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Thread: Fresh cut wood help
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30th March 2023, 06:57 PM #1New Member
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- Shepparton, Victoria
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Fresh cut wood help
Hi everyone, I have had to cut down a few trees on my property in the last few days due to them causing issues to our water tanks and house foundations. I make knives as a hobby and usually purchase the scales/blocks to use for the handles. The trees that have had to be removed are a red gum, a large white oak, a large Hickory, a cherry and an apple tree. I'd like to try and use a lot of this wood for furniture and the smaller pieces for stabilising for handles/pen blanks. The problem, I have no idea how I should approach the wood. I have them in large trunk lengths at present. Do I just paint the ends and wait for them to dry or do you suggest something else? Any help would be extremely helpful.
Cheers
Kris
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30th March 2023 06:57 PM # ADSGoogle Adsense Advertisement
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30th March 2023, 11:33 PM #2
The first thing I'd do is cut the heart out, as that's where most checking starts.
A rough guide to what I'd do after that...
For small(ish) blanks, I wouldn't bother slabbing per se. Instead I'd just use a chain/band-saw and rip the tree down the middle, then rip the two halves and finally the four quarters, so I ended up with 8 wedge-profiled boards. I'd let these dry out before I cut them down any further into blanks, although I may dock them to shorter lengths for ease of storage.
If I wanted the option of getting larger peieces out (eg. for furniture) then I'd go the route of slabbing the trees instead.
Either way, I'd finally seal at least the ends and stack them with stickers to allow air flow while they dry out. Stacked somewhere they could sit for around a year or so per each inch of thickness.
Oak, hickory & fruit trees are all fairly straight-forward to dry, although the redgum will probably move and warp like a cut snake. It is what it is.
- Andy Mc
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30th March 2023, 11:52 PM #3
Kris
Much depends on how large the trees are. If they are saplings they may have too much spring in them, which will produce timber that wants to move around: Unstable in other words, but if they are a reasonable size and if they are threatening the house and tanks they may be, you could mill them up. However, this also depends on what equipment you have. You could consider getting a miller in with a portable mill if you don't have a suitable chain saw.
As Skew has said the heart, of hardwood trees, is always discarded (not the case for softwoods) and he has mentioned the standard for air drying being one year for each inch of thickness. Hickory is uncommon in Oz, but just happens to be the best timber for impact handles (hammers, axes, block splitters and chisels etc.). The other issue is how much room you have to store the timber until it is dry.
Some pix of the logs would be helpful and then Forum members could offer suggestions as to what could be done with them. Apple is a little unusual too, but for a long time was the preferred timber by our American cousins for saw handles. Cherry, Oak and Red Gum are all very useable timbers.
At the very least there is an awful lot of knife scales there.
Regards
Paul
PS: Welcome to the Forums.Bushmiller;
"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely!"
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31st March 2023, 08:18 AM #4SENIOR MEMBER
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- Feb 2018
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- Shepparton
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As said by those who are in the know depends on timber size.I live in Shepparton and have a chainsaw attachment that may be of help, drop me a line on my profile and I will give you my phone number. Because you are not in my phone contacts you will be rejected as spam so message is the way to go . welcome to the knowledgeable forum.
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