Wood Movement

[Coop]

If I screw a 5’ long by 20” wide laminated piece of walnut to another piece of the same size piece of dissimilar wood, say ash,  with the grain going the same way, can I expect the same amount of movement? Would it be advised to elongate the screw holes?

[treeslayer]

I’m not sure Coop but I am curious as to what you’re building 

[JohnG]

Maybe, maybe not. The wood database has shrinkage % listed for woods. If walnut and your secondary wood have a very similar shrinkage % then you will probably be fine. If they are not similar, you’ll probably have issues down the road. There are also calculators (I think Wood Web has one) that let you enter the species, width, MC range, and cut type, and it will tell you how much you can expect it to move. 

[Chestnut]

Coop over 20" you going to see maybe 1/128" or roughly 0.01" of differential movement between walnut and ash. I'd say screws would probably be good enough. When in doubt use a bigger screw hole or elongate them but your probably fine. That's also assuming you have a decent amount of humidity change between seasons which I'm not sure you do.

[Coop]

On 5/16/2022 at 6:25 AM, treeslayer said:

I’m not sure Coop but I am curious as to what you’re building 

I’m still gathering ideas for something similar to this.

[Coop]

Opinions please! I’m bad on proportions. From the pic above, give me some ideas on the leg width before the taper. From zooming in and measuring with a rule, comparing it to the 3/4” side of the case it’s attached to,  I’m thinking 2.25”, which seems like a lot.  How far do the leg tapers out. Thanks

[G Ragatz]

@Coop- on their website, they say this unit is 64" wide, so I'd say those legs are 1-3/4" to 2" on the front face. I'm not sure the legs taper "out" at all - that might be distortion in the pic. I think maybe the outside edge is straight and there is just a taper on the inside of the leg, below the carcase - seems like that would be consistent with Shaker style. Best guess is it tapers to about 5/8 of the width of the leg. Looks like the legs are ~4" long.

[Coop]

I’ve gone to to their website WAY more than you can imagine. They probably think I’m a stalker If they are tracking!  I have also gone to the manufacturer, Lyndon Furnitures site.

They advertise it as it as a Flare Leg console so I don’t think it’s the pic distortion. I made this a few years back but the legs and flare, in this case upside down, don’t have enough meat for the size of the project.

[G Ragatz]

On 5/18/2022 at 12:11 AM, Coop said:

They advertise it as it as a Flare Leg console so I don’t think it’s the pic distortion. I made this a few years back but the legs and flare, in this case upside down, don’t have enough meat for the size of the project.

 

My bad - I stopped scrolling before I got to the Flare Leg version. I think I'd stick with my estimate of 1-3/4 to 2" for the straight part of the legs. The flare looks to me to be a little less than half the width of the straight part.

It might help to get a sheet of poster board and cut out some silhouettes to see what proportions look right.

[Mark J]

Or a scale drawing on graph paper.

[Chestnut]

I'd go 1_1/4" to 1_1/2" tops. Larger than 1_1/2" it's goign to shift the look from shaker into mission or art's and crafts style that is a bit more bulky and masculine.

For reference the legs on my 8 drawer 2 door dresser were 1_1/4".