Straighten Cupped/Bowed Boards

​I'm sure I'm not the only who one one who has found a cupped or bowed board stored away in the garage or shop. What do you do with it? Not to worry, here's an easy remedy to straighten that cupped or bowed board. Now this is a recommendation for some shop use or for constructing rough reclaimed wood furniture. I would not recommend this trick if you are building fine furniture as you want the same moisture in every board being used. Thank being said, I hope some of you can get some use out of this.

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Here we have a cupped and bowed board that was sitting outside on one of my reclaimed wood stacks for too long so I decided to test out this remedy.

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​You want to add moisture to the underside of the board, cupped side facing down. Some otherways of adding moisture to the board are to get the gound/grass wet, and place the board over the wet are, or even just put the cupped side down on thicker plants that have a lot of moisture. I added a little water with my hose to the plants where I planned on placing the cupped board.

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​Let it sit in the hot sun. I let this board sit in direct, hot sunlight for approximately ten hours. Just set it and forget it!

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​As you can see it has completely straightened back out and is flat and usuable again. This trick may not work based on how the wood was cut or potentially the species of wood. It worked this time!

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