warped armoire oak top need help!!

[Bud Duffy]

A friend of my doughter built a armoire out of oak in woodshop in high sahool 4 years agao and her crackhead (literaly)husband left it sitting out in the weather at his parents house when they had to move . It sat out for six months and the top warped and cracked i dont think i can save it but i told her i would ask the experts , so here are a couple pics. Any advise or should i just make a new top and refinish the whole thing? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Bud

[Bob Smalser]

Time for a new top and a lesson learned.

The wood selection was fatal...those are the first boards outboard of the pith with vertical grain flanking short, weak horizontal grain. Guaranteed to keep on moving and cracking regardless of the fix.

Look at the top picture at "A" and you can see what the grain near the pith looks like....exactly where that top cracked:

[Gary Breckenridge]

I guess you could fill it up with glue and clamp it all to death. I would just buy a couple of oak boards and make a new top. Then there is the question of who gets it in the divorce settlement.

[Mike Cutler]

I think it's time for a new QSWO top. No matter what you do it won't look the same anyway. About the only fix I would attempt would be to run it thru a bandsaw and try to cut out all the cracks, and then reglue it and plane it back down. A lot of work and it would probably not look too great. It sucks to have negligence trash something that is important to you.

[Ken Salisbury]

SOLUTION:

[Bill Arnold]

SOLUTION:

Now, Ken.....don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel!