Too soon??

[LehighBrad]

Decided to make myself another (2nd) sliding patchbox lid for the rifle I recently completed. I used a split off slab of silver maple from a hunk of wood that came from the tree my neighbor cut down this past spring. The two hunks I have sat in my shed all summer long drying. Will I have to worry about any drying issues with my new lid....i.e. checking and cracking??? I really wanted to use the BEAUTIFULLY figured wood, and it really matches my rifles curly grain nicely. Better than the original lid did anyway. Plus I also wanted to add a nice brass accent piece around the thumb catch. Just worried it all may have been done in vain.

[Mike Brooks]

It will probably shrink.......they all seem to no matter how long they have been drying. Then next spring it will swell and stick shut untill next fall. Wood patch boxes are fun!

[bluenoser]

Those are really pretty pieces of wood - the stock and the new lid.  The rate at which wood dries is dependent on several factors. Some are relative humidity, temperature, air circulation and the size of the piece being dried.  If a piece that size has not already checked, there is a good chance it will not.  However, under average shop conditions, I would measure the air drying time from green to usable in years - not months.  I would expect your lid to shrink across the grain as it continues to dry.  It may also cup.  The closer to quarter sawn the piece is - the less likely it is to cup.  I would really like to be wrong on this one

Laurie

[Dennis Glazener]

For what its worth in the limited amount of furniture that I have made the parts that have had finish on ALL sides has shrunk/swelled the least amount. Not sure if you can finish all areas of the lid or not but it MIGHT help if you could (I have used OIL finish on sliding box lids but have never tried anything else).
Dennis

Forgot to ask how thick/wide were these "hunks" that would mean a lot. I have heard 1year air dry for each 1" of thickness and 1 more to be sure!

[LehighBrad]

Dennis...the slab I split off came from one of the hunks of silver maple shown holding my rifle. The piece was cleaved off the side of one hunk in a 1" think slab roughly and worked down from that.

[bgf]

I think it is going to shrink some more, but seal it all around and let us know what happens.  Meanwhile, cut off some more thin "planks" and let them cure, so that you are ready when/if the need arises to make another.  It is very pretty wood, I'd use it for something!

[Pete G.]

Mike Brooks' reply pretty much explains why metal boxes became the norm.

[Dennis Glazener]

Dennis...the slab I split off came from one of the hunks of silver maple shown holding my rifle. The piece was cleaved off the side of one hunk in a 1" think slab roughly and worked down from that.

Supposedly it wouldn't be dry this quick but who knows for sure. A friend of mine air dried Cherry in his back yard to 7% in just 7 months while walnut that I had racked about the same time measured 15% with the same gauge.

My buddy and I built a large display case for our church out of 1 inch oak that had air dried in a hot barn loft for 2 years. We allowed it to normalize in the shop for a few days then built the case. Less than 4 months later the oak started to shrink and pulled wide cracks in the boards (not in glue joints, actual splits in the wood). Then that winter they closed up and later they appeared even wider so as I said who knows for sure what wood will do!
Dennis

[T*O*F]

I had 2 walnut planks that had been drying in my unheated garage for 3.5 years.  They were 2" x 12" x7'  One day the outside temperature hit 100 degrees so who knows what the inside temp was.  In that one day, one of the planks split its whole length and the other one cupped.  I still have the cupped one and it hasn't changed in 12 years.  I was able to get one stock out of the split one.

[rich pierce]

I'd be afraid the silver maple would dent.