straightening warped mahogany- I am capping an exterior deck railing with 7 1/4 x 1 1/2 with some beautiful but bent canberra mahogany. I need 24 ft of straight and I have two sticks one 3/16 out and the other 5/16 over a 12-6 chalkline, i have two 14 ft pieces. I know with clamps I could straighten to the 2×4 rail frame , all pt frame with shingled int and ext walls, but over time will it twist back? will I have to drill 45 screw holes to hold it down? and will the mitered (90) corners look terrible if it twists back. Is my best bet to trim a little off the errant tips to make a straighter and thinner board? I was hoping for a healthy overhang for the shingled faces, thanks
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lets conferm things. Is the wood warped, cuped or twisted.
Barrmo,
OK I've done this sort of thing.. two ways to do it, you've mentioned one (in my opinion the ugliest one) the other way is to warp it back into shape..
Steam the board, make some sort of home made box that will hold steam, plywood, plastic, whatever. Then you'll need to generate steam.. You could put a steam kettle on the stove and this box nearby or whatever.. You'll need to make a lot of steam, it takes over one hour of steam per inch of thickness. Continous steam.. so you can't pause and refill the kettle. You're clever hopefully, when you clamp it into place over bend it about 1/3 to allow for bounce back. Now fire up the kettle and go for it.. once you've steamed it enough, let it cool off and pull it out and check.. you might need to bend it a bit more or unbend it some..
Once it cools off assuming it's properly fastened it should be fine!
> Steam the board, make some sort of home made box that will hold steam, plywood, plastic, whatever. If the boards aren't too large, pieces of plastic pipe of whatever size work pretty well for this -- easy to seal up, easy to handle.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. --T.S. Eliot
You buy a board straightener, they're in the same aisle as the sky hooks.
jer, you know there really is such a thing as a sky hook don't you? It's used to hang your Skill worm drive from rafters, joists, etc.. during the framing stage.
Geoff
Actually, it's made by (or used to be) Sikorsky.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. --T.S. Eliot
Are you sure you're not thinking of the sky crane?
I left my board straightener with my chain stretcher, and now I can't find either one.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
sky cranes there were only 105 made....
CH-54 Tarhe
View Image
CH-54 Tarhe carrying 2 UH-1 Hueys
Type
Heavy-lift cargo helicopter
Manufacturer
Sikorsky Aircraft
Primary user
United States Army
Number built
105
Developed from
CH-53 Sea Stallion
cost a bundle too..
skyhooks modlels cost even more and are rarer... (S-64E)Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
I had no idea there were so few of them. I worked on a project moving some bridge stringers with Erickson Aircrane, a company that seems to own most of the non-military skycranes. It's difficult to stand up 125 feet below one of those ships when they're at hover. Amazingly manueverable.zak
"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone." --John Ruskin
"so it goes"
IIRC they produce 175 MPH down winds...
now if you got the bucks.. (a lot of tem as in many) I can find ya buckets of steam and propwash... Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming<!----><!----><!---->
WOW!!! What a Ride!Forget the primal scream, just ROAR!!!
Yeah, it's been called variously a skycrane, skyhook, and a few others. Skycrane is the official designation.Of course there are about a thousand things (including bands) called "skyhook". One instance of "skyhook" (possibly the first legit one) was a high-altitude balloon program many years back.
So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable Creature, since it enables one to find or make a Reason for everything one has a mind to do. --Benjamin Franklin
Jer , There right next to the board strecthers .
dusty
Faced with this situation I would dry fit a tight mitre. Use bisquits, or dowels or a spline at the mitre and glue with poly glue, allow this to set up . Apply glue to the top of the framing , set the mitre corner where it needs to be then fasten it there, then work towards the square ends using clamps to pull the end into line.
The warp just isn't that bad over the distance of 12'.
Edited 1/20/2007 7:20 pm ET by dovetail97128
Load the pieces on your truck, take them back and get some straight ones. Otherwise you may as well go down the sky hook isle and look for the buckets of steam. I think they are next to the left handed monkey wrenches.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
"...next to the left handed monkey wrenches."Metric or English? :)
BruceT
5/16th over 12 1/2 feet?!!!
Many of us here that install kitchen cabs would be happy to find a wall that straight to hang cupboards on.
Don't worry, be happy.
I wouild trim it straight.
Part of the joy in experience with woodworking though is the many ways a thing can be made to happen, and learning to read the wood is a long term experience based judgement call that is gratifying when you call it right and a learning step when you get it wrong.
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"Is my best bet to trim a little off the errant tips to make a straighter and thinner board?"
Yes. You are on the right path, and I think Piffin said it right. You have to work with wood and learn the ways of making it do what you want. 5/16 over that distance is very workable. Where on the board does it start to go out? Often it's towards the end of pieces in which case you can cut off that last 36". Screw it and plug it, clamp it and glue it, spline it and join it, plane it and sand it. There is very little in the way of wood that is perfect anymore. Gone is the beautiful tight ringed slow growth virgin lumber. Spline your miter joints and glue them with an epoxy or recourcinal marine type glue, or do a ship-lap or half-lap joint and glue it. They key to making something like this work is to use all the above methods, cheat on all fronts.
It was small projects like these that got me into the joys of working with razor sharp hand planes of different kinds and their many uses. Then I started collecting them, then I found E-bay and it was all over.
To follow up- Yes I didn't check the lumber it was a special order came wrapped in plastic all strapped up and it was snowing. So I took it home to find that the two 14 fters were banana shaped. I know5/16 over 12 ft isnt bad but I feel uncomfortable cutting the corner miters with the thought that they will move and open up in one year- wet windy Coastal massachusetts. Thanks for the suggestions will probably rip some straight lumber out of what I have.
When I was doing that stuff I usually started with rough cut lumber and worked it to my satisfaction.....don't sound like yours is to bad as is.........it is wood, wood moves, shrinks and swells. I'd take a plane and eyeball to it.
If you cut those mitres within a hair and set those babies flat and screw then down.....they'll still open a bit in time ...especially if you have over 3/4 inch of overhang........
If your really a stickler for the perfect mitre.......cut/fit and attach it in a way that you can get a saw cut down the mitre after a couple seasons.......then cut the open mitre in place, dis-attach, slide the mitre back together and reattach.....or make up a mitre where the section is 3/4 on top of 3/4. The top contains the cut....the bottom is glued to the underside of the mitre like plywood is......more work.
Smell them little flowers...play marbles with the kiddies...listen to them birdies....and don't forget to laugh at the pomposity of yourself.
"or make up a mitre where the section is 3/4 on top of 3/4. The top contains the cut....the bottom is glued to the underside of the mitre like plywood is......more work."That's a lap miter and an excellent suggestion for this. I have used that type of joint many times for outdoor railings.
ok i think i got it, after rereading carefully you are "capping" and want it to overlap the shingles on the face of the deck railing.
is the existing deck railing built? is it straight? it should be simple enough to install one board on top of another carefully in such a way as to straighten the top board, especially if it is covering an enclosed "pony wall" that is sided with shingles on the exterior, and probably a nice bead board on interior if you are using mahogany for the cap.
if it isnt built yet pick out a similar crown for the sub structure top plate, and install the two crowns opposing each other, clamping and screwing to bring both straight, or splitting the diff a little, favoring the one on top. as other posters mention you are not dealing with much crown at all, and have you ever seen a deck railing that was perfectly straight? if they were perfectly straight when new do they have a tendancy to bow out over time, from people leaning on them? hint hint, i install with crowns in so that over time from leaning on railing it bows out less. thats my story to customers and i'm sticking to it!
Think like a luthier and rout a gently curved channel into the bottom of each piece, then install a long piece of all-thread and straighten the pieces the way a luthier would a guitar neck.
Or, trim them straight, or get new ones, or live with them as they are.
LOL. That would ALMOST work.!
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The secret to a long life is knowing when its time to go. M. Shocked
It would work fine. The truss rods in guitar necks only have a bit of camber to them and they adjust very nicely. You can develop an enormous amount of force with even a small diameter rod and a couple of nuts and washers.
Of course it would be easier to go buy some more satisfactory wood. 3/16" in 14 feet is not fatal, is it?
I think I'd opt for a chalkline and a powerplaner and the 3 minute fix.
Guitar necks only get corrected in the thin dimension w/ the truss rod. What we would call BOW in lumber. Not in the wide dimension, which would be a Crown in framing terms. If a guitar neck was "out" in that plane it is pretty much trash.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
The secret to a long life is knowing when its time to go. M. Shocked
Place convex side towards the southern orientation.