Cold dry wood, warm comfortable shop

[scottp55]

Just a note for Northern Newbies as it has never been an issue before. I needed a cherry board to finish a Christmas project-went into the 22F garage and rummaged through the shorts and found a 22" piece. Brought it into the 65F/60% shop and screwed it down cold. Other stuff intervened and didn't get around to cutting it out till yesterday. I maximized the board to get two plaques out of it(no screw in the middle) so only 6 .2"X.6 3D tabs and 1/4 inch of material was left in the middle. When cutting out the second plaque and the bit was about 3/4's of the way through I SAW the middle of the board rising up! Grabbed a scrap and pushed it down without thinking- but those tabs were STRESSED and only about .1" thick and fell apart when unscrewed Let the wood acclimate. I was lucky(and yes-I almost used my hand to hold it down).

[mikeacg]

Scott,

That is a timely reminder! I moved to Upper Michigan from North Carolina last year so this will be my first winter in the cold climate. I never had to deal with that issue before so I appreciate the heads-up!

Mike :eek:

[myxpykalix]

I lived a block from lake Michigan and the lake effect wind chill factors have gone down to minus 50. I've seen battery acid freeze and blow out the sides of batteries and because alot of different woods have moisture and sap i would assume there would be various differences in "acclimation times".:confused:

[scottp55]

My first clue should have been when I brought it into the shop and wiped the dust off the dust was wet from condensation. So longer than that:). Got 3-400 bf stacked around the house finish sanded waiting 10 yrs for me to get the "urge" -Thats too long. Hey,I was in a hurry. Tab, isn't that a soda?

[genek]

When storing wood in a unconditioned space, open to the outside air or air dried. You need to bring the wood into the shop 2 weeks before you use it. You should also be using a moister meter. To dry of wood will cause a problem to wet of wood will cause a problem.

Even when I pick up a fresh load of kiln dried wood. I check the moister content of that load. Then I stack it in my lumber bin. I check the wood in a week to see if it has the same moister as my control sample. I check the moister content of the wood I plan on using that day. I also check my control sample each week. This lets me know if my shop is running to dry or not.

wood will naturally seek equilibrium with the surrounding moister content.
I like my wood to have a moister content of around 8%.

Gluing up to wet of wood or too dry of wood will cause joint failure, If you are shipping product to areas like Arizona You had better hit the 8% mark before glue up. Their wood in that area sometimes gets as dry as 6% or lower. You send a product to that area and it is above 10% your joint will fail.

[genek]

Scott You are very lucky that you did not hold it with your hand. I had a board to split a chunk out I thought I would retrieve the split part. Big mistake. here is what happened.

This picture is after the stitches came out and they were still working on the finger. I was very lucky I did not lose the finger and real lucky that I can still use it. The bit almost took it all the way off, it broke the finger and wrapped it around the bit. lucky again I had hit the stop switch, I was in the shop by my self no one around to drive me the 2.5 hours to the hospital. I had to deal with this by my self, unwrap the broken and torn finger from the bit.

let this be a warning to all the newbies never ever go near that bit while it is spinning even if it is off. they are sharp and the force can break your bones.

[scottp55]

Eugene, OUCH!

[shilala]

Scotty, I store all my lumber in my shop, but I don't keep it heated all the time.
Most of my wood is up by the ceiling, so it stays pretty warm, but whenever I start a project I bring it all down to my work area and give it some time to warm up.
It's no biggie, because I have lots of work to do on the computer, and I keep the shop heated between maybe 50* and 70* the whole time I'm working.

Believe it or not, if you start a 3D file in warm lumber, then let it sit and get cold, then start carving it cold, you'll see the problems in the minute details where things get screwed up because of the tiny movement of the contracting/expanding grain.

Just try to keep your lumber the same temperature whenever you're tooling it. If it gets cold at night, that's not a problem, but make sure you warm it up before cutting.
That goes for your table, too. I'm not sure what you used for your table on your desktop, but on my BT48 I have a big slab of wood that will certainly contract and expand, causing the project to move ever so slightly.

This isn't a big deal if I'm just cutting little pieces of wood out of big pieces of wood, but if I'm cutting 3D models and using a 1/16" ballnose, it's a big deal. Mostly because it creates a lot of sanding and chiseling work.
This is one of those "live and learn" things, ya know?
Kinda like keeping your fingers out from under the skirt. I only had to do that once, and I didn't get bit nearly as good as Gene before I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore. :D

[mikeacg]

The one cool thing about living up here now is that I have a full basement which stays pretty warm and dry. But I still use my moisture meter!

Mike :cool:

[scottp55]

Morning Scott, haven't done any 3d yet so good to know. Never saw wood change longitudinally that much so it had to be the temp and screwing it down cold. Used to fine joinery tolerances which is why so much wood in the house, just not used to tabs, so threw this out for other newbies so it didn't happen to them. Doing peg storage for cribbage with a 3/8 ballend plunge and lying like a rug to my Desktop about what bit it is. Does Aspire show undercuts in previews?

[shilala]

Good morning to you, my friend.
Just a suggestion...
If you can't get around using cold wood, just make thicker and/or longer tabs. It's just as easy to cut and sand big tabs as it is to sand and cut big tabs. Maybe a few more seconds, but you know what I mean.

On the bit, if it's a ball end plunge and you're telling Aspire it's something else, it's not going to show your undercut. It'll show the profile of whatever bit you said it was.
You should be able to create the actual bit profile in the tool database under "Form Tools".
In my form tools are a roman ogee and a roundover bit. If that works, certainly a ball end would go in there, I'd think. You might want to make a post and ask the guys. I bet they know the specs and how to get it in there. Then it'll show you your undercut for sure!

[scottp55]

Hey Scott, no Aspire. Haven't tried to profile an undercut tool yet(just my roundovers), will do as it would help if I could see it in VCP. Anyone-Good moisture meter? Dad got one but it was junk and it seemed to be reading the wood density, but even then on the same piece of wood it varied up to 200% in the readings. Last one I had was prong type and very good,but it died. Are any of the prongless any good without spending an arm and a leg?