Wood driving me knots! Not staying straight!

[Scott Mark]

Ok, so I bought my first large batch of lumber, 500bf of pink birch from a reputable hardwood dealer. I subsequently started on my first commissioned job, a banister for a friend who was just finishing up redoing his basement. It's only 72" long and I was going to put 2 strips of wood down the sides of a routed edge of the center main piece. I go through cutting the pieces and everything goes out of alignment. I cut all 3 pieces out of the same board which I ran through my jointer and planer. It took me a few days to get to putting on the edges and they're warped, twisted, and all out of wack. I'm going to have to completely restart on the two side pieces. Is this normal? The wood was kiln dried. Do I need to restack my pile of wood with shims (not sure if that's the right word) to let it dry further? If someone could just clue me in I'd appreciate it. I feel like such a nimwit having all this equipment and such but not having a clue what's going on.

Thanks for your help!

Scott Mark

[Jim Koepke]

I have often bought wood only to have it change shape on me on the trip home.

Most of the time, I buy wood well before it will be worked. It sits in the shop acclimating to the shop humidity and temperature.

Stacking it with stickers (shims) for a week or two will likely help the wood to settle down.

jim

[David Gendron]

When Jim said stickered it for a week or two, I'm sur he meens stickered in your shop! That meens not in a different building and with likely a consistent temperature. I leave in the Yukon where the climat is realy dry and my sheltered pile of lumber outside the shop is usualy around 12% moisture content and in the shop, after some time, it droped to easely 8% or less so it is a big difference!

[John Keeton]

Scott, you said you cut all three pieces from one board after running through the jointer and planer. A couple of thoughts - it could be just the one board that had a lot of internal stress that was released upon ripping, particularly after being planed. I try to flip the boards when planing to equalize the wood being removed from each side.

It also sounds like the board that was used was rather wide as you were able to get three pieces from it. Often, on a wide board, I find that ripping it leaves me with warped pieces. Seems the board is OK as an intact unit, but when it is divided the stresses that are counteracting each other in the wide board - are free to move once ripped.

This may or not be an indication that the rest of the wood will react the same way. Certainly, letting the wood acclimated is always the first thing to do. But, sometimes this happens no matter what you do.

[Fidel Fernandez]

I had the same experience a year ago, and I was stumped about it. No matter what I did, it was warped.

I used my jointer, table saw, hand planes, you name it. Well, I stopped using that board for that project. Well, I said, this is not normal so I went back to my computer and went to search.

I found that occurs some times when is kiln dried. The process start taking moisture from the wood but at the same time, it has to provide steam to avoid drying so fast. It is a delicate process. What happen is that they didn't do it right and some parts of the board were drier than the rest, that created some stress within the board, so when I made a new cut more stress was released and twisted, so that is when I stopped working with the board.

I went to my hardwood dealer a few weeks later and talked to him about it and asking if I can return wood. He said they don't allow returning wood, then I explained my case and he said \that he is willing to try with their machines and if that is the case he will exchange the wood. It was too late for me because the board was already gone but it is good they already know about this issue.

[David Keller NC]

Scott - Don't feel bad, beech is notorius for being difficult to properly dry and season. If you're going to start over, consider using something more stable - south american mahogany would be an excellent (and beautiful) choice. It's a realtively expensive wood compared to beech, but a stair rail isn't going to use very much; most of the cost will be labor.

[Scott Mark]

Thanks for all the responses. Nice to see I'm not going nutz. I'm heading out to re-stack the wood now!

Scott