Thread: Chestnut wood from backyard - what to do with it

Regarding drying time, you could have it milled into boards and it would drastically reduce this time. The commonly accepted idea is one year per inch of thickness.

Painting or waxing the ends is still very important. This prevents the moisture rushing out the open end grain and drying the board at the ends more quickly, which causes uneven expansion and contraction of the wood, which then leads to "checking" or splitting along the grain inward from the ends.

When you say Chestnut, do you know precisely what species? Chinese Chestnut is somewhat common and available, but American Chestnut was almost completely killed off by a fungal attack following European colonization of North America. I have never heard of an American Chestnut tree growing in Australia, but it's certainly possible, and this would probably have made it less likely to have been effected by the Chestnut Blight, as it's commonly known. You may have something very special there.

Best of luck,
Luke

Sealing the ends to so important and should be done asap!

Then you can have the latitude to think about what you want to do with it, and mill it accordingly.

Hey guys - thanks for the information - for a reference point here is the backyard with the chestnut tree front and centre.

The trunk was cut in two where the kink is.

So tonight I will paint it - literally just with house paint with a thick coat?

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Originally Posted by GentleBen

So tonight I will paint it - literally just with house paint with a thick coat?

You got it. Possibly two coats, although I'm not particularly experienced in this regard.

Originally Posted by GentleBen

......So tonight I will paint it - literally just with house paint with a thick coat?.....

The house paint may not be the best option but as most of us have access to this it is better that it is used.

And as mention two coats will not hurt. One as soon as possible and the second one to cover the area that was missed.

I have done this on several pieces that I have stored for wood turning.

Seal it on the ends as best you can.

Thanks guys - I painted them the other night.

Also discovered that my father in laws mate can mill them so going to get them slabbed up this week hopefully - will post pics after.

Here are some photos I took before painting the ends. both logs are about 1.1m long, and about 30cm wide. Will post pics after slabbed.

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I have some slabs and turning blanks of what looks to be the same chestnut in the shed, as stated sealing is critical, and cutting green is probably best for drying time and recovery as it does split in log form, and once dry is quite hard on the cutting equipment, looking at it looks like you should get some decent timber.
I havn't done anything with mine as yet so I don't know how well it works. Looks like it could be a bit grainy for fine work, but i'll see sooner or later

Has anyone appropriately identified the species of the tree yet? Do you have some leaves, twigs, seeds, etc laying around?

Originally Posted by Luke Maddux

Has anyone appropriately identified the species of the tree yet? Do you have some leaves, twigs, seeds, etc laying around?

My uneducated guess would be sweet chestnut
Castanea Sativa

I will try to get some more photos tonight of leaves and items left behind after knocking down - definitely not a horse chestnut, but the tree had been quite heavily cut back before we moved in and what was left was possum damaged.

If you knew the nationality of the original owners (who planted the tree) it may give you a clue.

At a guess, I would also suggest Sweet Chestnut, especially if the owners were of Italian descent.

They had anglosaxon names and by accounts were probably of British decent.

Based on the other trees they have planted:

- Mexican Plum
- American Plum
- Riverbank Grape (native American)
- Olive Trees
- Granny Smith Apply tree
- Liquidambar (most likely there before them)
- Japanese Maples
- Oaks
- Silver Birch
- Golden Ash

Based on that list it really could be anything actually...

The leaves were longer rather than squat leaves, I really don't think it is an Asian Chestnut. Looked to be European as from my reading the American ones have quite long leaves, these seemed to be more in the 15cm range.

Ok - so yesterday was a busy day. Took about 7 hrs to mill including transport, setup, initial cut, boards and then cleanup.

Below are some photos but the wood came out quite nicely. It was too big to fit through the bandsaw (300mm throat cut) so we unfortunately had to halve it with a chainsaw. Got a relatively straight cut using a piece of scrap as a guide and cutting vertically. Then it was a process of passing each half log through the bandsaw.

Attached are some of the grains we got - I am quite happy with how they turned out. Each piece is 30mm thick and given it was my first time using the bandsaw there is some waiving but we were aiming for 20mm boards for completion so will be fine when planned down after drying time.

Now I just have to stick them and clamp them which I will do tomorrow - hopefully they will be fine until then as I have them laying flat.

Thanks to those who helped and advised on here. I ended up finding out a good friend of my father in law - Michael - was right into this and had done it before and he helped me all afternoon milling this. Couldnt have got anywhere near close to this without him and his equipment so big props!

Anyway - hopefully these will dry and turn out nicely to use sometime in 18 months +, very excited!
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