Help with glueing needed

[woodfarmer]

Hi

I have been trying to prepare some timber for a project, essentially two glued up bowl blanks.
the wood is oak which I have had in my barn for over a year cut to length drying. Since Christmas I have had them in the house prior to gluing up a week or so ago. Whilst the glue (cascamite) has set, the wood has split in many places and I can't see a good way to save it. Why is this happening, sad thing is I doubt I will now be able to complete the project in time to enter it in the competition. This would have been my first entry.

Even the bit that wasn't glued has split. yest the grain pattern suggests it shouln't

 

[lurker]

Maybe the temperature and humidity difference between the barn and house was too great
Personally I would keep going and rough out whatever it is you plan to make and see what happens.
At worst you turn the splits into " design features" :wink:

 

[lurker]

Maybe the temperature and humidity difference between the barn and house was too great
Personally I would keep going and rough out whatever it is you plan to make and see what happens.
At worst you turn the splits into " design features" :wink:

 

[Mr T]

Was the wood green when you first stored it in the barn? Did you recut it before bringing it in (the ends look newly cut)? The section is quite thick and would take a long time to dry out properly. Recutting it would expose new ends which would be prone to splitting in a dry atmosphere.

Chris

 

[wobblycogs]

In my fairly limited experience oak is quite keen on checking (splitting radially) like this and there's not much you can do about it other than dry the timber slowly and cross your fingers. Those look to be fairly substantial bits of timber so air drying time from green would be substantial. I've read 50mm stock should be left for a year and that feels about right. I'd dribble clear epoxy into the cracks and say it was meant to look like that ;-)

 

[RobinBHM]

Oak is weak in shear, so perhaps not surprising. All timbers have their maximum shrinkage tangentially, so big section tend to check to release tension.

 

[woodfarmer]

The timber sections are 4" x4" 100mmx100 and 300 mm long. the ends were cut last summer from wood I bought "seasoned" the winter before. They wer quite happy in the house for about amonth, but when I glued them they all started to split. Perversly even the length I havent yet glued
I am surprise at this splitting becaus ethe drying timber doesn't seem to have anything topull on. Will finish it and then glue up the other stuff which again is about 4 or 5 inch square section and has been in the house for about 6 weeks.

will need to make something to joint the sides of that for gluing.