The Most Important Rule In Woodworking

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Talking about the importance of grain orientation when working with solid wood. Cross grain glue joints should be avoided whenever possible where wider parts and panels are involved. You can help support the work I do in making these videos: Plans for sale: www.ibuildit.ca/plans.html Support this channel on Patreon: www.patreon.com/user?u=865843&ty=h Did you know I have other KZbin channels? My main channel: kzbin.info More videos on my second woodworking channel: kzbin.info My home reno channel: kzbin.infoHome Website: www.ibuildit.ca/ Facebook: facebook.com/I-Build-It-258048014240900/ Instagram: instagram.com/i_build_it.ca/

[@MalikaSmile]

that is some solid advice and an eye opener. thank you.

[@adrianhanson9584]

Thanks for taking the time John, much appreciated

[@obxallen]

John Heisz, you have common sense and use it well... Most people now a days either don't have it or don't use it for the most part. I watch all your videos and enjoy them all. Thanks for all your tips and insight.

[@rso1411]

It's always good to go over the basics again from time to time. Thanks for posting.

[@XerfThingol]

That shirt transition, perfect :)

[@thatellipsisguy8984]

XerfThingol 6:08

[@johngill5334]

XerfThingol I know… very Doonesburyesque. Overall a good video, informative and matter of fact

[@joed.4571]

Thanks for the pointers John, when you're a beginner it's hard to find videos about wood that are easy to understand.

[@WilliamTythas]

Thank you for this video because I am new to wood working and ever learning ..

[@reversegreenpotato]

For years I got lucky with my projects and thought the expansion/contraction of solid wood wasn't much of an issue... until I tried building a table top with breadboard ends... that made it very easy to see the effects.

[@marynben1]

This was exactly the sort of thing that would have been really useful for me when I started woodworking. There are so many videos out there but not a lot that explain basic concepts. That I have seen anyway. Good on you.

[@63256325N]

Good tips. Thanks for the videos.

[@waynecreech]

That answered my question perfectly, thank again!

[@gsilcoful]

The pic of the bench really drives home your point. Thanks.

[@imortaldeadead]

Thank you for reminding us about the movement of the wood 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@MyNextProject]

Interesting video John! So if your stretchers on your workbench are assembled with glue only would that allow enough "room" for expansion and contraction? I am pretty sure that is how I did mine. Then added a plywood top to it.

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

It's the solid wood top that will expand and contract, and the stretcher tries to stop that. Plywood doesn't expand and contract like solid wood, so yours should be fine.

[@MyNextProject]

I Build It Scrap Bin okay great. And thanks for the reply!!

[@silveravnt]

Thanks! Great info.

[@Traderjoe]

I would like to see someone build two drawer shapes that have the correct grain orientation in one and incorrect in the other and let them sit for a year and then reexamine them and see how much they've changed after a year and if one split or warped. It would be an interesting experiment

[@bartgiles1068]

Some times its the little things that make a big difference. Thanks John

[@rayswoodshop4467]

Thanks john. I learned about the grain in high school, older now and getting back into woodworking. its good to think of these things again. As i was listen, I was watching your build in the corner. have you done a vid on do's and don'ts of cutting plywood/paneling on the table saw? Just wondering. I had a scare incident the other day , I moved the panel wrong and the blade caught it and took off with it. fortunately I keep all my fingers. Might be good for others to think of these dangers with plywood/paneling too. Keep up the good work John.

[@hotrodhog2170]

Thought I was having a flash back with your shirt color changes! :o Good stuff John! Thx

[@dr.rongoldstein1633]

Nice video, Tx

[@africancichlids3011]

good info

[@kookyflukes9749]

In regards to the stretchers being orientated. If you followed the grain pattern would this not cause a weakness towards the centre of the stretcher and also be cost prohibitive? Is there a joint for stretcher against the grain that would solve this problem i.e. a half lap or similar. I'm a new woodworker btw and know nothing I'm just asking for clarification. Please don't yell at me😁

[@iamthekwan]

Yep would like to know too... How else would you support the table?

[@MaxBorges888]

Thanks for the lesson. I have in front of me a shelf that I made this year that would violate the first rule. I didn't know about it. But it doesn't violates the rule because it is not glued, just screwed. I'm using glue only for my segmented bowls and I think I will have to pay attention to it because some segments glued to the bottom do violate that rule. Probably that's why I never see a bowl with a large bottom, they tend to be less than 10cm in diameter. I always use 12 segments in a ring but if I want to make a bowl with a big bottom I guess I would have to use 24 segments.

[@handydan1591]

I thought my eye site was going bad when the shirt color changed. Literally rubbing eyes to fix it lol

[@disabledwoodworker]

Love your videos bro'!

[@mmmmmmm8706]

Great teachings ... U should do summer camps ... U know like hockey camps during summer, u could do wood camps.

[@gastonlagaffe9156]

Thank you!!!

[@tompruszynski7337]

Thanks for the short and sweet important lesson. It was very helpful and good to know. How would you suggest to attach a stretcher for a work bench in your example? Thanks in advance if you answer!

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

I wouldn't make a work bench that way.

[@alanmullock381]

Well explained John😆😆

[@martinoamello3017]

I see a lot of people adding bread board (is that the right term?) pieces to the ends of table tops and wonder why it fails over time. I like the look of end grain, but you're right John, doing that grain mixing for lack of a better term is inviting failure when it doesn't have to happen. Embrace those pretty end grain pieces and don't cover them up just because end grain can be difficult to get straight..

[@tyvole2387]

John, in your example of the workbench stringers, would non-glued draw-bored mortice and tenon joints with maybe two offset dowel pins per joint be a satisfactory solution? My imagination tells me that there just might be enough flex in the pins to accomodate the movement of the benchtop width, but I'm just guessing really. I actually glued the d-b m&t joints on my bench, but I have a laminated plywood top, not solid timber, so I'm hoping that'll be ok.

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Plywood is dimensionally stable, so you don't need to make allowances for that. The workbench example I used is not a good design and there isn't any good way to build in enough flexibility to allow for seasonal changes and still maintain overall strength and rigidity.

[@davidrichards7722]

Thank You John from a newbee

[@allluckyseven]

What was the most complex thing you ever built, John? Was it the wooden vice?

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Not quite. A 7000 square foot house from the ground up is probably the most complex.

[@makieks]

One reason to glue wide boards from narrower pieces is that the grainorientation can be flipped to minimize the expansion and warping of the wood due humidity chainges. Wood expand more if sawn tangential than quarter sawn. Its common in Baltia and EU to cut and plain floorboards from outer sections of logs as it is cheaper that way but then the grain is wrong way. And it makes the board shrink on the floor aventually so that there is crack between boards. Quarter sawn boards will lesslikelly shrink till craking.

[@SeanBZA]

That is why I love plywood, you have a little more control of grain and expansion.

[@wakeuprandy]

Those shirts! I thought my monitor was on the fritz!

[@metamech7383]

Good tip, although confusing at the beginning. It would have helped if you took the block of wood and stacked it on top of the other block of wood instead of butting them together. It appeared to me that you were talking about edge grain at first.

[@artheen4713]

Note that "with the grain" and "against the grain" has a different meaning to many woodworkers. Both are parallel to the grain, but "with the grain" means the direction that does not butt up against exposed pores of the grain. When planing or whittling "against the grain", tearouts are much more likely to happen, and you turn the wood (or yourself) 180 degrees to plane "with the grain". If you say "parallel to the grain" you avoid any risk of confusion over what you mean. Also, wood does expand and contract lengthwise, not just sideways. Which is why bannisters have openings every few feet (sometimes covered by a sleeve), and why old-fashioned wooden stairs are anchored on one side and floating on the other. Different rates of expansion/contraction is part of the problem, but a big problem with endgrain to sidegrain gluing is that you neither get the absorbed glue on both sides of endgrain-to-endgrain gluing, nor the stiction you get with smooth sidegrain-to-sidegrain gluing. It can be alleviated somewhat by using rough sanding on the sidegrain side, like 60 grain sandpaper, or even a row of shallow knife cuts across the grain on the sidegrain piece, allowing the glue to bind.

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Context - I was talking about one specific thing, so no need to include the other variations on what "with the grain" means. And yes, wood does expend / contract along its grain, but never enough in the typical woodworking project to make allowances for. It's comments like yours that confuse people, since you are going outside the relevant points.

[@bmylesk]

Wow what a shirt change! @6:00

[@hakonsoreide]

Nice reminder. And good to just make it a whole video rather than just say it in passing on a different project as viewers will have been focussing on other things entirely. I guess I sort of knew this already, but it's one of those things you don't necessarily think about when you design something as you go along. I haven't glued anything violating the rule yet, but I have screwed pieces together without using glue. They will be fine, though. Woodscrews flex quite a bit. I will keep this in mind for my upcoming projects.

[@makieks]

I have been tought not to make i.e. M&T joints wider than 100m(4") because the factor of cross grain orientation that will aventually loose the joint. Regardles of the wood spicies used. A good example is those EU style workbenches that have the dovetailed ends. The joints won't never stay flush.

[@memo1269]

"...and you're on the planet Earth..." Genius!

[@NoirBeard]

Well shit, running through the projects that I've done in my head I thought I'd managed to avoid this, but then you came to the workbench and it's like you made a sketchup of what I built... I guess that lesson (among others) are going to be incorporated in a new workbench at some point, once time has her way with the current one...

[@FuzzyScaredyCat]

I know it might sound like a n00b question, but that's because I'm a n00b and have just started. Is it possible to put 2 pieces of wood side by side, and glue them together such that although the grain is running parallel one is the wrong way round? I guess I'm asking is long grain directional? I've seen people talk of long grain going up hill and down hill, I didn't really get it.

[@FuzzyScaredyCat]

Don't answer this one. I've just seen the video where you say you basically don't want to interact with your audience. Thanks for all the old videos.

[@izzijohn]

Uphill or downhill, you're still long grain to long grain. Solid glue joint all the way. Lots of table tops, wide panels etc. are made this way. Many videos on the process out there. Good luck.

[@yrmh1]

Great advice! Now tell me how you changed the color of your shirt!

[@jaredklingler1287]

Wait wait... are you saying the mortise and tenon joints are violating the rule? And what about 2x4 sized half-lap joints? I don't think I fully understand what you are getting at. I am coming close to starting my first workbench build, so I'm really interested in this topic. What is the best way to build that bench then?

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Mortise and tenon does, but if the parts are narrow and thin enough, the glue will restrain the movement. The success and failure of any cross grain joint is dependent on the size of the parts and the strength of the glue.

[@jaredklingler1287]

I Build It Scrap Bin I see. I put some more thought into it and imagined the build of a panel door. They glue the cross members as mortis and tenons, but not the panels. They are left unglued to be able to expand. On the work bench, if I made it with only the bottom stretcher between the legs, would that be a fair solution?

[@dmaifred]

Magic shirt! 👚

[@BobEMoto]

Norm says: rule 1, don't cut off fingers, poke your eye, ruin your hearing. But not gluing cross grain is important to. I recently made a small box where I explicitly did this just to see what will happen over time. In this area, inside the house, it will probably be fine. Leave it in the garage, maybe not.

[@markschwarz2137]

Very informative video man, but shit, now I have to totally redesign the workbench I was planning. Still, glad to have seen this before I started building it!

[@cetyl2626]

I thought the first rule of woodworking was not to talk about woodworking?

[@williambranham6249]

The first ruler of woodworking was Noah.

[@timkemp]

I thought it was to keep your fingers.

[@robhebert5137]

Dude! Shhhhhhh!!!

[@burkusmax]

No matter how simple the tip might seem, if it helps someone out it was worth it.

[@meanders9221]

If you look at antiques, including high-end ones, you will see this rule violated all the time. And you will see the results of violating it: drawer bottoms split, case sides split, tabletops split, mouldings fall off, veneer and applied carving separate from the substrate. You only rarely see split door panels because frame-and-panel construction addresses that issue. Why the same rules are often not observed in case construction is a mystery. But for sure accommodating wood movement is the first rule of woodworking, and always has been.

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

If you watch the early New Yankee Workshop episodes, you will see a few example where Norm Abram violates the rule as well. Like I said, even very experienced woodworkers can trip up on it.

[@Nicap2]

So, why doesn't plywood fail all the time, as each layer is long grain glued to cross grain?

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Because the glue bond is stronger than the woods ability to expand and contract.

[@peterv1436]

The veneers that plywood is built up from are very thin, usually less than 1mm thick, with a strong resin glue inbetween. Poor quality plywood does actually fail sometimes, you can cut into a sheet to find that large parts of it have delaminated.

[@DIYBuilds]

All I got out of that is that plywood is amazing lol

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Plywood rulz :)

[@CornflakesOriginal]

I thought the number one rule in woodworking is: low expectations. Also great for dovetails ;)

[@brewer1981]

Why did you change your shirt? Did you spill something on it?

[@mcsinnin6473]

Might be a stupid question, but is a red channel? KZbin red, I assume but isn't that just to eliminate ads? Do you have a different channel on there?

[@TheWoodWorkingPilot]

What the hack happened to the color of your shirt during 6:07-6:21 ?!?!

[@michasuski4973]

It really is, i was making something recently, pick a spruce piece and looked at it. Then there came the thought - it won't make it, grain is not oriented properly. Then I did it anyway. And it broke at worst moment. Cheers.

[@blainebarrett8440]

face frames on cabinets... strange how they dont all fall apart

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Face frames are narrow stock and attached the the cabinet underneath, so the cross grain action won't be as much of a factor. The wider the part, the more it will expand and contract and the harder it is to restrain that.

[@michaelosmon]

blaine barrett face frames get pocket screwed together or some form of dowel or biscuit in the joint

[@bschurg3588]

Cabinet makers a variety of methods to keep them from doing just that, long grain to short grain is a waste of glue - it will not hold at all, ever. Mortise and Tenons are one way, pocket screws are another. One of the cabinet shops I worked at used small pieces of 1/4" plywood glued and pin nailed on the back of the joint in addition to being glued and pinned to the carcass.

[@blainebarrett8440]

I am well aware of that John but your example with the small pieces was of a face from not really a panel glue with type deal but thanks for a response

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

I used the small parts for illustration, since it's not practical (or necessary) to use bigger panels to demonstrate the problem.

[@Uncle_Buzz]

My guesswork involves a 3D GoT map. Am I right? Cheers! Chris.

[@IanSebryk]

i like the colour(s) of the shirt... :) great matting...

[@mikeb4127]

I thought the first rule of woodworking is You can never have too many clamps.

[@artheen4713]

The one who dies with the most tools wins.

[@iainportalupi]

There is no more important rule than to wear these, safety glasses.

[@Wordsnwood]

Feel free to call me out. If I make those mistakes, John.

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

I keep a notepad close by to mark down violations as I see them. The results will be out before the new semester :D

[@RobbieBeswick]

The way you assembled it, the side panel went into the top panel using a dado joint, the strips that drawers sat on went in a dado joint the exact same too? They where the same joint Or am I overthinking it?😂

[@davelowe1977]

Robbie Beswick The grain on the top and side panels are in the same plane - they both expand and contract in the front to back direction. This means they will move together and the joint will not be under stress (assuming the same type of wood). The drawer slides have grain running from front to back (they grow and shrink into the box) which would constrain the movement in the sides if fully glued - hence they are glued only with a dab at one end - this allows the joint to slide during the seasons.

[@jbratt]

The most important rule in woodworking and film making is, finish the project. 😜

[@_P0tat07_]

*GASP* John isn't wearing a T shirt

[@affromma]

So I guess that's why you chose not to use dowels or pocket screws to attach the aprons to the legs for your 'console table' build? But how is PU glue any different? Doesn't it immobilize the short-grain apron to the long-grain leg? Do expect that glue-up to fail over time?

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Pocket screws are something I never use and dowels can tricky to align accurately, even with a jig. The typical mortise and tenon joint will restrain the movement of the tenon when glued in solidly, as long as it's not oversized.

[@JoelHudson]

Yoda on woodworking."There is no try" a cross grain but joint Will fail.(Without a tenon)

[@Scott_6666]

And I always thought the most important rule was to wear your safety glasses.

[@stephenhudson2709]

No ... It's "Don't bleed on the furniture."

[@rifflicks]

Sorry.....but the FIRST Rule in Woodworking is....."Measure Twice....Cut Once"

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Not much point successfully measuring something, if you don't know what to do with it.

[@artheen4713]

Great woodworkers generally avoid measuring, they transfer. (And plane down two pieces of wood together to get them the same dimensions instead of measuring, which is never completely accurate.)

[@MarkH10]

THIS is why I follow YT experts. My silly thought was that the first rule was safety. What a loon I am.

[@bigdavegooner]

Most important rule in woodworking is Measure twice cut once.

[@Wordsnwood]

bigdavegooner nope. Rule #1 : wood moves. 😉

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

That expression always bothered me. Like, be competent and have some confidence in what you are doing, already - it's only a number to remember, not cracking the human genome.

[@reaper1874]

I cut it twice and it's still too short. Not sure what I did wrong.

[@generalzugs6017]

reaper1874 You didn't measure 4 times.

[@JesusvonNazaret]

I like how you sit there like a walrus in a chair when you do a talking head video

[@cholder9112]

Side grain and end grain

[@ronburcham5902]

I fell like you just confused some beginners who see this joint everywhere .

[@IBuildItScrapBin]

Not the ones that were paying attention.

[@dtom1145]

Wrong! The most important rule of woodworking: Know where your fingers are at all times!

[@typeaboutit]

How about if you're not on planet Earth? Like maybe if you're a women woodworker :)