Description
A twisted board looks flat…until you set it down. If it rocks corner to corner, that’s twist.
Twist can happen when the wood fibers inside the board don’t run straight from end to end. If you twist a bundle of sticks, you can see the fibers spiral. That grain pattern can already exist inside the tree, and as the wood dries and shrinks, the board can twist.
Twist becomes less of a problem as boards get shorter, which is why you should avoid twisted stock for long parts like shelves or bookcases.
And there's another advantage. The less twist you have to remove, the less material you'll lose trying to flatten the board. That means you can keep more of its original thickness while also saving wear on your jointer knives.
I need to make a small picture frame from this walnut stock. Because there is a twist, I’ll break it down closer to final length.
The frame is 12 by 10 inches, so I’ll add about an inch and carefully crosscut it first.
Before using the jointer, we need to make sure the piece is long enough for the machine, and we don’t want the board rocking during the cut.
So instead of trying to hold one corner down and running it across, I’ll hot glue a scrap piece of stock along the edge. And you don't need to waste a lot of wood...a very thin strip of straight pine is enough for this. Just make sure it's attached really good so it can't shift or come loose as you cut.
This will give the jointer a good reference to use as it passes over the knives.
Once one face has been jointed flat, I can remove that glued-on edge, rip it to final width, and then head to the planer to make the opposite face parallel.
And if you do need something long for a project, straight-grained, rift- or quarter-sawn stock is a much better place to start.
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