pencil box april 2010

[devonwoody]

A glorious start to a new project, and a pencil box gift requested by an art member friend of mine.

window open.

temp.15C and humidity below 70% ( season can stay like that till Nov.with pleasure)

I had cut off a 4x3" length of sycamore, previous week, and now taken off a section for a pencil box, leaving a long enough piece for tissue boxes to come later.

Set the planer to give me a second square edge (The timber came one surface clean)

came off the planer square and flat.

Over to the bandsaw and put a clamp to secure my fence, because a 4x3 can push my lightweight fence around.

However my good mood is now on the wane after the clean up of the bandsaw cut and the timber going through the thicknesser.
It doesnt look very nice does it?

On top of that poor start and the second piece cut and I get this.

So I clamped the pieces together and put some pressure on them for the rest of the day.

I paid over £38 per cu.ft for that sycamore and it looks like the first 250mm is rubbish. Do you think I should request a discount and credit from the supplier.

 

[MickCheese]

Is that not just the nature of wood?

It is very annoying though.

Mick

 

[oddsocks]

Mick, I agree with you. The internal tensions in a thick piece of wood are released when it's sliced. DW - cut the pieces over thickness, allow to stabilise for a few days then bring to final thickness (maybe a few millimetre at a time as more tensions are released).

The rough grain in one of the pics needs a sharp cabinet scraper to sort it

Dave

 

[SNight]

you need to cut over thickness and then plane square afterwards.

 

[devonwoody]

Snight, the board was 12" wide and the 4" width was cut off some days previously before the above box was started. However, straight and flat edges are required first in my opinion, it is not safe to put timber to a table saw in its waney state.

The problem I think with this timber is that it is air dried stuff and I was told that it was seasoned and OK. I asked for a moisture reading at the time of purchase and the Yandles man said they hadn't got one. I thought funny, and now I know why.

Fortunately I have stock of other timbers so I shall have to put this sycamore away for sometime and not purchase timber mail order from that supplier again.

 

[Corset]

I bought a lot of sycamore recently for some doors i made and I had a lot of problems with movement despite leaving it to settle for a least a month. I think that as a timber its a bit feral and seems to just want to go its own way. looking at the grain of the timber you have it looks like the bits that i gave up on. I find that the twisting grain section was very very difficult to stay in a form it just wanted to bow and bow. I ripped it over size left it, planed it again and it still bowed.
I then burnt it :evil:

 

[devonwoody]

Corset, I know how you feel, I was the same this morning when I looked at the result of overnight glue up of these carcass sides.

I had to hand plane the bow out of the pieces then I put it through the thicknesser..

When putting thin pieces of timber through the thicknesser and the grain is questionable I put a thin batten either side of the machine table in case the timber twists whilst machining and crashes into the side of the machine and then gets tangled up with the blades.

Anyway I have glued up the carcass and holding my breath, I fully expect to have to stitch up the corner mitres with reinforcing cross splines after the box as dried.

 

[TrimTheKing]

Sorry DW but I honestly don't see anything wrong with that, it's just wood, that's what happens. I don't think you can seriously hold the supplier responsible for it! Just my opinion.

I am in the process of making a bed for my baby in ash and cut an 8'x7"x2" plank down the middle on the bandsaw (some bl00dy job that was too!!! :shock: ) and on placing it on the floor after the cut there must have been a good 15mm gap in the centre where both sides had bowed out.

The way of the world, luckily I had planned for it and my components to come out of the two lengths will be shorter (less bow to contend with) and left for a few days to find their shape before being brough closer to finished size.

By the look of the size of the box, those two bowed lengths will be cut in half won't they? That will half the amount of bow so you will have less to deal with. Should still be able to get your sides out of it with a little persuasion

 

[devonwoody]

TTK, three times I have purchased sycamore mail order, on two of the occasions the wood has been terrible, the first lot I reckon I lost over 50% in wastage.
I did specify to a very experienced wood timber supplier this time I only wanted top grade, and at £38 per cu.ft. that was also top price, so an experienced supplier should know what he is sending out.
The cheapest sycamore and best came in last year from up the Midlands was around £23. a cube ft. and I can honestly say I only lost the wavy edge. In fact I have just spent the last hour machining up the last of this stuff into 15mmx7mm thin strips and starting another tissue box.
So I have two timber suppliers I wont be ordering from again mail order and one of them is Yandles.

 

[Ironballs]

DW I bought a few boards of sycamore from Boddies last year and they had a good selection of plain, good grain, ripple and curly. Nicely pressed and in a variety of lengths, widths and thicknesses at good prices. Nice and straight and didn't move when I got them home, so well prepared and stored. I'd try them in the future if I were you

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks Ironballs, I have added that to a list of my suppliers on your recommendation.

Whitmores at Leicestershire supplied a lovely piece last year, and as mentioned above the waney edge was the only wastage, in fact I used some of the last this afternoon, planed it down to 6mm. I will put a picture up later.

 

[paininthe]

It is threads like these that put me off woodworking, rather than the gluing and screwing of mdf and ply like what i do now.

This is not criticism, but when you see an experienced woodworker despair, what hope is there for us mortals?

Is there an answer for us, is there an easier wood, is there guaranteed warp and bow free or am I best sticking to engineered timbers.

Sorry to hijack your thread.

 

[Dibs-h]

Sorry DW but I honestly don't see anything wrong with that, it's just wood, that's what happens. I don't think you can seriously hold the supplier responsible for it! Just my opinion.

I completely agree - if you bought a section of timber and it turned out to have a huge inclusion\void below the surface and was visually undetected, prior - there's very little you could do about it. In the interest of Customer Service the supplier may take it back, swap or credit, but can't see them being forced to do so.

Sorry if that's not the preferred answer DW, but timber is sold as seen - I suspect the pieces you bought - visually were fine. Just released tensions when cut - it's a natural substance.

The only way to minimise such things is to plane equal amounts off each side - but that would waste so much timber and wouldn't always be guaranteed to work. It's when we get timbers several inches thick and hope to bandsaw thinner sections that these troubles arise.

 

[Ironballs]

Dibs and the others are right, you must always expect that timber will move when you cut into it and make an allowance for that. it doesn't always do so and certain timbers or cuts of timber can be better than others, but the only time I've chopped into a 2" plus piece of timber and it's not moved was when I chopped through some 5" mahogany that had been in storage for decades

 

[devonwoody]

Dibs and others,

This is what has been laying on my tablesaw all winter in my workshop, ice and condensation laying under roofs at time.

Selected this piece of sycamore supplied last year mail order and was a thin resawn board off cut, 7.90mm thick.

Planed it down to just over 6mm thick and cut to 15mm wide pieces.

And then glued up with some very old meranti planed down to the same thickness.

The supplier of the sycamore last year said I have got a nice piece of sycamore to your required measurements. (8ft of 10" wide 3" thick) and I am even using those 7mm thick offcuts without any problem.
The supplier said it is a nice piece , and it was.

This last supplier said he had got some 3" thick sycamore, air dried that is ready, I asked if it was good, and what was the moisture content.
He said he didn't have a moisture meter but it was a nice piece.

IMO he should have said, its wet and I don't know if it is ready to use for your boxes. But he wouldn't say that would he. :wink:

 

[Mattty]

All of the things your complaining about DW are your own doing for processing the timber poorly. Others have already commented that your technique is suspect and yet you still blame the timber yard. Your trying to fight with nature and there is only 1 winner.
To get the size of piece you need, you should have started with a different section of timber and certainly not used 3" thick timber and wonder why the thin strips warp when cut.
I am not trying to offend but i think you need to take a step back and look at the whole process again.

 

[devonwoody]

Accepted Matt but the pictures above were from 3" thick timber and they machined perfectly on supply last year, and planing up 7mm thick timber today from ex 3" stock can be done.

I expected the timber supplied two weeks ago to be of the same quality bearing in mind price.

However I have put this last timber supply away for a couple of years and a piece has been reduced to half of the 75mm thickness in preparation for that event.

It was supplied as ready to go and it isnt.

 

[TrimTheKing]

IMO he should have said, its wet and I don't know if it is ready to use for your boxes. But he wouldn't say that would he. :wink:

But wetness is not a determining factor in warpedness (made that one up, liked the sound of it ). Over time yes, the wetter side would dry and bow the timber, but immediately after cutting you wouldn't expect it to spring like that just because it was wet inside, this is internal stress in the fibres.

I guess you've answered the issue yourself, get your @rse down to a timber yard and pick a lump of wood yourself instead of letting someone who you have never met do it for you

 

[big soft moose]

Miles Hot and I had some nice fiddleback sycamore from someone on here ( well tbh Miles bought it , but i did the chainsaw work and he gave me a few bits to say ta)

but there was quite a lot of gash in the boards - i reckon we had about 40% wastage - but that is normal imo, certainly i dont blame the suplier.

that said we cut most of it up for turning blanks so we got more use than we would have done if we were using it for flat stuff.

I cant remember who the supplier was off hand but miles probably remembers

 

[devonwoody]

BTW, the box is a disaster, I shall most probably use this one in the workshop myself for some tool storeage, and make another for my friend.

I really did want to match the sycamore tho, there are ten other boxes (made on the same lines as this current one) used by an art group, we keep our tube paints standing in these boxes in an upwarward orientation.