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Moisture may be the problem or it can also be built in stress in the wood. This is not uncommon, I once was ripping a 2X4 into a two 2X2's (it was a 2X4 that was taken out when I opened a new door way in my home and had been stacked in my wood rack for years) as I cut one side was fine but the other twisted almost 90 deg, it started as I was cutting! This stress was built into the tree! I still have the twisted part in the shop to remind me.....

I have no experence with that type wood but I'm guessing they use presses to stick it together out of scraps of wood so who knows what's happens when you mess with it by cutting or other operations...... welcome to woodworking, the wood rules you are just along for the ride.

Ed

 

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This is the one I use. Works well for me.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=32548&cat=1,43513,45788

I can not speak of that tool or any other meter but if you don't have a book that talks about wood movement I would say that you need:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&cat=1,46096,46109&p=46281
Lee Valley Wood Movement Reference Guide

"Most woodworkers are aware of wood movement caused by moisture content change, but few know how much it can vary; for example, white oak can move over five times as much as eastern white pine. Even rarer is the woodworker who has this information readily available and has the ability to use it."

As far as I'm concerned it is more importain to know about how the wood moves and then what you do to let it do it's thing rather then fight it. Add a good book on joint design..... then start looking at wooden pieces that are hundreds of years old..... how did they do it?????? No meters, no routers, but a good knowledge of wood......

Ed

 

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I am in the process of getting ready to glue my project together but something has come up that i need some sense of direction or advice for next time, i had a 22" x 24" piece of laminated pine from which i cut 5/8" dados in it length wise. once the dados were cut i cut four 1" slats from the 22". so now i am left with four slats and a whole piece which measures 18-1/2" x 24". now i bought this solid piece of wood a few days back. and just yesterday everything including the whole piece of wood and the 1" slats that i cut are now bowed. while the piece of wood was stored it was layed flat on the top of my workbench. i was getting ready to prep the project for gluing and noticed this problem. when gluing i was gonna spring the wood back into it's straight shape and clamp it. is this not a good idea or what should i do? i had the wood lying flat and now it's bowed. any help from anyone on why this happened and if it can be fixed?

luckily this project is nothing more than storage bins (wood workers journal) that i saw in the magazine. this is my very first project that i have made and thought it was going real well till i saw this. sure this project wasn't that difficult but i did find a way to screw it up.

please help
reds_21

After reading this again..... something is troubling me..... Now I hate to ask this but which way is the grain running? Or maybe I should say which way or all the glued strips that make up the panel running, parallel to the 22" (now 18 1/2") or to the 24"????

Ed