warped wood

[Sam]

Hello,

Last weekend I decided to do some DIY, only I had not planned ahead and I needed some 3x2. Being the weekend, the timber merchants were closed so I went to Wickes. Some of the wood had been smashed in transit/damaged by the in store forklift or some other carelessness, and what few pieces remained in one piece were split or warped. I walked out in disgust and went to B&Q. Sadly the wood there was not much better so I walked out of there empty handed too.

I went to the timber merchant yesterday and got some pristine 2.4m lengths of timber. I also bought some 3m lengths but when I got them home, I noticed that these were slightly warped. I am hoping they might exchange them next week.

Am I being too fussy? Is it impossible to get straight wood? Surely if you buy planed wood, it should not be necessary to have to plane it a second time when you get home! I bought rough sawn but I would still expect it to be straight.

Am I being unrealistic? Is it impossible to get long lengths that are not warped? Is the idea that slight warping can be rectified when you fix the wood?

Thanks.

[meow2222]

It all about competition on price. Whether you can actually use the goods seems to be secondary.

Wickes usually have a mix of good & bad you can sort thru, but when theres not much of a size left, forget it.

NT

[Andy Dingley]

You bought construction-grade softwood from a builders' merchant. Warping is normal.

If you want something better, go to a real timber merchant (which isn't easy to find) and buy a better species. Spruce or Douglas fir, maybe being sold as generic "redwood" or "red deal" is likely to be better than "whitewood".

[ALex]

What is much better to buy is regularised timber,it is available tanalised or not, really depends on what you are using it for. Used extensively for stud work and framing 70 x 44

[dom]

Truly *perfectly* straight 3m lengths of any timber will be uncommon. Most of the time it doesn't need to be. Stuff like door stiles need to be, and in that case you either select timber very carefully or take out what twist remains in your workshop.

You don't say what timber it was. Spruce or pine? PAR redwood pine from a good timber merchants, some of it will be as straight as the eye can tell, although if you lay timbers together you may still spot slight differences. Ultimately you have to plane them together if you want perfection.

As other have said, most spruce is intended for construction not joinery. If you need well matched timber for a particular reason, you sort through them. If you're a regular customer at a timber merchants, it's usually not a problem to say "Can I sort through what you have? I need some very straight lengths"