Baby High Chair - go easy i'm a newbie

[furyjohn]

Evening all. Some of you may have seen my original posts asking for help on selecting the type of Hardwood to use for my Baby High Chair project. following all the advice I had settled upon White Beech - however the thinnest boards I could get were 2" and i need 1" - with no way to resaw I settled for the Steamed Beech of which there were loads of 1" boards. I now have the boards in the shed, but i'm wondering :-

Do i need to bring them into the house to let them acclimatise ?
If so, how long for ?
Do i need to leave the boards 'whole' for this process or can i rough-cut my parts and acclimatise them ?

The boards i have are 3 off 1"x4"x8 ft and 2 off 1"x6"x8 ft.

Also, anyone know where i can get hold of the straps needed for the high chair ?

I'll post some pictures of the boards once Bambino is fed, watered and in bed and the FPO (Fun Prevention Officer) is out of the way !

FJ

 

[oddsocks]

FJ
If it were me .....

• 
  If the boards are flat(ish) i would skim plane to remove any saw marks.
  I would would cut to the sizes required (allowing a little for final trimming)
  bring indoors for 3-4 weeks (in stick with all round air flow)
  cut to within 2 mm of finshed thickness
  take indoors for another week
  then make it - bring the pieces indoors each night

If you keep the boards whole as they dry they may cup more. Plus it would take longer - the closer your finished surface is to the air at the start, the quicker the acclimatisation.

Re the straps - try a wanted post on freecycle.

Dave[/list]

 

[MikeG.]

FJ,

Dave has that about spot on......

All I would add is that if you are a weekend wooworker, rough it out one weekend, have a couple of weekends off with the wood stacked inside, then carry on 'til you've finished (just bring the bits into the house each Sunday evening), and you won't go far wrong.

Mike

 

[SVB]

FJ,

Good advice re the timber above.

Re the straps, three ideas come to mind:

Option 1 - Could you buy a set of reigns from Mothercare etc and then cut, fold and screw the ends to the place on the chair? That way the tricky bit of sewing the clips on etc is done for you and the lengths are child sized to begin with.

Option 2 - the webbing used for highchairs is often sold by the meter in marine chandlerys as it is used on boats as sail ties etc.

Option 3 - fix a couple of eyes on the back of the chair and get a couple of good, strong bungie straps!

BRgds

Simon.

PS - scrap option 3, not sure about corrosive properties of wetabix on bungie rubber. :shock:

 

[JonnyD]

As a pro woodworker there is usually no time to acclimatise timber in the ways discussed above except for special one off jobs. If the timber being used is kiln dried and the project properly designed to accomadate wood movement there should be no problems. Timber is more likely to move due to changes in humidity rather than temperature. I have a dehumidifier near where i store my timber which helps. Having said this it wont harm to keep the timber inside but not in my opinion entirey necessary.

Jon

 

[furyjohn]

Thanks for the tips guys. Waiting the 3-4 weeks is going to require a SERIOUS amount of patience - i just hope i can wait ! ! Oh well, my dad wants a side-gate making for the house, not very big maybe about 2.5ftx6ft - maybe i'll look into doing that.

SVB - i like the idea of the cannibalised reigns - i'll investigate.

I'll update as work progresses.

FJ

 

[oddsocks]

Re Jon's post - I have a dehumidifer in the house (excellent for drying washing on an airer!) and have that on it the room when I store timber indoors. Most of my wood comes from Ickworth house (national Trust) and is only partially air dried and then kept in a cold garage so at best is 16-18% moisture content, so out of habit I use the full 4 weeks.

If the timber is drier then the time is shorter - you could include an offcut and weigh it every few days - if its not losing weight then it is probably dry enough

 

[joiner_sim]

Continuing from Jon's post.... If the timber's kiln dried, and your project is designed to allow movement, I agree no need to wait around to acclimatise the timber. Once again, doing this as a trade its unviable to be waiting around for timber to acclimatise.

 

[furyjohn]

Being a novice and also having bought the plans for the chair from the t'internet, i have no choice in the design...well If i knew as much as you guys it may be possible to mod the design to allow for movement but i have no idea what those mods would be.

As it stands i'm prety sure that the design will not allow for movement since all joints are butt with dowel//screw/both. Must admit, i would have preferred M&Ts but i've got what i've got.

Other commitments means i haven't managed to rough cut the pieces yet so the counter hasn't even started...looks like i'm in for a long wait

FJ

 

[Out int shed]

Hello all

Furyjohn, in my experience with steamed beech, it does have a tendency to split at the end of the boards while acclimatising. With that in mind, I would advise that you don't rough cut your pieces until the timber is conditioned to its new home. If you do cut before acclimatising the board might split and that split may run down the board you have rough cut and ruin the piece.

 

[furyjohn]

Ahhh. Errrrm...guess i'll just have to cross my fingers and hope for the best - I just finished cutting it this evening ! ! !.

It's still all a bit oversized so maybe i'll leave it that way until it has been acclimatised. I haven't posted any pictures yet as I haven't had chance to work out how to do it.

I'm surprised no one else picked-up on this OutintShed- is it possible that you had a 'bad lot' of boards or have you seen this quite a bit ! ?

FJ

 

[TrimTheKing]

Hi FJ

Good to meet you at Dan's the other day. If you need any help with any cutting, resawing or anything else just gove me a shout. You are only 20 mins from me so happy for you to come round and use my workshop if you need to.

And if I can offer any help from my own limited experiences then I'm happy to.

Cheers

Mark

 

[furyjohn]

Hey Trim, yeah it was a really good day and good to meet everyone. Thanks for the offer too, I've just been on the PM with Jed and we're both very eager to check out your under-floor heating in the workshop !

At the minute i can't think of any problems that i'm gonna have but i JUST KNOW that i WILL have some - just don't know what they are yet so just keep an eye out.

Cheers

FJ

 

[TrimTheKing]

Haha, no probs mate, we'll sort something out. And don't mention the bluddy heating, I think i've got a leak!!!!! :shock:

Anyone know how to pressure test a system to see if you have a leak? I seem to be losing water pressure steadily over the course of a couple of months down to 0 bar. Can't find anywhere that's wet though, so don't know where it could be coming out if it is....

Mark