Stopping cracks in wooden furniture?

last month

Hi - hoping someone who knows more about wooden furniture might be able to offer some advice!

We have a small solid wood table that is nothing fancy but has some sentimental value. It is fully painted. We are in a new home this winter and with the heat running, it is VERY dry, and I'm noticing that the top of the table has started to split a bit along the wood seams. (My theory is that it's due to the lack of humidity, because I can't think of anything else, but of course I could be wrong.) My question is whether there is anything we can do to stop the cracking now that it has started. Are there any seals or products we could use to prevent any further damage?

Thank you very much!

Featured Answer

PRO

The KEEPING ROOM

last month

Let's see a photo....Wood does shrink and split from being too dry, it has for hundreds of years. Controling humidity will stop that. You can stop the crack, but it requires some woodworking knowledge. You have to install a "Dutchman" or Butterfly Key. If you are handy with a saw and chisel, you can do it yourself, you may just need one. Just gluing the seam won;t work, it will split again. You can put the Dutchman in from the bottom and not go all the way through, but a full through one is superior to hold the joint.

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Comments (7)

PRO
PPF.
last month
You might consider a whole house humidifier. Good for the furniture and you.

Nothing you can apply to the table to somehow seal it.
cat_ky
last month
Definitely from humidity, and not much you can do now, except prevent it getting worse. A whole house humidifer would be the best option, but, if you cant do that at this time, then, you can buy portable humidifiers and keep them running in your house.
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dan1888
last month
The first thing is to get a humidistat and find out what the humidity in the room is. 30 percent is a minimum. Then get a humidifier from Costco at least for that room.
Lily R
Original Author
last month
Thanks all. It looks like the humidity is around 23% so it's super low, no surprise. I'm not sure a humidifier would make all that much of a difference given that it's also quite drafty (another, larger problem!), but will look into it. And thanks for the rec on the butterfly key; I may be able to find someone who could do that. The photo included in that post is pretty much exactly what I am dealing with.
PRO
Seawavetable
last month
You're definitely on the right track—winter dryness is a classic enemy of solid wood furniture. Because it's a sentimental piece, I wouldn't rush into any permanent chemical seals just yet.

The wood is 'breathing.' If you can get a small humidifier into that room, you'll likely see the cracking stabilize. Avoid 'topical' fixes for now, as the wood will move again once the seasons change. Keep it away from direct heat sources if possible!
rwiegand
last month
Fighting wood movement is a losing battle. Always. Only two things work: designing the furnitue to accomodate movement and controlling humidity. Presumably it's too late to redsign your table so you're left with controlling your humidity. Both you and your furniture will be a lot happier if you can get the indoor humidity up to ~40-50%. (and down to 50-60% in summer).

Strong physical connectors like butterflies will result in the table cracking in new, probably less desirable places-- splitting the wood, not just the seams. Filling the gaps in winter will produce a situation where new problems will appear when the wood expands again come spring. At best you will permanently compress the wood during summer and then open up even bigger cracks in winter.

Wood shrinks much more in the cross grain dimension (across the boards) than in the long grain direction. If your tabletop is firmly screwed to the base you can help the situation by pulling the scerws out and elongating the screw holes on the base side in the direction of the grain then putting the screws back in slightly loose. The idea is to allow the top to move as a unit sliding back and forth slightly in the screw holes, which you won't notice. If the attachment is rigid when the wood moves it will break the top. Whenever you have cross grain members in a piece of furniture (where the long grain is perpendicular between two boards) you need to build flexibility into the joint-- if the joint is rigid something will eventually break when the wood moves. Competent woodworkers have many tricks to accomplish this depending on the situation.