How To Use Lumber With Defects || Woodworking

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

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