Wood movement can sound like an existential threat for someone getting started in woodworking.
The way people talk about it, you’d think a jewelry box might explode and level your shop.
I’m here to tell you, it’s going to be ok.
Wood movement is absolutely something to keep in mind, but it’s not an otherworldly force shrouded in mystery. No need to offer sacrifice to the wood gods.
In fact, I’m going to show you that wood movement is:
- Predictable
- Easy to calculate
- Not as bad as you think
All the information here is based on a 500 page handbook from the US Forest Service’s Forest Products Laboratory. It goes into painful detail on wood as an engineering material, using 30 years of data to boil wood movement down to a precise science.
Jonathan Katz-Moses
February 21, 2022
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
@Ryan: Tell that to some jewelry box lids I’ve built haha. I think 1/4" moves just as much as any other thickness. Nominal thickness is included in our wood movement calculator >>> https://kmtools.com/pages/wood-movement-calculator
@Alan: Click the link above!