Sapele twist

[Saddleworthian]

I’m cutting 300x75x9 mm panels from a squared block of Sapele.
Some of the panels come of the bench saw with a huge twist/warp, whilst others cut perfectly square.

can anyone advise?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I cut some African mahogany of some sort a long while ago, about 9' x 10" x 3", into two. One side I could have used as a straight edge, the other both bowed and twisted. It's the nature of these trees, the grain is spiral and pulls some parts more so than others. Yours is very thin, which accentuates the problem.

 

[Adam W.]

Reversing grain is the culprit, I would imagine.

 

[johnnyb]

it's freeing small stuff from big chunks. sapele isn't super stable but even highly stable stuff will move when resawing and sometimes will have corrected itself in a few days! just saw it bigger allow it to settle for a few days then plane flat. often the big chunk stays flat and the thinner off cut goes like a twiglet!

 

[johnnyb]

ps even mdf can do this on a panel saw( it springs into a bow.