Twisting wood!!!

[ACurlyWurly]

So, i have been tearing down my kitchen wall and have chosen a lovely bit of wood for the top of a half wall. its been sat in the dining room floor for a day and was put on its end and it has warped.
So I have just been to B&Q and bought another bit.....perfect it was! straight, flat, I laid it on the worktops and it sat flush....15 min drive home with it as flat as possible in the car and the bloody thing has twisted in the heat!
how do i flatten it out again?!

I think you need to let it acclimatise for longer in the room. Timber should always be stored flat btw.

Wood is a natural material and can twist as it dries. With modern kiln dried wood it's less of a problem, but thin planks especial have a problem. Often you can twist them back with their fixings, but if it's flat when you buy and it has to stay like that, buy some clamps and a couple of boards eg 25mm plywood and clamp it as tight as you can. Then when it dries it should stay straighter

What do you mean by "a bit of wood?"

Hi all, thank you for your replies.

PJ it is a thick plank about 1 1/2 inches thick and 8ft long.

i have weighted it down overnight and now screwed it to the wall it will be staying on and at the moment it is looking ok....hoping it was just drying out really quick as it was super hot here yesterday. keeping it cool and hoping it lasts :)

What are you using the wood for? I'm confused.

I've cut an internal wall in half horizontally. it was a stud wall and i have topped it similar to this pic i found on pintrest

Soft woods such as construction grades (c16 and up) and PSE joinery grades are liable to move a warp. Hardwoods will do so too but are much more stable. It's the construction that will keep a piece of timber in shape. If it's not securely fixed it will likely warp. If I was capping a wall as you describe I would set the timber up on packers securely screwing every 500-600 (through the packers), then I would use expanding foam under the capping so that it's uniformly supported. If you plaster up to it it will always crack due to shrinkage/expansion. Hardwoods would minimise the cracking, you could trim in timber each side, overlapping the plaster to negate the crack line.

OK just read it was a studwork wall. I was describing capping a masonry wall. Plenty of glue and fixings should be fine.

yesterday was very humid. Perhaps it will straighten as it dries out. If you paint or varnish it (all round including the bottom) that will slow passage of water vapour in and out.