How much does Pear move?
Pear moves a fair amount with seasonal humidity, so plan for expansion and contraction carefully on wide panels, and consider quartersawn stock or a design that lets the wood move.
A 24-inch-wide Pear panel, across the seasons
Going from humid (summer, unconditioned) (about 13% moisture content) to dry (heated interior, winter) (about 6%), a 24-inch-wide Pear panel changes width by roughly:
0.68″
Flatsawn (plain-sawn)
Tangential shrinkage 11.3%
0.22″
Quartersawn
Radial shrinkage 3.9%
Computed with the USDA Forest Products Laboratory dimensional-change formula from published green-to-oven-dry shrinkage figures. Real-world movement varies with your actual humidity range, board width, and how the wood was dried, this is a representative estimate, not a guarantee.
Flatsawn vs. quartersawn Pear
Flatsawn Pear moves about 2.9× as much as quartersawn across its width (tangential shrinkage of 11.3% versus radial 3.9%). That’s why quartersawn stock is prized for tabletops, wide panels, and anything where seasonal movement would cause problems, it moves less and stays flatter. The gap is large for Pear, so quartersawing makes a real difference here.
Run your own numbers
These figures use a 24-inch panel and a typical seasonal swing. For your exact board width and humidity range, use the interactive calculator, Pear is already loaded with its verified shrinkage data.
Open the wood movement calculator →Managing Pear movement in a build
Wood moves across its width, not its length, so the wider the panel, the more it matters. The classic precautions apply: let the wood acclimate to your shop before building, attach wide tops with fasteners that allow movement (elongated screw holes, buttons, or figure-8 clips), avoid gluing solid panels rigidly across the grain, and account for seasonal swing in fitted parts like drawers and doors. For Pear specifically, its higher-than-average movement makes these precautions especially important on wide work.