Last night I picked up a project I started a year or 2 ago.
I was given a crappy cedar chest built by a friend. He was moving and it
was a POS he dropped off at my house.

He used a box of nails and 2 boxes of screws.. ok slight exageration,
but that's what it seemed like.

I had taken it apart 2 years ago.

So I was going to build a chest with it this weekend. But it had cracked
in multiple places, and was warped as all getup.

Well some of the warp was not really warped. Turns out after trying to
correct the warp (after gluing up the cracks) and using towels and hot
water on my bench covered by a plastic cutting mat, I found out my bench
top was warped. Holly cow.. this is 2 1/4 and has been pretty good for
quite a few years. So I trusted it. But the hygrometer is showing 85%
right now. The top is only secured in the middle, to avoid stressing it
if it needs to move. I was going to flatten it when I discovered it,
but then I decided to check the bottom, and found that it had curled
.... all 2 1/4 inches of it.

Well the cedar had already been soaked with hot water on towels, so too
late for that, I moved it to my old work bench which is a solid core
door, and tied it down with cauls and dry towels... it should straighten
up ok, if it even needed it... (damn)...

Not sure what I'm going to do about the top. I might secure it in
multiple spots... the runners it is supported on, are 4" wide and 2"
thick beech, so I can pull it down, just not sure that I can right now.
I figure any adjustment has to be slowly done.


--
Jeff