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Warping


madhatter

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Hello,

I will finally be able to start my beacon hill soon, we sold our house and move into the new one at the end of the month. Yeh

I will have a space to craft so im realy excited. I know this topic has come up many times, but i wanted to post again for your suggestions. I put the title under warping so if any one looks up under a search, they would see it right away.

Well my first floor is realy warped, i think im to get it wet and weight it down. ?????????

How long to weight it down for?

Should i seal it afterwards to prevent it from warping again?

I remember just using primer on the acorn when I put it together and that worked fine, but it was never warped like the beacon.

Any suggesions would be great.

Thanks, Jenn

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Bummer, Jenn! Dampen your warped wood on both sides & weight it down until it's "bone-dry". Sealing will help, after you seal the first side lay it flat to dry, repeat the process with the other side. Once it's in place that usually solves things. I had a slightly warped floor in the McKinley that I went ahead with the staining & priming and installed it & it's still behaving itself. Best of luck :blink:

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Hello,

While ive wet the piece and have it weighed down, hoping this works. I dont want to look through the box to see what else is warped. LOl

The main floor piece was realy warped so hopefully this will work.

thanks,

jenn

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As Tracy mentioned, I've found that slight/ mild warpage will correct itself once the piece is installed in place. So even if the wetting doesn't completely correct it, if it's only still just slightly warped you can try going ahead and dry-fitting it to see if that'll work' it's what I did with the warped floor piece in the McKinley, and it has sat for the 2+ months I've been building on the Coventry and still looks good to go :blink:

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Hafta agree with the above, I found no need to flatted the sheets, the assembly process brought all thesheets into straight. One mod I have done, and it's dead easy, is to glue some small (3/16x3/16) square dowel along the edge of the outside wall that another wall's end butts up to. The dowel is set in the thickness of the luan. This gives an L shaped socket for the wall to sit in and makes that glue job a whole lot easier. Plus on mine the butting wall warped inward, the dowels pull the wall to correct configuration.

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Great Tip Doogster! I have done this in the past on a couple of houses and it works magic! Thanks for posting it.

:blink:

Thanks a lot Tracy. Remember the Garf (don't know about other Greenleaf houses, but I think it applies) isn't designed to be built like this. I used 2 shorter lengths, 1 between the first and second floors and one between the second and third floors, leaving a clearance for the actual floors to go in as designed.

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Ok,

My piece was dry and almost flat when I took off the weights, Yesterday I took off the weights and put the piece on the top of the box because the buyer of our house wanted to come in and take measurments.

Anyways, it warped again. Should i try and go through the process again or try putting the base together with supports at the corners as suggested and see if that works.

AHHHHHHHH

i was going to put up a pic but my batteries just died.

Jenn

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A pic might be a good idea, I can't figure how the wood could be so badly warped unless it was removed from the box and left outside in Florida for a couple of years. My Garf and Marg's Beac were packaged pretty much identically, there is some minor warping and bowing on the Garf parts, but nothing that requires wet flattening. The Luan is really flexible, it's all glued up fine.

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ok Jenn

the attic floor of my Mckinley was badly warped right from the box

I did the weight and water thing twice and still had some warpage

so I said...$%#& it and put it together anyway

by the time I got it all glued to the walls and such the warpage was barley noticable

but what was I wet again and put gal paint can on overnight and it learned its lesson.

I have no idea why some sheets in nicely packed kits do this but it happens and as builders we just gotta flow with the go!

I hope your floor has learned to behave by now!

nutti :D

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I think when you put the base together it will starighten out,

<nodding in agreement> Don't give up hope. It looks really bad now, but when you get it anchored to the foundation, it really will settle down. The first floor of my Lily was warped about that bad and I did the same thing Doogster was describing with the square dowels. Just butt them up into the 90 degree angle where the floor and foundation meet, glue 'em really well to the side of the foundation and the bottom of the floor with some gorilla glue and tape them securely in place, then glue the edges, tape and clamp the floor to the foundation. Leave it all in place for at least 24 hours and it should come out fine. I don't have a picture of the underside of the Lily, but here's one of it clamped and taped while the glue dried.

Deb

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A rule of thumb to go by is, if you can press it flat, you can glue it flat, lots of tape like Deb showed works wonders too. Even with that warp, my Mind's worse, the Luan should be flexible enough to muscle into shape. Key is dry fit it. And you know what? if it splits or cracks going in, then it splits or cracks. Just use filler to smooth it out after it's dried. To reinforce if the warp's hard to brute force into place: wet (dampen not overwet) the INSIDE edge of the joints (under the foundation) then apply a THIN (unless you want a real fun mess to clean up) bead of polyurethane glue and leave 24 hours. You can use Gorilla Glue if brand names are your thing, I prefer Elmer's, think it works better and it's half the price. Polyurethane glue is moisture cured so you have to moisten the joint. If the Beak has cross members like the Garf I'd also Poly between the floor and the crossmembers to really anchor things down.

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So sorry to hear about your wall.

Always remember to store dolls houses flat and not upright. Infact store any peices of wood sheets flat. I had the same problem happen to me and it's a nightmare to fix.

I really hope you get it sorted

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