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Posted by David Sherman on Thursday, March 26, 2009 at 23:21:25 :
In Reply to: Spaces between the wood-wood tech tip. posted by Mark in NJ, actually, NH again!! on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 22:54:43 :
Your comment made me think of pointing out that with a flat-grain board (one where the growth rings are predominately parallel to the wide side of the board, when you look at the end), the board will cup, when it dries, in the opposite direction that the growth rings appear to cup, if that makes sense. This is important for interior trim, since it will generally get drier in the house than it was when you installed it, and you want it to cup so that the edges push towards the wall rather than away from it. On a truck bed, it's less clear which way it will go, since it sometimes gets wetter than average and sometimes drier. Since the bed metal strips hold the edges down, it may not matter so much -- if the wood cups downward, the middle parts of the boards will bow slightly up, which won't hurt, and if the wood cups upward, the bed metal will hold the edges down. Still, it's something to think about. Ideally you'd use clear vertical grain wood, which is dimensionally very stable and won't cup, but that kind of wood only comes from the outer parts of the bases of old growth trees, so it's expensive and hard to find.
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