Warped Wood Countertop Repair
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- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- In the second part of this dry bar build series, I showed how we made the dry bar countertop out of a single slab of pecan. But due to a few factors, the slab ended up warping (cupped) after only a few weeks and caused damage to the carcass as well. In this video, I explain what I think are the contributing factors causing the slab to cup, how I could have done things differently to prevent the slab from cupping, and I show how I resolved the issue and repaired/rehabbed both the slab and the carcass. (UPDATE: 5 months later and it is still flat!)
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS:
- With a large slab, there is inevitably a higher moisture level in the center than there is at the edges. This is something I should have accounted for in my process of working with the slab.
- I only had the slab planed on one side. This results in fresh wood being exposed on only one side of the slab, and moisture from the center of the slab will leave from that side only, causing more wood fibers to shrink on that side of the slab as that moisture leaves the wood. Therefore, that side of the slab will constrict while the other side mostly stays the same. This causes a slab to cup towards the planed side. If the slab had been planed the same amount on both sides, it wouldn't have cupped as bad (though there might have still been some movement due to the next reason).
- After a slab of wood has been cut and dried in a particular geometry for an extended period of time, tension is created in the wood as the wood fibers dry in a specific configuration. That tension in the wood reaches a state of equilibrium due to the wood being held in the same position for a very long time (slab was stickered and stacked with thousands of pounds of other wood on top of it). The moment that the geometry of the slab is changed though (by trimming length/width or by planning), then some of that tension will be released and the slab will begin to move or warp.
- When I brought the slab home from being planed, I left the slab flat on the ground. This prevents moisture content from leaving the slab on the side that is in contact with the ground, which causes the wood fibers to dry/constricts unevenly on both sides of the slab. This, in combination with the second bullet above, gave the slab almost zero chance of not staying flat.
- I kept the slab in my shop until it was time to finally move it into the house. The environment in my shop was significantly different that the environment in my house - at this particular time of the year, it was much colder in the shop and more humid, whereas the house was warmer and drier. It would have been helpful to leave the slab in the house for a few weeks before I decided to finish it to see if it moved any. And if it did, I could have had it re-planed prior to finishing it.
- As you can see, there's a pattern so far of not treating the two sides equally. The last item that follows this pattern is that I only sealed one side of the slab. This means that one side has moisture entering and leaving the slab more efficiently than the other side. Therefore, the fibers and cells of unsealed side will tend to swell and shrink at different rates than the sealed side, causing movement in the wood.
TECHNIQUES USED FOR THE REPAIR:
- Reinforced the carcass with steel angles on all the edges where the top and the sides meet
- Rewetted the convex side of the slab and clamped it in an attempt to counter the cupping that occurred
- Routed channels in the bottom of the slab and anchored 14 gauge steel strut into the bottom of the slab to help hold it flat
- Refinished the entire slab with Rubio Monocoat. This finish was excellent at being used a second time on the same surface after re-sanding the slab with 150 grit sand paper again.
- (BONUS!) Accidently drilled all the way through the slab when adding the steel strut, so used wood shavings and wood glue to try and hide the holes through the top of the slab
ITEMS OR PRODUCTS FEATURED IN THIS VIDEO:
- Slotted Offset Angle Iron: thd.co/3tmN7DF
- Black Steel Strut: bit.ly/3jMN9RQ
- Rubio Monocoat (pure): bit.ly/RubMnoct
- Threaded Nutserts (not exactly these, but close. You can find these at your local home improvement store.): bit.ly/nutsert
VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 Introduction
0:54 Plan to Repair the Slab
2:30 Plan to Repair the Carcass
3:43 Mistakes Were Made
5:52 Rewetting the Slab
7:10 Repairing the Carcass
8:53 Reinforcing the Slab with Steel Strut
12:35 Fixing More Mistakes...
14:22 Finishing the Wood Slab...Part 2
15:16 Final Shots
15:35 Summary of Repair Results
17:58 But Wait! There's More!
Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/bring-... License code: GTTG8QOIQ1FLRCUR 
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Talk about a pain in the butt way to learn your lesson. We’ve all done something dumb or lazy and paid for it later. Kudos to posting your mistake
Thanks for the watch! I figured sometimes it's best to learn what not to do before doing something.
Thanks for the great guidance and advice, you have motivated me to repair the Straight Butcher Block Birch Countertop that I purchased. I treated it with numerous coats of butcher block oil but still warped about as much as your top. I am no inspired to try and salvage that top. Thanks again, great video.
Thanks for sharing! That's the entire mission of this channel, to inspire and motivate, so there's really not a better comment I could receive. Thank you and good luck!
Your videos are very good. I wish you all the success here.
I really appreciate that! Especially from someone with over 12k subscribers and 2M+ views. Time has been a struggle, but I still really enjoy it!
You should seal the slab with finish on both sides in the same day.
That's right. I didn't really discuss the finishing part, but definitely goes hand-in-hand with what I had mentioned around 3:48 about only planning one side as well. If I would have planned both sides and sealed both sides, that would have helped.
I'm convinced the tension bound up in this slab probably still would have resulted in some cupping just due to the removal of material from where it found equilibrium during curing. I did find out from where I got the slab that someone else who bought another slab from the same tree, and just a few slab thicknesses from this one, had a similar experience. So I'm thinking this section of the tree just wasn't very stable.
Good work man. All the things done wrong is the way I do things. Lol.
One thing you might have doe is seal the bottom of the slab so no more moisture gets away.
Good show.
Yeah I agree. I think this could have been the biggest in terms of helping prevent it. Lessons learned! 😉 Thanks for the watch!
Great Job. I would have added .25"x2" blk angled iron as a support frame. Next try filling the holes with the dowel rods made from scrap of the counter top. Beautiful job...Thank you for sharing. I love that finish...
That's a good idea on filling in the holes. I actually have some plug cutters and didn't even think to try that. I'll keep that in mind for the next time (when Murphy inevitably strikes again...)
I had the same warp issues on my current desk I’m building, fixed it almost the same way. I used Timber mate grain filler to accent the desk, and while it was somewhat wet I clamped the desk down and next day nice and flat.
Also you should finish the bottom side too with the Rubio, so the bottom side is protected too.
Thanks for the info. Misery loves company! 😉 Yeah, I forgot to mention that in the video when I talked about planning both sides. But yeah, finishing both sides would help with evening out moisture moving in and out of the slab.
Thanks for the watch.
I appreciate all the mistakes made. Tells me your human just like me.. lol
I make so many mistakes compared
To most RUclipsrs and their perfect builds!!
Good job
Thanks! I really appreciate this comment. Any time I feel like I have a mistake that someone else can learn from I like to include it.
Saw the Aggie ring, gigem Aggies, my ring no longer fits, your fingers get fat as you get old, you will discover that. MJ Neeley was a good friend of mine and his ring was smooth as glass. He was the class of 1922. Anyway enjoyed your video. I'm actually doing work on a law table that is from 1900 and it is as warped as hell, thanks to a fire we had in 1976. I will try out your method to get the boards straight. Thanks and good luck with your channel. My channel is some wood shop stuff but I can't resist politics so my shows gets canceled allot.
Gig em! I enjoy it when I have someone comment that's a fellow Aggie and recognizes the ring. Hopefully you can get those boards straightened out. Nice thing is it sounds like they're old and dry enough that the residual moisture isn't an issue, but hopefully they'll stay and not split out check after you attempt to straighten them. Good luck with your channel as well. Took a quick look and I'm hoping I can get to do some lathe work in the near future. I actually have a lathe but haven't used it in the year I've owned it other than just to try it out.
Impressive that you were able to flatten the slab so well. I've seen people rip the board in half longitudinally, joint each face, and glue it back together. Doesn't seem optimal. Some longitudinal slits cut on the backside with a circular saw might release some tension, but you would have had to cut a lot of them to avoid making new places for cracks to form. Your technique seems better if it works in the long term.
I had considered both of those other techniques, but figured since they're both a little more "intrusive", I could always try one of those if this way didn't work. But so far, so good! No cracks or movement that I've seen yet.
I bought some used maple workbench tops from a school shop. They were kept flat by tenons made of angle iron that were let into mortises on the endgrain sides. Wood does not change in length and only changes in width. The center lag bolt was tightly secured from the bottom through the tenon. But the holes for other lag bolts were elongated to allow for the wood to expand and contract with changes in moisture. The same technique is used when making a breadboard. It can also be used when attaching struts on the underside and perpendicular to the grain or attaching a center brace when building a picnic table..
I thought about doing what you're talking about. Widening or elongating the holes other than the center one. I didn't do it in this case, and so far no issues. But this makes total sense and is probably worth doing just in case.
@@MadeByChance A friend of mine built a large conference table and didn't elongate the holes. Within weeks the table split from the expansion that took place between the screws.
Brave move to cut out another bunch of material from that slab after you’d flattened it..!!! I expect that would have set in motion more movement, makes you realise why tradesmen prefer engineered timber with veneers, !!! And also just how much force expanding/ contracting hardwood can exert..💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻
I had thought about that too, but figured I wasn't cutting a whole lot, just a little on the edges. But the thin pieces I did cut off, I could definitely watch bend away from the slab as the cut progressed. So there was definitely some tension that I released that could have contributed to the movement.
Great video, I have the same problem with two worktops I've bolted together to make an island top, it looked perfect for a few weeks then both started to cup upwards at one end more than the other (same ends of both pieces weirdly) and the once invisible join between them is a canyon in comparison.
Looking back perhaps I didn't store them correctly, just flat on top of each other on the floor with no battens, however they were wrapped in celophane/shrink (as came from a worktop company) so perhaps it was just wrong time of the year when I unwrapped and installed.
Anyway, I'm going to flip them over at some point and see if the bottom will dry out and balance with the top, however I'm curious as to why you wetted the bottom of yours rather than top, is it because the top was already oiled/sealed?
Thanks
Thanks for the comment, Chris! Yeah I didn't wet the finished side just because it was finished and the water wouldn't soak into the grain on that side. I originally didn't think I would need to refinish that side, so I only wetted the bottom. If it wasn't finished, or if I would have foreseen I would have needed to finish it all again, I would have just sanded it down to begin with and wetted it too.
Good luck on your repair! I don't know the details obviously, but if they cupped on the same ends, it could be that they're two pieces from the same tree cut around the same location. And it could be that's just naturally how and boards from that tree, and that area is the tree, want to be as they dry due to the grain and tension in them.
@@MadeByChance Thanks for the quick reply, same deal here then, I oiled the top a few times after installing and didn't bother oiling the underside at the same time (rookie mistake it seems) so I guess all the moisture has gone with gravity and expanded the bottom to give me this lovely cupping effect... All the best and hello from the U.K!
Nice detail and succinctly described. I’m looking to “de-warp” a maple farm style kitchen table. After getting the finish off both sides, do the wet T shirts get applied to one or both sides? And wondering if the maple, being such a dense hard wood, will absorb enough moisture to do the job. Keep the vids coming.
Thank you for the watch and the support!
If you can figure out how to get damp clothes on both sides, I would recommend that. It would reason that you'll be able to get more moisture into the slab that way and better prevent any splitting, plus get more of the cells of the woods to rehydrate and find a new normal when you clamp it, which will help it be more stable in the long run. Since you stripped the finish off both sides, that should be a good path.
That said, if you can only wet one side, it should be the side that is concave. This is because the fibrous cells on the concave side are already compressed and dried like that. So if you were to try and stretch those cells out, they have a greater chance of ripping and causing splits in the slab. Rehydrating them will help prevent this. Whereas on the convex side, the cells are stretched out. So when you reflatten the slab, those cells will be compressed which is less likely to result in the cells tearing and causing splits.
Thanks..makes sense. Planning on using saw horses so will need to figure out a way to keep moist fabric on underside. Periodic spray bottle use maybe, tho equal amount of saturation would be preferable.
@@jaimslaw There you go! Yeah if you can get to the underside, using a spray bottle for the first few days before allowing it to dry might work.
Good luck with it! Feel free to let me know how it goes!
I would say sealing the top and not the not side at the same time! Allowed all of the moisture to come in in the bottom side ! From my 30 years experience! But also been there an done that!
Yup. Mistakes were made. Should have sealed both sides for sure.
6:00 - not sure I understand the thinking in wetting the convex side. When you wet the side, wouldn't the moisture cause that side to expand even more causing it to crown even more? I don't have experience in this, but I would have thought that it would make more sense to just heat the convex side to try to pull more moisture from that side and then trying to clamp the board flat as the convex side is being dried out (moisture being pulled out).
I went a little more into this detail in another comment as well, but you're right. If you can wet the concave side, that would be preferred. In my case, the concave side was the finished side though, so I would not be able to get that side to absorb moisture without stripping the finish on that side first, and I was initially trying to prevent myself from having to refinish it. So I wet the convex side since that was all that was available in an attempt to just get moisture into the wood and prevent it from cracking when trying to reclamp it flat.
Just had pecan planks joined for a bathroom counter by a friend. The boards were already cupping like pecan likes to do, but were joined and planed. Now the whole counter is one big cup. My immediate thought was i’ll just add angle iron underneath in places that wont interfere w drawers, etc, and mount it to the wall and cabinets w either hardwood or angle iron. Watching this, i think i’ll first try to flatten it like you did. Now that its been a few years, how is it holding up?
Still doing great actually! There's a couple spots along some of the splits on the top where I can feel that there's a low spot (i.e. the edge of the splits has kinda raised in some spots), but I'd say no more than 1/16", and they're localized and not across the whole slab. As far as the edges of the slab holding down to the cabinet, it's not moved at all. Still very flat how it's mounted!
How much smaller does the drill have to be than the wood inserts?
Sorry for the delayed reply! I normally try and reply as soon as I can, but I honestly don't recall seeing your comment before. Sometimes I don't think I get the notifications. I was just going back through some comments on videos and noticed this one.
If you're referring to the threaded inserts, here's a guide from Rockler on the size of the pilot hole based on the wood material: go.rockler.com/tech/rockler-threaded-insert-pilot-hole-guide.pdf
Looks like it’s approaching 2 yrs. How’s it holding up?
Great! It's still just as flat as the day I reattached it. There's a couple of the splits on the top that cup upwards towards the edge of the split, maybe by about 1/8", but the slab as a whole is still completely flat and not pulling up on any of the sides at all.
Maybe it was dry...that it was sealed on one side only may have caused the cupping
That could have been a contributing cause as well. I didn't mention it in the video, but it is in the description.
I still believe that probably the largest contributor was just tension built up in the wood. I have some 9-10" boards from the same tree that I still use and just a couple days ago I was cutting one for a project and it sprung on me mid-way through the cut and clamped on the miter saw blade mid-cut (pretty scary really). But that board certainly was dry, but still had significant tension in it. I'm thinking this slab was very similar in that when one side was planned, some of that tension was released and caused the slab to move.
I've learned the hard way that you Always coat both sides of a piece of wood, preferably the same day or at most, within a few hrs of each other, otherwise sure as hell, the board/slab/plywood will warp on you.
So much time.
blame it on da wooood
A year out and my bet is this warped again? Any update?
It's been 2 years since we rehabbed it and it's still as flat as when I first rehabbed it. It's doing really well! The cabinetry is all still square as well. So nothing's giving in so far.
You have to finish both side
That's correct. Finishing both sides, both planning and with the same finish, would have helped the wood release moisture evenly which could have helped for sure.
Just flip it upside down and soak it with denatured alcohol. Always does the trick for me
That would work too. It would definitely dry out quicker with the denatured alcohol as well!
The general idea I think is that soaking the wood (in water or denatured alcohol) causes the wood fibers to soak up the moisture and become spongy again. So now you can bend the wood back into place with less risk of it splitting. Then when you clamp it back in place and let it dry, the fibers dry in the position it's clamped because it can't move. So then after it's thoroughly dry, you can unclamp it and it shouldn't move because now all the fibers are dry and locked together and don't move.
Which side should I be wetting, please? The concave or convex? At present I've got a work top that's bowed and I've got it upside down drying out and weighted on the convex side
You should wet the concave side. Those cells are dried in a compressed state. If you force them to expand, you are more likely to get splits and checks. Whereas the convex side the cells will just compress and not create splits. So you'll want to hydrate the concave side.
Doesn't this just add more moisture content into the slab which is another problem of in itself because then you run the risk of wood cracking as time goes on?
Are you referring to the laying damp clothes on it?
@MadeByChance yes... you add more moisture into the slab and then when you seal them with a finisher you trap moisture into the wood fibers with no where to escape thus causing wood cracking...
@MadeByChance I'm actually in a similar predicament where one of my epoxy river tables has cupped thats why I'm asking
Or does this negate the issue since you are letting the piece dry similar to kiln drying but on a smaller scale
@@IRAQYsniper95 gotcha! Yeah the thought process was to get the wood fibers rehydrated before clamping it to try and prevent it from cracking when reflattening it. And then like you said, leaving it clamped in a hot shop for a couple weeks was effectively kiln drying it to remove the moisture but then the fibers dry in the clamped position. Then inserting the unistrut is what would help prevent it from recupping after it's dried.
And yet, you still left one side without finish. Maybe the finish is expensive...
We're working on almost 3 years since the rehab and still no issues! But yes, finishing both sides would have helped. (And I know you said it in jest, but the finish is the most expensive finish I've done at about $50-60 for the finish itself just to seal it, but another ~$150 to have the other side planned down as well.)
@@MadeByChance $150 is a lot of money. Expensive finish indeed.
As I can see they didn’t turn out pretty good. Doesn’t seem it worked.
The repair has actually worked very good! It's been about a year and a half and the slab still has not moved. No additional cracking or checking has appeared either. The carcass is still doing great too. No warping or anything there. I think between the metal strut in the slab and the metal reinforced carcass, it was overkill, but at a year and a half later with no issues, I'd call that a win.
Note to self... do not use a pecan slab for my DIY projects. 😊
You're not wrong! It is beautiful in the end, but more difficult to work with than it's worth.