Okay, let me walk you through this little experiment I did. Had this weird idea kicking around in my head, something about making wood a bit more… lively? Called it my ‘rubber dancing soft maple timber’ project in my notes. Just sounded right, you know?

Getting Started

First off, I needed the wood. Went down to the local lumber place, picked up a nice piece of soft maple. It’s workable, not too expensive, figured it’d be a good starting point. Nothing too big, just a board maybe a foot or two long, couple inches wide. Also grabbed some rubber – started with some basic sheet rubber, the kind you get for gaskets, maybe 1/8 inch thick. And my usual workshop stuff: saws, clamps, good old wood glue.

The Plan (Sort Of)

The main idea, the ‘dancing’ part, was to see if I could make the maple bendy by cutting into it and adding rubber. I thought maybe if I cut a bunch of slots, not all the way through, and filled them with rubber, it might give the wood some flex.

So, I took the maple board and marked out a series of parallel lines across the grain. Decided to use my table saw for this, set the blade height so it would cut maybe three-quarters of the way through the wood. Wanted to leave some solid wood at the bottom to hold it all together.

Making the Cuts and Adding Rubber

Making the cuts was dusty work. Took it slow, making sure the spacing was pretty even. Ended up with a piece of maple that looked a bit like a wooden caterpillar tread on one side. Cleaned out the sawdust from the cuts, or kerfs I think they call them.

Next, the rubber. I cut strips from the rubber sheet, aiming for a width that would fit snugly into the saw cuts. This was fiddlier than I expected. Getting the strips consistent took a bit of trial and error.

Then came the gluing. I put a bead of wood glue into each cut and carefully pushed the rubber strips in. I tried different ways – sometimes putting glue on the rubber strip itself too. It was messy. Glue squeezed out everywhere. I used a damp rag to clean up as best I could.

Clamping was next. I didn’t want to clamp it super tight and flatten the rubber, just enough pressure to hold things while the glue set. Put some scrap wood pieces on top and bottom to spread the pressure. Then I just had to leave it alone overnight. Patience isn’t always my strong suit, but necessary here.

Did it Dance?

The next day, I took the clamps off. Looked interesting, that’s for sure. The rubber was definitely in there. The big question: would it flex?

Well, I tried bending it gently across the cuts. It… sort of worked? It definitely had more give than a solid piece of maple. It wasn’t exactly ‘dancing’, more like a stiff wiggle. The rubber allowed for a bit of compression and expansion in the cuts.

Here’s what I found:

• It did increase flexibility, but not dramatically.
• The depth and spacing of the cuts made a big difference. Too shallow or too far apart, and not much happened. Too deep or too close, and I worried about it snapping.
• The type of rubber probably matters a lot. The stuff I used was fairly firm. A softer rubber might allow more movement, but maybe it wouldn’t hold its shape.
• Wood glue and rubber isn’t the best combo. It held okay-ish, but I wonder if a flexible adhesive, like some kind of contact cement or epoxy designed for rubber, would have worked better.

Final Thoughts

So, the ‘rubber dancing soft maple timber’ wasn’t exactly a roaring success in terms of creating super flexible wood. But it wasn’t a total failure either. It was a hands-on test, playing with materials. I learned a bit about how wood behaves when you cut into it like that, and the challenge of joining wood and rubber effectively.

It was a fun afternoon project, got my hands dirty. Might revisit it someday, maybe try different woods, different patterns of cuts, or definitely different adhesives. For now, it’s just another piece sitting in the workshop, a reminder of that time I tried to make wood dance.