"alexy" wrote in message
...
(Doug Miller) wrote:

In article .com,
RicodJour wrote:

I'll argue my point with a very simple test that you can do for
yourself. Drill a hole the exact size of a nail in a piece of wood,
drilling along the grain. Soak the wood overnight. You don't have to
boil it. Try to insert the nail the next morning. The wood will have
expanded, and the hole will have gotten smaller, not larger.

Nonsense.

The hole
may not be perfectly round, but the net area of the hole will be
smaller. I've done this. Try it, you'll see.

Pardon me for being very skeptical of your claim to have actually done
that.
I'll perform my own test and report the results.

Gentlemen, does it occur to you that you may both be right. If one
takes a 1/2" offcut from a softwood 4x4 and drill a 1" hole in it, it
will almost certainly expand as Doug has predicted.

If, on the other hand, you have a 12" long cutoff from a 4x4 of a not
very porous wood and drill a 1" hole through it along the grain, I
suspect that it will act as recordjour has predicted. Why? There will
be a volume of wood within the sample that does not get much moisture
absorption. It will form a "fixed point" from which expansion occurs
both outwardly (natural) and inwardly (causing compression of the wood
or splitting of the dry wood attempting to contain the expansion. If
the expansion is contained, the hole will likely shrink just from the
large pressure on the wood that got wet from the inside of the hole.
--
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infrequently.

Hey goddamit this is an argument! No FACTS, MEDIATION, or MODERATION
allowed!

Let's get back to it.
Your wrong Doug!