Wood splitting really bad overnight?

[JINRO]

So I made a block of wood craft yesterday at garage worshop, brought it in home for stain, let it dry overnight. This morning I found my wood block with tons... and tons of cracks and splits all over.

I live in NY and it has been pretty cold last few days.  I do all of cutting, glueing at garage workshop. Staining and finishing at my home office inside.

Only reasone for my wood to go bad so quickly is mosisture difference, but can it make wood fgo bad this quick? Outside humidity is around 35%, inside is around 20%.

Can anyone help me out how to reduce this rapid cracking issue? Does temperature also take much part in this? What's the best/quickest solution to stabilize wood?

 

[squall_line]

That amount of splitting may be possible from the change in humidity levels between the workshop and the house, but I would think that it would only be that much of a problem if the wood wasn't actually dry yet.

What was the source of the wood?  Lumber mill?  Box Store?

Do you have a moisture meter available to know what the moisture content is/was?

Also, 20% RH indoors is awfully dry.  30-50% is considered "acceptable"; I don't think even my old, leaky house with a furnace that doesn't seem to want to stop most of the time will get that dry.  We have a few house plants, but not many, and I think it hovers around 40% this time of year in Iowa.

 

[JINRO]

That amount of splitting may be possible from the change in humidity levels between the workshop and the house, but I would think that it would only be that much of a problem if the wood wasn't actually dry yet.

What was the source of the wood?  Lumber mill?  Box Store?

Yes, I think the quick humidity change effected this the most...
The wood I'm using is Douglas Fir from HD.

So I should check with moisture meter and use 100% dry wood for my project, correct?

 

[ChuckM]

Use wood that has been acclimatized to your house/shop where you plan the wood to be used, not 100% dry wood.

There's a little booklet here you can download to give you some basic idea:https://www.9wood.com/blog/acclimatization-stability/

If you Google, you can find many other resources on the topic. Be warned that despite everything you do properly, wood can still behave badly.

 

[JINRO]

There's a little booklet here you can download to give you some basic idea:https://www.9wood.com/blog/acclimatization-stability/

Thanks so much! Ill look into this! Also ordered moisture meter

 

[Michael Kellough]

You have visible evidence that the wood wasn't dry. Also, looks like it dried further after gluing. The checks are mostly around the perimeter of the assembly.

Even if the stick is stamped "kiln dried" just having been at Home Depot (in a more climate controlled environment than your garage) means the moisture content is higher than in your shop, and it will dry further, especially at freshly cut ends.

A rule of thumb is to let stock aclimatize in the shop for a week or two (longer the thicker) before cutting.

Recently I was working with some reclaimed sticks of 4x5 white oak. It's over a century old and had been under dry shelter outdoors (at M.Fein in Brooklyn) for months. I don't know where it was before that. I expected wood that had been through that many seasons would be very stable but wherever I made a crosscut the wood checked. Not as bad as your doug fir but it surprised me.

 

[JINRO]

A rule of thumb is to let stock aclimatize in the shop for a week or two (longer the thicker) before cutting.

This might also have been an issue since the one I used was cut, glued, drilled right after purchasing from HD.
I guess acclimatizing it in my garage for 1-2 weeks will help!

But I'm afraid it will crack again if I bring it home for staining and finishing... I guess it's best to do it outside with similar climate?

 

[Cheese]

This might also have been an issue since the one I used was cut, glued, drilled right after purchasing from HD.
I guess acclimatizing it in my garage for 1-2 weeks will help!

But I'm afraid it will crack again if I bring it home for staining and finishing... I guess it's best to do it outside with similar climate?

Where is this piece going to eventually reside and spend the rest of its life? That's the place the wood should be acclimatized to.

Home Depot is famous for wet construction lumber. Once acclimatized, this may not be as much of an issue for you.

 

[JINRO]

Where is this piece going to eventually reside and spend the rest of its life? That's the place the wood should be acclimatized to.

This will be used for inside home use. So is it wise to store wood inside home environment and take it out to garage workshop when needed, bringing it back home for stain and finishing?

 

[ChuckM]

Where is this piece going to eventually reside and spend the rest of its life? That's the place the wood should be acclimatized to.

This will be used for inside home use. So is it wise to store wood inside home environment and take it out to garage workshop when needed, bringing it back home for stain and finishing?

Is there a huge humidity difference between your shop and home? If not, there's no need to do so. I have wood in the shop (garage) as well as in the basement, and I usually do the acclimatization in the shop (meaning woods from the basement sit in the shop for a while first), because that's where wood is cut and spends most of the time until done.

I usually let lumber stay in the shop for several weeks or months (because I have too many other things to take care of). The bottom stack of oak sat in my shop for a decade (not by design) before I eventually used them to make a set of chairs.

[attachimg=1]

 

[Cheese]

This will be used for inside home use. So is it wise to store wood inside home environment and take it out to garage workshop when needed, bringing it back home for stain and finishing?

That's the path I would take. When I install a floor, the wood is placed in the exact room for 7-10 days and then the pieces are cut, machined and installed.  Sometimes the floor is inside the house & sometimes the floor is outside. [smile]

 

[Michael Kellough]

If the checks are unacceptable you have to start over, which is a shame because you found some nice tight grained D fir.

If you start over, rough cut the stock so you leave about 4 inches beyond each end. That way the checks should stop before they get to the part you plan to use. If the stock isn't long enough coat the cut ends with paraffin to slow the drying. Then set the stock aside to dry, leaving space for air circulation around all sides. Use stickers to keep the boards apart if you have to stack. Standing up is fine unless you have heat in the garage. In that case the top of a standing board will dry faster than the bottom.

I still get confused when trying to figure out how humidity outside vs. indoors correlates with actual moisture content. A meter should help. Outdoors in winter on a snowy or wet day the relative humidity can be in the 90's but the wood in the garage shop might still be too dry (actual moisture content) to bring indoors? That is, just because the air can't hold any more moisture doesn't mean there is actually much moisture in the air (to get into the wood) when the temperature is very low.

 

[JINRO]

Thanks for the advise all! I ended up placing crafted/stained wood inside my office room with humidifier set to 40%. Fingers crossed all goes well until I check it again tomorrow morning!

Only thing I'm concerned now is temperature is bit warmer, about 20 degrees.  I hope wood cracking is not much influenced by temperature.

 

[smorgasbord]

Lots of people run into wood moisture problems. Here's a pretty spectacular failure:

Might be worth investing in a wood moisture meter if you don't already have one.