Flattening a small door...

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nickds1

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We have a family piece of pre-WW2 Waring & Gillow furniture - a nice, small, dark wood faux-jacobean dresser.

The top small door is warped (see photos) - it's about 45cm wide x 30cm tall and maybe 15mm thick in the middle. The axis of the warp is horizontal and the max displacement is about 1cm. Consequently, the door won't close properly...

How can I flatten this again with destroying it or the patina/finish - I'm assuming steam, but have never done something like this.

Thanks
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You've beaten me to posting! I have exactly the same problem although mine is the door in the front of a grandfather clock that has warped in both axes. So I'll be following the discussion with interest. I hope our posts are common and I haven't hijacked yours.
Martin
 
You could try clamping it between battens with a bit of packing, to bend it the other way. But carefully and slowly over a week or more. Some pads to prevent marking. Heat might help - leave it near a CH radiator?
Otherwise leave it alone, it's an antique and looks not well constructed. Any repairs would be visible.
 
I take it that this is a solid piece of wood with moulding pinned to the front, To straighten it I would make about 3 vertical cuts in the back about 3/4 the depth of the back panel, and hammer and glue V profile strips into these to remove the curvature. The back can then be planed stained, and finished. You don't get to keep all the patina, but the newer looking surface will be hidden inside
 
Is the warp in the back panel a result of the thicker moulding being warped or the back panel itself.
The back panel. The moulding is warped too - it sat in my wife's parents farm kitchen for 20-30 years and frankly may have been warped even before then. Originally it came from my wife's grandmother in Cornwall...
 
We have a 3 dining table that combine to make one large table at work that has big leafs that folds down, one of the tables is left in front of a radiator when we don't need a big table. This leaf in front of the radiator started to get a big bow in it. We eventually worked out what was going on and that the radiator was drying out one side causing the bow, moving the table away from the radiator, eventually the leaf straightened out by itself.

I would try what Jacob suggested by clamping it, but I was wondering what if you turned the door around and placed it back in its frame to see if acclimatising the back (now the front) to your kitchen temperature/atmosphere and see if it will go back flat on its own.
 
Back when that was made most homes would not have had central heating so this time of year indoor humidity would have been higher and the temperature lower. I suspect this may be the cause of the distortion. It could also be like Jacob says to do with the construction adding to the problem. I have not had luck in shoehorning wood into doing what it does not want to do. Best bet is get it away from any direct heat source and see if it will stabilise on its own. Leaving the doors slightly open (plus drawers if its got them) will help having similar humidity on both sides of the wood. No guarantee this will work but it cant hurt either.
Regards
John
 
Thanks for the comments, however just to clarify: for the past 10 years this has been in the hall of our eco house, which we run quite cool - it's a really constant environment.There is no damp at all and no local heat source. As far back as I can remember (35 years) the door has always been warped and hasn't moved in that time, so I suspect as far as stabilisation is concerned, it's a done deal.

It may be that the wood was a bit green when the unit was made and had simply "settled" this way.

I'm moving towards embracing the curve and resetting the hinges to compensate.
 
If you live with it then fine, if not I'd machine up a couple of short lengths of oak and play around with some stains. You could fix these to the reverse to pull some of the bow out and possibly give them a second function such as supports for storage rack or pigeon holes of some type.

Colin
 
You have a radially sawn slab of wood, indicated by the visible medullary rays on both faces, to which has been attached mouldings to one face. The most likely scenario is that the slab would have been flat at the time of manufacture and there has been shrinkage across the width of the slab caused by moisture loss probably fairly soon after manufacture and installation in someone's residence. Normally, because the wood slab is quarter (radially) sawn it would be relatively stable during cross grain shrinkage and remain pretty flat without the visible cupping. The cupping is almost certainly caused by the two pieces of cross grain moulding applied to the show face.

During shrinkage the cross grain mouldings won't shrink with the slab beneath it so it has three options:
1. Remain firmly attached (glued, pinned, screwed[?]) and push at the mitred intersections where the long mouldings meet the cross grain mouldings. This would cause the meeting at the mitred point to become misaligned and perhaps result in a gap or a step(s).
2. The cross grain mouldings and/or the long edge mouldings lose their firm attachment, at least in part, again resulting in gaps or steps at places like the mitres and along the length of one or more mouldings.
3. The cross grain mouldings remain firmly attached as at 1 above but as the slab shrinks there is little or no effect at the corner mitres (misalignment), or gappiness, etc elsewhere, and because of differential shrinkage between the slab and the mouldings, i.e., the slab shrinks but the mouldings don't the slab has to cup convex on the show face and the mouldings curve with the cup.

There isn't a simple fix using moisture, steam, cramps, pressure, etc. The only fix is disassembly, flatten the slab and reattach the mouldings which will almost certainly mean shortening the length of the cross grain mouldings be a millimetre or two. It sounds fairly straightforward, and it is if you know what you're doing, but may also be relatively time consuming and almost certainly would involve at least some stripping of polish and refinishing to match. Add to that, fix may only be temporary because the slab beneath the mouldings may want to expand or contract again due to a change in the relative humidity range the piece of furniture experiences in the future.

Your option of "embracing the curve and resetting the hinges to compensate" might be your best choice, and depends upon the skills you have to draw upon. Slainte.
 
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Just came across a method in an old furniture restoration book I happened to pick up. Don't know if it's applicable to your door. It suggested gluing a veneer to the convex side. Make sure the veneer is quite damp. Then when the veneer dries it will shrink and tend to straighten the door. It goes on to mention that it's a bit hit and miss but could work. Possibly worth a try.
 
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