Preventing wood from warping after purchase...

[The McGinnis's]

Sorry to ask such a newbie question... but I'm a newbie!

I have recently starting woodworking and am more commonly working with natural birch. I am purchasing birch in 9in wide (or so) by 3/4in thick by

8foot lengths, but they always have some amount of moisture in them and as they dry in my garage (Southern California) they tend to warp. Any ideas on how to prevent this?

Also once the wood is warped, is there any way to straighten it out again?

Thanks

Russell McGinnis

[George]

on down to lumber drying, storage....

R Bruce Hoadley _ Understanding Wood _ is the second-best piece of reading material to put on your nightstand.

[B a r r y B u r k e J r .]

Buy it oversize, mill it to slightly oversize, let it rest for a day or two, then mill it to final size.

With a jointer and planer, or hand planes. However, if the wood is purchased at final thickness, you have nothing to remove, so you're kind of out of luck. Cutting the board to slightly wider and longer than the final size before flattening will require you to remove less thickness.

Barry

[A Dubya]

Hey Russel,

What method of storage are you using? Maybe stickering it during storage will help prevent some loss.

Might want to check out a few ww shops in your area, and see how they deal with wood storage, with regards to local climate ( humidity/temp) conditions.

Cheers,

Andy

[RB]