"Sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again." Where "the trades" means any a

"Sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again." Where "the trades" means any and all activities, not just blue collar occupations. I'd estimate that atleast one quarter of the stories on HN are about "semi-secret tech secrets," eg "How I do X with vim/rails/AWS/ubuntu." That being said dealing with the expansion and contraction of wood is hardly a semi-secret of joinery. Expansion and contraction of wood is a fundamental concept in joinery and cabinetmaking. Any decent introduction to joinery/cabinetmaking book will discuss this basic property of wood as early as possible. A good mental model for water and wood is inserting and removing a bunch of marbles into the business end of a broom. The broom will not get longer as marbles are inserted, but it will get wider/fatter as the marbles take up space in between the straws of the broom. It is also worth pointing out that when you arrange the boards the end-grain should create a "wavy pattern" in order to mitigate cupping; one board will cup up and the next will cup down. My ascii art is failing me but here is a best effort: Good: |\\\///| |///\\\| |\\\///| Bad: |\\\///| |\\\///| |\\\///|