Cupped Butchers Block

[The Gent]

I have recently embarked on making an oak table with a butchers block style top. I have been gluing up smaller sections and then gluing those sections to make larger ones. I am left with 3 that are around 500mm x 300mm.

I brought two of them into the house and left them indoors for a couple of days, I looked at them today and saw that they had cupped quite badly. I didn't think that this would be possible as there are 64 parts to each of the 3 larger sections with the end grain to the top. So I thought (naively perhaps) that movement would be impossible.

This is the first time I have worked with oak, so please go easy on me if I have made a school boy error here. Have I cocked up big time with temperature differentials, and if so how can I work differently to stop this happening again? All wood has been stored in the workshop and I didn't keep it in the house before working on it after buying it.

Is there anything I can do to either correct / fix this. I don't have a drum sander.

Could I re-slice it, flatten it best I can with a belt sander and glue it up again?

Any ideas, I am not sure what to do apart from throw it into the street.



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[jasonB]

How were they stored when you bought them into the house? did both sides have equal air movement or were they laid on a flat surface.

J

 

[The Gent]

They were laid flat, I have read somewhere else that this could be corrected by giving each side equal airflow on each side.

I now have them laid on the end.

Any truth in this?

 

[Jacob]

They were laid flat, I have read somewhere else that this could be corrected by giving each side equal airflow on each side.

I now have them laid on the end.

Any truth in this?

Yes of course. If one side dries quicker than the other it'll bend. The trouble is that once it has bent it won't necessarily straighten out if you dry the other side, but that's your best bet - leave them for some time standing on edge.

 

[jasonB]

But don't lean them up against a wall. The other option would be to space then apart with sticks or battens then they could be stacked up flat

In future try to keep your stock of wood as near as possible house temp & humidity, at the very least bring it inside for a month or two before use if you can.

J

 

[monkeybiter]

Out of interest would it help to store them back outside for a few days, to re-moisturise, then bring them back in and dry them out more evenly?

 

[Jacob]

Out of interest would it help to store them back outside for a few days, to re-moisturise, then bring them back in and dry them out more evenly?

Doubt it somehow. These things aren't always directly reversible - the glue may have been hardening in the bent circumstances, frinstance