in woodworking there's no such thing as perfect
wood so you need to learn how to work with wood defects i'm travis this is how i do things and i'm
going to show you guys how to use terrible wood i went to home depot in search of the worst what
i could find to show you guys how to deal with the most common defects you might encounter obviously
it'd be so much easier just to buy good wood right sometimes inventory can be low and you
need to work with whatever wood you can find and then other times you might put good wood
on the shelf and it might not be good anymore some of the main types of wood defects
are knots cupped crooked bowed twisted split or checked be sure to stick around for the
entire video because i'm going to discuss all of these defects as well as how to prevent them and
then give you some techniques on how to use wood that already has these defects but before i go
into detail about all the possible wood defects i want to quickly discuss wood storage if you bought
some nice straight wood and you want to keep it that way it's best to store it in a way that
allows it to dry slowly and evenly wood is like a sponge and it naturally wants to try to match
the environment that it's in so if at all possible try to set your humidity in your shop to be
similar to wherever your final product will be that way maybe your project won't change quite
as much when you move it from your shop to inside your home you should always let any wood that you
buy acclimate your shop's humidity for at least a couple of days before working with it as you
can tell by a sweat on my face my shop has zero climate control so i actually move my wood inside
of my home to acclimate for a few days before working with it i would also recommend picking
up a moisture meter like this one right here i put a link to this one in the video description
to use this moisture meter you simply place it on the board you're about to use and ideally for
woodworking you want to see between six and ten percent and you can see why i say ideally you
kind of need to work with what you got my shop has no climate control and this board still was below
six percent so you kind of never know exactly what you're going to get until you test it but you also
kind of need to work with what you have the first type of defect i want to talk about is a knot it's
a totally natural defect and it's where a tree branch used to grow from some knots are tight and
it can be left alone but then some knots are loose and they need to be addressed or they may fall out
later because a knot is a totally natural defect you pretty much can't prevent it but if you have
a project that requires not free wood you're just going to have to be very selective when picking
your wood but if you do have a board that has knots in it there are a few different ways you
can deal with it you can try to design around the knot by cutting shorter pieces out of the wood
that will allow you to cut the knots completely out if it's a tight knot and you like the look you
could do nothing not to add lots of character if you have a loose knot but you want to keep it you
could stabilize it my go-to method for doing this is with ca glue you can get in clear black brown
and keeps the knot without having to worry about it falling out later i don't use a lot of epoxy
but you could also use that to stabilize a knot when a board looks like this that defect is
called cupped basically cupped means that one of the faces of the board is hollowed out to prevent
this you could go to a sawmill and try to request quarter sawn boards most boards will have an end
grain kind of like this that's from the sawmill cutting up the log like this this is the easiest
way for the sawmill to quickly process that log but it leads to kind of an unstable board and
will eventually cup quarter sawn wood is when the boards are cut out of the log like this
and the end grain typically looks a lot like this and the finished product is a board that's
way more predictable and far less likely to cup but quarter sawn boards can be expensive and
hard to find you could also try to buy wider boards that have more quarter sawn sections on the
ends then you cut out the part in the middle that is more likely to warp you can flatten the board
with a planer but if you do plain both sides you open up the grain of the wood on both faces if you
open up the grain on just one side it could cup again also try to use your newly flattened board
immediately after planing it that way all the other joints and boards in your project will help
keep it flat also when you're finishing your final project be sure to apply that finish to both sides
that will help prevent one side from absorbing more moisture than the other this board has a very
exaggerated crook in it a crook is when the board is warped along one of its edges your best bet is
to not even buy boards like this and try to buy straight boards and when you buy those straight
boards be sure to store them the way i showed you earlier but if you need to use a board like this i
would recommend trying to use it in shorter pieces to reduce the amount of overall crook in your
work piece and you're still going to want to put a straight edge on that board before you use
it but now that the board is so short it has very little crook in it and will waste very little
material you can put a straight edge on this board by temporarily screwing or gluing a straight board
to it or you could use a jig like this to hold the board so you can cut a straight edge with your
table saw by the way i have plans for this jig on my website and then use your new straight
edge as a reference for your second edge now that you've straightened both edges of this board
you should be able to use it but you want to use it right away or it may crook again a bowed board
is one that is warped in the face like this this board was probably stored in a way that caused it
to dry faster in one side which shows why it's so critical to make sure your boards dry evenly on
all sides once again you can try to use this board in smaller pieces to minimize the difficulty of
working with bowed wood and you might be able to design your project to use a board like this by
attaching it to another board to pull it straight and lastly you could use a thickness planer and
a planar sled to make board flat again the idea is to fully support the board on your planer sled
and then run it through the planer to give you one perfectly flat side and then take the board off
the planer sled and run the other side through the planer to make it parallel to the flattened
side and this is an example of a twisted board a twisted board is a board that is worked
around the center axis of the board the best way to prevent having to work with
a fisted board is to obviously not buy a twisted board buy a straight one and then
store and dry your straight board properly you guys sensitive theme yet i'm gonna sound a
little bit like a broken record here but it's best to cut a twisted board in smaller pieces
if possible to minimize the effect of the twist and if you have good straight boards be
sure to save those for your longer cuts and once you've minimized the twist by cutting the
board shorter go ahead and bust out that thickness planer and that planar sled again and then make
it flat just like we did the bowed board earlier well as you all know from earlier in the video as
moisture levels change in a board it will expand and contract expanding and contracting can cause
your board to split like this one right here a split is when there's a crack in the board
that goes all the way through and if you want to try to prevent this on the wood you're storing
try to keep your area at a relatively consistent humidity level if you want to try to prevent this
on a finished project make sure you finish all of the size to keep a constant level of moisture
on all sides of the boards it's also important to understand the way that wood grows and
contracts so when you build your project it won't tear itself apart a good example of this is when
you're building a table with breadboard ends the breadboard ends will be growing and contracting
at a different rate than the rest of the table if the wood you've selected for your project has a
split in it it can be dealt with similar to a knot if possible try to figure out a way to design
around the split and cut it off completely you could also try to repair the split with wood
glue and clamps and if the project you're working on is more rustic or painted you could just
stabilize the split with ca glue or epoxy but i would only recommend that if the split doesn't go
all the way to one of the ends but if your crack does go all the way to an end it's best to either
cut it off or stabilize it with some sort of more mechanical method like bow ties and then fill with
epoxy so these are just my opinions on how to deal with terrible wood you may have your own opinions
but in the end what is natural and it's going to move it's going to have defects but if you know of
any defects that i might have missed or you have other ways you like to deal with them please
drop that in the comments below wow you made it through my entire video congratulations seeing
how you liked it so much go ahead and hit the like button and subscribe and watch another cool video
up here and i'll see you guys in the next one
