Twist in air dried cherry

H

hermv2000

Well-known member
I just brought home 200bf of air dried cherry, some of which had twisted during the past year due to being stacked incorrectly even though it was stickered.  I was cut in July of 2009.

The thickness is just under 5/4., lengths average 6 to 7 feet, widths 10 to 13 inches.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to remove the twist, short of shortening the boards and planing it out.

A friend has suggested wetting both sides of the boards, then placing wedges under the opposite corners, covering in plastic and putting pressure on opposite corners to force a twist in the other direction.  He says to leave it for 4 or 5 days and the twist will even out.  Not sure if this will work or not.

Any advice would be appreciated,

Herman

 
I remember last year at CW they discussed they had a real nice piece of walnut that had a large twist so they put it in the stream (he called it water boarding), and after a lot of work got the twist out...and then it came back. 

mas
 
The wood may have been "stacked incorrectly" but if it is indeed dry, and it has twisted, it is not likely permanently correctable. If you wet it and treat it as you suggested, the twist may come out, but when it dries again, most likely it will resume the same twist.
There is an old trick for taking the cup out of a cupped board. You place the concave side down on the lawn and the convex side up facing the sun. In a short time the top will dry,  the downside will absorb some moisture, and the board will flatten. Bring it back into the shop, and unless you quickly "capture" it's flatness such as making it into a panel in a rail and stile door,  as it dries it will regain it's prior cupped shape.
If you try the wetting technique, let us know how it turns out.

Howard Steier
 
Herman,
Since the wood has been drying only a year I would re stack and sticker it flat, weight the pile and let it dry some more. If it stays twisted you will have to plane it flat to use it. It is possible that the wood is twisted and it had nothing to do with the prior stacking. With the short lengths I would wonder where it came from in the tree. I don't think getting the outside wet will help. You may have to make small things out of it.
Mike
 
It would be a lot simplier to save it for thinner boards or cut into short boards.  Why take the chance of having it re-twist.

Dennis Bork
Antiquity Period Designs, Ltd.
 
This is another case where I am going to come off like a smart so and so, but I don't mean to. I have tried to correct twists warps and cups using moisture many times in repair work, sometimes it works and some time it doesn't, I don't know why. I have also steam bent dry wood to make repair parts. If you can steam bend wood why can't you remove twists and warps with moisture or steam? I know that it may not be worth the effort but theoretically why would it not work?
 
Steaming wood alters the cellular structure that allows it to take a different "set" as the wood redries. It's not the same as just wetting it. One can slowly alter the shape of a board without steam, and it can take a different set. If you have a board upright and leaning for a long time it may set with a slight bend in it; that's why you should store wood flat. But I would be surprised if you could remove the twist with counterforce. Again, if you try to, let us know what happens.

Howard Steier
 
IRRC Steam bending uses heat to plasticize wood, not moisture. That is why you can bend over a hot pipe as well. Somewhere on the web there is a video of a Japanese craftsman straightening a board using heat. I agree with Dennis, if is reaction wood at all it will give you problems all the way through.
Mike
 
Thank you to all for your replies.  The boards were 14 feet long when stacked, they were then cut to the most usable lengths, hence the typical 7 foot length.

I saw the stack before we bought it and it was indeed twisted.  The boards are all out of the same tree, flatsawn (or was is full sawn?) as the sawyer called it.  The bark edge is still on and it sat in it's improperly stacked form for 12 months inside a barn.

I'll try restacking with pressure on the opposite sides to see what happens.  If it works and stays straight I'll post a follow up.  I've tried in the past to remove twist and cup this way and the board on the lawn trick as well, but as Mike pointed out the defect always comes back.  But those were kiln dried boards and these are air dried and may not even be fully dry at this time.

Herman
 
Hi Herman
    Sorry about the late reply,I was giving a lecture for the KC Woodworkers Guild. I attempted to teach 40 people to French Polish.It was a good time , met a lot of nice people.
    Because the wood was cut a year ago there still may be time to save the pile.The old timers rule for air drying was 7yrs per inch. What I would do is to cut one of the boards, about a foot or more from the end and take a moisture reading.  Then give me an e-mail back and tell me what you have.  Hopefully the readings will be in the teens or higher. 

Talk to you soon.

Randy
 
I tested the moisture content today and it's at 12.6 percent.  I took the sample about 12 inches in from the end.

Herman
 
Herman
 
    I was hoping the moisture would be a little higher, but you still might have a chance to save the pile.Wide cherry boards are hard to find in Minnesota.
    What I would do at this point is take the pile to a mill that has a kiln. Have them stack the cherry on the bottom of the pile with as much weight on top as possible. After its dry, stack the pile in your storage with more weight on it until you are ready to use it. Hopefully it can sit a year or two before use.
    Or,  you can take a chance and re-stack the pile [with stickers and weight] and check it in a few years to see what you get.I think with the low moisture content, air drying might not work. What ever you decide, try to do it before the frost sets in.
      Good Luck
                  Randy
 
20 years ago, I acquired a pair of very highly figured walnut(fiddleback) planks, 18-20 wide and about 9 feet long that had been allowed to cry unconfined and were really crooked. I took them to my mentor and he put them in his pond, weighted so they would stay submerged. They remained there for about 2 months.
We took them out and stickered and stacked them in his barn, and they are still flat today(i have never used them). I should say that these boards were are nearly quartered and although they are highly figured the fact that they were close to quartered and nearly blemish free implied to me that they would be the type to "tend" to remain straight.
My old buddy said he had straightened many a board this way. I have read the texts on drying wood and I realize that submerging for a long period of time is supposed to only replace the free moisture present in the wood, so this method will probably be received here with argument.
It is a lot of trouble, but I have seen it work. I have recently resawn a very fine 8/4 walnut board that cupped very badly upon sawing, and am thinking I should build a little garden pond for the back yard....
 
LOL @ building a little garden pond, hey, it worked. As someone who buys very wide boards i always worry over cupping, checking, splitting, etc, when it's milled & attached to a piece of  furniture. Theres a product on the market that claims to help with alot of these issues but i have never had nerve to try it on a $500 board. Anybody in here ever tried this stuff?
http://www.preservation-solutions.com/index.php
 
Last week, I built a little pond/trough out of some cypress and plywood, with some of that thick black plastic for a liner to keep the water from leaking. The 2 walnut boards I was working wtih were about 9 feet long and 11 inches wide each. Since I had not submersed any wood personally(my old mentor had done it for me before), I was suprised I needed 3 solid concrete blocks to keep those two boards underwater, and really they felt like they were still floating a bit.
Just now, I noticed the boards did not feel to be floating, so I removed my blocks and took the boards out of the water for a peek. Of course they are really heavy and sopping wet, but they loolk pretty darn straight right now-before they had at least 1.5 inches of crook along the 9 foot length.
I will leave them submersed a few more weeks before restickering.
I would not suggest this for anyone, but these are really, really boldly curled lumber and part of a match I need to make a table.
 
Very cool - thanks for keeping us posted!  This is a trick I had never heard of before. Can't wait to hear how it turns out.
 
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