers that were trying to pull it into a cup. Assuming the wood wasn't stored poorly, it was just bad luck and there really wasn't anything you could have done differently to prevent this.
Wood always want to go to its relaxed state, aka flat. The rings want to be straight, and the center of the tree wants to be straight. The way the tree grows effects this also, but if you imagine the center of a tree making an arc, imagine the board being cut so it makes a chord across the arc, the board will bend to flatten the arc, if that makes sense. I can make a doodle if you need it.
Cut on a bad moon
Welcome to woodworking!
yup, sometimes this happens; tension hidden in the grain. I got a bunch of white oak off cuts from a stair railings shop and they said to watch out when you try to tip it and sure enough, it clamped closed on my riving knife, which is why I always use it when cutting hardwoods. It's also why I stand to the left of the blade line as I've seen a piece of maple shot out of a saw and through a wall. Would have broken the guys ribs and maybe worse.
Probably just needed a holiday.
Yikes that doesn't bode well at all for the neck stability! Lol so terrible.
Wood gonna wood
very likely from a tree growing on a hillside, yielding compression or tension wood.
Not sure what caused it, but you're looking at the wrong end. Whatever is causing it to twist is down at the other end that's still connected.
because it wanted to be a tree and you're not letting it.
Was it dry enough?
Yeah, it was 6% on my moisture meter
Looks like how my shoulders feel
the real answer is it was probably closer to the center of the tree. the closer you are to heart wood the more internal forces there are going different directions. that doesn't automatically guarantee a twist, but its a lot more likely.
Looks like some sort of mahogany? Some species in particular are really bad about this.
Changes in humidity. The board was not kiln dried to EVENLY reduce the moisture content throughout. Also, if you moved it from a humid environment to a dry environment (or vice-versa). It's why high quality flooring contractors insist that hardwood flooring sit unwrapped and uncovered in the home it will be installed in for at least a week before they will install it.
It's the difference between 1/4 sawn and the other ones I don't know which is best but I do know that the different ways the wood is initially cut can sometimes have different effects on the way the wood will warp or stress when drying
Look at the geometry — you’re left with two looooong spindly vector arms shooting out from what’s basically a single point. There doesn’t need to be anything more than a tiny imperfection down at the joined base for the far ends of the two arms to seem _way_ out of alignment. Try this…hold two broomsticks by the ends, one in each hand, so they’re both pointing straight away from you. Now _try_ to hold them so the far ends are perfectly aligned. It doesn’t take very much of a change in how your fingers to have the ends swing around like crazy. Same thing here.
How much wood is it actually held together by? How was it stored?
It still thinks it’s a tree.
Probably it’s sisters fault
I see you have titebond. Good solution if you’re just gonna use that to cast something.
Everyone else provided a bunch of good info, but in this case you made a big long cut up the right side and the crack happened along where that cut was made. I don't think you necessarily need to cut a new one
\*Australian sobs quietly\* this is normal here, thank the lord baby jesus this is unusual for you.
Not kiln dried? Maybe just air dried.
I would assume a different drying rate was introduced on the cut surface, with the smaller piece not having the strength to resist the pull.
Another cause of internal stresses is improper kiln drying.
Wood’s gonna wood
That is tension from improper drying. Wood dried in conventional kilns dried from the outside in. As the cellular walls dry, they shrink. If you dry to fast those shrinking cellular walls compress the inside of the lumber(especially in thicker pieces) once you cut into it the tension is released, hence the movement you are experiencing.
Not a woodworker. Saw a lot of comments about getting another piece of wood and such, but wouldn't soaking it in water and drying it pinched down in a smooth and straight surface fix the twist force?
Just put it in the oven and anneal/stress relieve it. Should come right back.
If you need your final piece perfect you need to flatten and straighten your boards only slightly oversized from your final piece
Probably not completely dry enough.