How much stock to leave for settling?

[tim]

I am working my way through a bunch of cherry at the mo for a chest I'm making. It will need to settle a bit having been cut from largish planks but I'm wondering if there are general rules of thumb about how much extra stock to leave vs the finished thickness. I need a finished thickness of c 19/20mm so I'm thinking of leaving it at 22/23 for a couple of days.

Its pretty stable and dry so I'm not anticipating it moving a huge amount.

Is this enough?

Cheers

Tim

 

[Shady]

Tim, how 'dry' is dry? If you think it's at about equilibrium moisture content for your working environment, and genuinely 'good' stock, then those amounts sound ok.

However, if there's still some settling to come, and/or any reaction wood - which is the real killer for this subject - I'd be wary of going down quite so close...

 

[tim]

how 'dry' is dry?

About 9-10%

Cheers

Tim

 

[Shady]

Should be ok then: it's a funny wood - normally fine, but sometimes it can warp like it's beyond belief... Assume you're bringing down on alternate sides to minimise moisture differential, stickering it, etc etc...

 

[Anonymous]

Don't have any idea with Cherry, but would be very interested to hear how you get on Tim

 

[Colin C]

I agree with Shady, cherry can some times have a mind of its own but you will not know until you cut it as to what it will do

 

[MikeW]

Should be ok then: it's a funny wood - normally fine, but sometimes it can warp like it's beyond belief... Assume you're bringing down on alternate sides to minimise moisture differential, stickering it, etc etc...

I had never had an issue with Cherry--until last year. Two projects using clear, vertical grain. The first I considered poor luck and all that.

With the second, I figured someone hated me. The boards would twist one way and over the course of a week or so, bend around the other. All in all, that project took nearly two months to complete.

Since then, the Cherry I've had has been fine. Just the normal procedures of allowing the stock to acclimate, saw and stack with stickers and allow some time to adjust.

Point is, even with the best of procedures, like Shady says, it can have a mind of its own. Even the devil's own Cherry of that second project last year eventually stopped moving. It ended up nice and straight. The wood has remained fine since. Well, at least the customer hasn't called and complained...

Take care, Mike

 

[Midnight]

I recently had an oak board behave exactly the same as Mike's cherry... quarter sawn, had over 9 months to acclimitise to shop conditions, MC was around 9% on average... scrubbed n flattened one face and it was fine... hit the other face and it warped somethin crazy... I got it flat, eventually... but it took over 6 weeks of do a little bit... set it aside.. curse at it some more.... do a little bit..........