djonesax

I have a piece of padauk I am going to use for a speaker shelf. The peice is 1" x 15" and is almost perfectly flat. The shelf will be ROUGHLY 12" deep and 24" wide. I was intending on ripping it into 3 x 5" strips. Then joint, plane, straight line rip, joint other side, and glue back together altrernating the grain.

If the wood is not twisted or cupped, should I still follow that process or just run it though the thickness planer and be done with it?

David

cabinetman

Could you be more specific on the sizes? The piece should have three (3) dimensions... length, width, and thickness.

GeorgeC

Do you want to go to all of the work of ripping, jointing and gluing to give and interesting look to the shelf? I do not really understand your objective?

G

djonesax

5" wide, 24" long, 1" thick. I would glue these pack together to make a 12" deep by 24" wide shelf.



I am no doubt confused but still learning so bare with me. I was under the impression that for expansion and contraction reasons I should cut this into strips and reglue to keep it from warping over time. I must have asked a question along time ago that got me thinking that.


The 15"x24" piece is not PERFECTLY flat but close. It has a very very very small twist that the thickness planer could probably get out. Cant see it with the eye, just when you sit it on a flat surface.

I'm not going for any special design, I just wanted to do it right. What would you all do?

Daren

I personally would leave it whole. I have never had problems with wide board construction, and that is all I do. I have never and would never chop a nice slab of wood into little pieces just to glue it back together unless it was for some visual effect. I know some will say that is the only way to make a wide board stable...I'm gonna have to say BS to that.

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GeorgeC

I totally agree with Daren.

George

djonesax

I have been doing some reading and there seems to be a lot of debate against "rip and flip". Some people say rip at a 3" max and some say 12" max. If it does eventually cup, it will cost me $14 to fix.

Say it did have a twist that was unacceptable. I don't have a 12" jointer. Would you then rip, joint, plane and glue back together?

David

skymaster

If you are going to use shelf brackets to hold the shelf then the screws to hold the shelf to the brackets will pull it flat and hold it.
If the 15" width is too wide then I wood rip to the width you want, say 12, then take the 3" rip and attach that to the shelf like the backsplash of a countertop, fancy the edge a tad. Done IMHO dont bother to rip,etc, as Daren says use as one pc

frankp

I have to agree with everyone else and say don't bother ripping it at all. That piece of wood is very likely going to stay stable, from my experience with Paduak, and a little twist that can be removed with a planer should be removed with a planer and left alone after that. Just my 2 cents, but why add more work than necessary when you could be doing other projects instead?

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djonesax

I ended up leaving it whole. I have to say this is first time I have worked with padauk and besides the red dust, I really like working with this stuff. It cuts, planes, sands, and routes really well.

I'll post pictures later today. I am having some trouble with the lacquer. The last two inches from the edge is not drying. It’s been over 12 hours and it’s still not completely dry. There was some substance on the end of the board, wax maybe. I planed and sanded it, but I think there must have still been some on there that I couldn’t see. I wiped it all down with lacquer thinner before spraying too and didn’t notice any color differences. I think it will dry; it will just take a while.