bent oak

[skeetstar]

Sorry if this a piece of trivia, Mod please delete if so, However I thought I'd share this. I'm making an easel for a wedding seating plan (if it goes ahead) out of oak.. The oak is scavenged from an old church communion rail, it must be 40 years old, possibly a bit less.

I cut a length of the rail into two staves. One stayed pretty straight, the other bent quite a bit. I wasn't expecting seasoned Oak to bend like that once cut, but I guess it does demonstrate just how much stresses lie in the timber even after seasoning and all sorts of machining.

The second photo shows the stave on my workbench. That is a 10mm arc over 1700mm.

 

[AndyT]

Always worth repeating, and an example is the best way to show what really happens. So much for our hopes that we can "stabilise" timber by bringing it indoors for a few weeks!