Solid Worktop Bowed

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Hi I’m in process of installing solid beech worktop in kitchen with three pieces creating a u shape. I’ve cut two and noticed on my second that it has some bowing/cupping as at one end (butt joint end) it sits about 4mm off the worktop. So it’s bowed up at the sides, now this could have been delivered like this or down to my poor storage of worktop before install.

I’ve oiled it and left it on the units with some weight on the bowed end. Anyone got some advice on how I can straighten out the worktop, or is it a lost cause? If I cut the 3rd worktop it’s going to sit lower by few mm and no amount of sanding will make it right!



Thanks
 
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How was it stored (i.e orientation, syickering, etc), where, and for how long?
 
How was it stored (i.e orientation, syickering, etc), where, and for how long?
On its side in garage for few weeks then realising this wasn’t good for them flat on top off each other in kitchen for last 3 weeks. Been no heating in kitchen as the rad has been off the wall to allow decoration and kitchen fit.
 
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I've been round to pick up various freebie kitchen worktops in the last few months or so, invariably stored stood up leaning against a wall, all of them bowed. Ended up buying new but that was still bowed albeit lengthwise.

Seems to me the best (only) way to safely stash a kitchen worktop is as nature intended.
 
On its side in garage for few weeks then realising this wasn’t good for them flat on top off each other in kitchen for last 3 weeks. Been no heating in kitchen as the rad has been off the wall to allow decoration and kitchen fit.
Worktops (and solid timbers in general) need to be stored indoors, flat with air spaces between and below them, e.g. full width lengths of 2 x 1in of untreated softwood every 600 to 1000mm over the entire length. This is called stickering. The purpose of this is to ensure that if moisture is absorbed, or lost, it is done evenly all over the surface of the timber which minimises timber movement

Stored in a garage, which may or may not have a DPM in the floor, but is effectively outdoors but without the rain, has caused your nice, probably kiln dried (6 to 8%) worktop to pick-up atmospheric moisture (which can easily be 20% or more in winter in rhe UK) and swell. One side (the crowned side) is damper than the other - the grain has swelled more on that side.

Storing them one above the other afterwards will make no difference unless the crown is uppermost, the timber is properly stickered, the room is dry and there is good airflow. No amount of weight will flatten a crowned hardwood stave slab without having airflow. Bet when you brought them indoors you didn't sticker them, nor store them crown upwards.

You may want to try restacking them for a while, stickered, with heavy weights on top (maybe a few hundred kilos) in a dry place for a few weeks. When you do install them, all the worktops must go onto the units crown side uppermost. Doing that for a while until the worktops reach equilibrium with the environment, together with using dowels, Dominos, biscuits or loose tenons joints (glued) and with dogbone joiners beneath at the joints, will at least allow you to level out the remaining discrepancies with a sharp jack plane before finish sanding
 
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Worktops (and solid timbers in general) need to be stored indoors, flat with air spaces between and below them, e.g. full width lengths of 2 x 1in of untreated softwood every 600 to 1000mm over the entire length. This is called stickering. The purpose of this is to ensure that if moisture is absorbed, or lost, it is done evenly all over the surface of the timber which minimises timber movement

Stored in a garage, which may or may not have a DPM in the floor, but is effectively outdoors but without the rain, has caused your nice, probably kiln dried (6 to 8%) worktop to pick-up atmospheric moisture (which can easily be 20% or more in winter in rhe UK) and swell. One side (the crowned side) is damper than the other - the grain has swelled more on that side.

Storing them one above the other afterwards will make no difference unless the crown is uppermost, the timber is properly stickered, the room is dry and there is good airflow. No amount of weight will flatten a crowned hardwood stave slab without having airflow. Bet when you brought them indoors you didn't sticker them, nor store them crown upwards.

You may want to try restacking them for a while, stickered, with heavy weights on top (maybe a few hundred kilos) in a dry place for a few weeks. When you do install them, all the worktops must go onto the units crown side uppermost. Doing that for a while until the worktops reach equilibrium with the environment, together with using dowels, Dominos, biscuits or loose tenons joints (glued) and with dogbone joiners beneath at the joints, will at least allow you to level out the remaining discrepancies with a sharp jack plane before finish sanding
Thanks, a slow process then. Will stickle them with weight on to start with
 
Thanks, a slow process then. Will stickle them with weight on to start with
Yes, and the problem is you may never get the crowning out completely - hence the need to consider hand (NOT power) planing after installation.
 
Yes, and the problem is you may never get the crowning out completely - hence the need to consider hand (NOT power) planing after installation.

I have never owned a jack plane. Which would you recommend (sub £100)? And how would you use it, by that I mean, how much would you remove each pass?

And wouldn't you need a random orbital sander after?

I have to admit that I would use a belt sander and then a random orbital sander...
 
I have never owned a jack plane. Which would you recommend (sub £100)? And how would you use it, by that I mean, how much would you remove each pass?
Recommend for under £100? How about none? The fact is, there simply isn't a NEW plane on the market in that price range which is worth buying IMHO. You get what you pay for.

About the least expensive properly made jack plane which works consistently well more or less straight out of the box is the Luban/Quangsheng (same firm, different names), and that will set you back about £170 to £190 for a #5 (jack plane, 14in long x 2in blade) from Bill'sTools, Rulands or Workshop Heaven. A useable alternative would be a #4-1/2 smoother (smoothing plane, 10in long x 2-3/8in blade) from the same sources, at q⁸bout £15 less. This is shorter than a #5, but wider, and so has enough heft to tackle hardwoods. And before anyone say that's expensive, I suggest taking a look at the premium brands, such as Veritas, Clifton and Lie-Nielsen and how much they cost. Axminster Power Tools do sell a cheaper model, their "Workshop" jack plane, but as I haven't ever seen one, let alone used one (as opposed to the Quangsheng, which I own an example of)

That comment about modern (i.e. post-1980) planes includes Stanley, Irwin-Record, Faithful, etc. In fact rather than buy a cheap new plane it's far, far better to buy an older, second hand Record or Stanley or Woden (forget other makes - many other makes were low or indifferent quality even in the 1950s) and then fettle it. The plane should have a nickel plated or chromium plated lever cap, and that cap should have a lever to secure it rather than a thumbscrew. This means finding a plane which is complete, isn't cracked, welded, badly pitted/rusted or otherwise repaired or abused. It should be a model with wooden handles (not cracked, BTW), because wooden handled planes are pre mid-1970s (Stanley) or pre early-1980s (Record). Don't go looking for older "vintage" planes, either - WWII and just after was a time if poor standards and prior to the 1930s the planes tend to be missing some of the inprovents of more modern planes. The late 1970s were when standards fell off a cliff, so to speak, hence the basics on dating. A 2nd hand jack plane off a flea market should run you no more than about £30 in "fettlable" condition (based on a trip round such a market pre-Christmas last year).

After that all you need is a couple of sharpening plates/stones (or Norton combination stone) to keep the iron sharp - and you need to.learn howcto sharpen, too, because it just costs too much to constantly send irons out for sharpening and in any case you can't send the iron out every time you need to do a quick touch up on the edge

The problem is that if you have never used a properly set-up and sharpened plane you really have no bench mark to work from to set-up and sharpen a second hand one, which can make second a bit of a pig in a poke

How much material do you take off on each pass? Well, there is no scale on a hand plane, so you set blade projection by sighting down the (inverted) sole of the plane, starting with the blade being just visible. Too little and you need to put on a bit more iron, too much and you need to back off the iron a bit - in both cases you need to take into account the slop inherent in the adjusters on these planes. In general you should be producing a shaving you can just about see light through. No idea what thickness that is, though

And before our local neighbourhood brickie comes up with his usual tripe about even cheap new planes are good, let me say that there is a heck of a difference between barely passable and good performance and that a solid hardwood worktop at a few hundred quid isn't a cheap softwood door casing where poor work (and workmanship) can be hidden beneath filler and paint ;)

And wouldn't you need a random orbital sander after?
Yes, or at the least some form of finishing sander, although a manual alternative would be a card scraper or cabinet scraper (and learn how to form a burr on that using a screwdriver shaft)

I have to admit that I would use a belt sander and then a random orbital sander...
Phillistine! With a belt sander you always run the risk of sanding hollows into the surface which will forever be visible under obtuse light
 
Recommend for under £100? How about none? The fact is, there simply isn't a NEW plane on the market in that price range which is worth buying IMHO. You get what you pay for.

About the least expensive properly made jack plane which works consistently well more or less straight out of the box is the Luban/Quangsheng (same firm, different names), and that will set you back about £170 to £190 for a #5 (jack plane, 14in long x 2in blade) from Bill'sTools, Rulands or Workshop Heaven. A useable alternative would be a #4-1/2 smoother (smoothing plane, 10in long x 2-3/8in blade) from the same sources, at q⁸bout £15 less. This is shorter than a #5, but wider, and so has enough heft to tackle hardwoods. And before anyone say that's expensive, I suggest taking a look at the premium brands, such as Veritas, Clifton and Lie-Nielsen and how much they cost. Axminster Power Tools do sell a cheaper model, their "Workshop" jack plane, but as I haven't ever seen one, let alone used one (as opposed to the Quangsheng, which I own an example of)

That comment about modern (i.e. post-1980) planes includes Stanley, Irwin-Record, Faithful, etc. In fact rather than buy a cheap new plane it's far, far better to buy an older, second hand Record or Stanley or Woden (forget other makes - many other makes were low or indifferent quality even in the 1950s) and then fettle it. The plane should have a nickel plated or chromium plated lever cap, and that cap should have a lever to secure it rather than a thumbscrew. This means finding a plane which is complete, isn't cracked, welded, badly pitted/rusted or otherwise repaired or abused. It should be a model with wooden handles (not cracked, BTW), because wooden handled planes are pre mid-1970s (Stanley) or pre early-1980s (Record). Don't go looking for older "vintage" planes, either - WWII and just after was a time if poor standards and prior to the 1930s the planes tend to be missing some of the inprovents of more modern planes. The late 1970s were when standards fell off a cliff, so to speak, hence the basics on dating. A 2nd hand jack plane off a flea market should run you no more than about £30 in "fettlable" condition (based on a trip round such a market pre-Christmas last year).

After that all you need is a couple of sharpening plates/stones (or Norton combination stone) to keep the iron sharp - and you need to.learn howcto sharpen, too, because it just costs too much to constantly send irons out for sharpening and in any case you can't send the iron out every time you need to do a quick touch up on the edge

The problem is that if you have never used a properly set-up and sharpened plane you really have no bench mark to work from to set-up and sharpen a second hand one, which can make second a bit of a pig in a poke

How much material do you take off on each pass? Well, there is no scale on a hand plane, so you set blade projection by sighting down the (inverted) sole of the plane, starting with the blade being just visible. Too little and you need to put on a bit more iron, too much and you need to back off the iron a bit - in both cases you need to take into account the slop inherent in the adjusters on these planes. In general you should be producing a shaving you can just about see light through. No idea what thickness that is, though

And before our local neighbourhood brickie comes up with his usual tripe about even cheap new planes are good, let me say that there is a heck of a difference between barely passable and good performance and that a solid hardwood worktop at a few hundred quid isn't a cheap softwood door casing where poor work (and workmanship) can be hidden beneath filler and paint ;)


Yes, or at the least some form of finishing sander, although a manual alternative would be a card scraper or cabinet scraper (and learn how to form a burr on that using a screwdriver shaft)


Phillistine! With a belt sander you always run the risk of sanding hollows into the surface which will forever be visible under obtuse light

I am happy to be corrected. Am too pee'd to read your reply thoroughly though. Will do so tomorrow.

Thank you, once again, for educating me.
 
Looks like a 60s or early 70s model (round top cutter makes it late 50s onwards, yellow boxes were used until mid/late 1970s AFAIK). As I said, though, not new. At that age the cutter will require sharpening and honing - they aren't "ready to run" out of the box - but it should be useable once it ihas had the iron ground and honed (and probably the cap iron fettled)
 
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