Here, at Sing Core, we get calls all the time about problems associated with wood stave doors, especially if they are large, oversized wood stave doors. These problems, such as bending, twisting, cupping, and warping should be celebrated as wood’s natural tendency to adapt to it’s environment. Unlike other synthetic materials, wood stave is sourced from a previously live authentic tree unique unto itself, a valuable resource in the eco structure of our planet.
A tree is a living, breathing part of our environment, made of the same atomic stuff we are, a sort of shirt-tailed cousin, which survives consciously for years by continuously adapting to its environment.
Even following the harvesting of a tree’s wood, the wood’s independent slices fight for their right to continue to acclimate and survive, expressing their individuality and uniqueness.
That’s why designers, architects, and pretty much the rest of us love the look and feel of real wood. We appreciate the look of it, the design of the individual expression of the tree’s growth rings, and it makes you have a comfortable sense of being home in a virtual hug from Mother Nature.
When wood stave (natural slices of wood) is applied to a door core material, the wood will move to accommodate the environmental challenges and circumstances which it is presented with.
In the case of cracking wood stave doors, the surface crack is the nature of the wood to adjust to the tension of the door’s core. The wood is still trying to provide you with the best door ever, so it sacrifices the surface finish and moves to accommodate the needs of interior core of the door. A crack-resistant finish will result in the tension being spread over a larger surface area, developing a warped or cupped door which can be more problematic to deal with than a surface crack.
Natural wood stave doors will move, warp, bend, twist, and crack, unless they are uniquely engineered with the proper composite materials to result in a wood door that does not move.
Sing Core provides architects, custom door manufacturers, and millworks with the best structurally sound composite door core which is lightweight, insulated, dimensionally stable, and stronger than steel pound-for-pound. Properly laminated materials, including the application of the natural wood stave to the patented torsion box composite core in concert with patent pending straighteners, delivers to clients a natural wood stave door which can be guaranteed to remain warp-free, including a full structure warranty, for an unprecedented 50 years.
A cracked natural wood surface door is likely due to a moisture problem, which varies in intensity between interior wooden doors and exterior wooden doors. Any wood door needs to be properly acclimatized to avoid cracking and excessive movement, also contributing to a wood’s tendency to move would be considering the way in which the wood was sliced, cut, or sawn.
Wood stave is a much higher concept in wood-faced doors than wood veneer as wood veneer which is not susceptible to cracking or warping, it is very thin and cannot easily be repaired when slightly damaged. Wood stave is a thicker natural wood product which can easily be maintained using basic woodworking skills.