We have been having temperatures over a hundred and humidity below thirty percent. I can't remember the last time it rained.
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Ash staves
- Thread starter Maine20
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I would very much like to see that chart Ernest if you would share it with us.Yes, cutting trees in winter, it's the best. I even have an old chart indicating which moon and in which month it is best to cut trees for tool handles specifying to the very day and hour when the old-timers would cut that chosen tree. That said, we take it when we can get it don't we.
My storage for the first year after coming out of the water: under the trees, halved or quartered, standing - more or less - and lengths as long as possible/practical.Someone mentioned when to split, and someone else gave their answer. What's left is, why, and it is to eliminate stress building up in the wood as it seasons. These stresses or tensions along the annual rings can tear your wood apart, by halving or better yet quartering the forces are mostly eliminated and the wood can season in peace.
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All the info above is valid. But for me, the single most important thing is to harvest in the winter after the sap has returned to the root system and is not in the stick above ground.
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A few years ago, I cut a local young tree to make a walking stick in the early summer. I forget what it was, but when I took the bark off it was very wet. Whatever that wood was, it splintered into a bunch a tooth pics as it dried.
I have seen some boat builders coat green timbers with raw linseed oil to slow the drying process. I wonder if this could have some crossover to drying staves.
Wow. In that climate I would think extra precautions are needed.We have been having temperatures over a hundred and humidity below thirty percent. I can't remember the last time it rained.
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There is a very interesting threatened tree here in Hawaii called the Wiliwili. It is deciduous because it looses all its leaves once a year. The difference between it and the deciduous trees I am familiar with is that it looses all it's leaves during the summer dry season. We live in a dry land forest area and only get 6-10" of rain a year. The wood is no good for tool hafts and was used historically to make the outriggers on the canoes.
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"Mondholz" translates to "moon wood", and here's a related article followed by some scientific research that the article mentioned:
Mondholz
[Moon wood]
Regine Elsener | Issue 5 - 2008
https://www.natuerlich-online.ch/magazin/artikel/mondholz/
[translated by Google]
"Wood, which is struck by the waning moon, has special properties. What instrument makers and carpenters have known since generations has now been scientifically proven by a Swiss researcher... From all over the world, old legends tell of the rules for trees: in addition to the seasonal ones, they also tell of the lunar rhythms as an influence factor on the growth, on the structures and certain characteristics of the trees... The time of the new moon - the waning moon - is generally considered to be the best for felling, then the wood is the most durable. Such statements are known from the Alpine region, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South America. In today's science-believing and industry-driven world, such traditional knowledge is often dismissed as obsolete peasant rules.
Science supports peasant rule
However, in the case of the moon wood Ernst Zürcher from the University of Applied Sciences for Architecture, Building and Wood in Biel has now proven with a nationwide study that wood, depending on the lunar phase, actually has different properties (see box below). Zürcher's study also confirms the findings of an early study by the University of Florence..."
https://www.natuerlich-online.ch/magazin/artikel/mondholz/
Some more information about Ernst Zürcher's study, in his own words, from this page:
http://aetherforce.com/lunar-influence-on-agriculture-by-ernst-zurcher/
"In order to deal with the question more fundamentally and with a large data base, a new trial was conducted simultaneously in 4 sites in Switzerland, with 48 successive fellings (each Monday and Thursday)—with no link to an experimental hypothesis—of 3 trees per site over 5.5 months, representing a total of 624 trees felled over the winter from 2003 to 2004. The species used were spruce and sweet chestnut. Each tree provided a series of samples of the sapwood and heartwood, from different parts of the bole. The behavior of this material during drying in standard conditions was monitored. Among the different rhythms observed and statistically confirmed for 3 principle criteria was water loss, which for spruce varied systematically between the fellings just before the full moon and those just after. This type of variation is probably due not to differences in initial water content, but to the fact that the forces binding water to the cell walls of the ligneous tissue could be subject to fluctuations. The ratio between water easily extractible from the wood, called “free,” and that extracted below the saturation point of the fibers, or “bound water,” fluctuates according to the lunar cycles, and probably also according to the seasons. It should be noted that the characteristics of the rhythms are species-specific."
About the author:
"Professor Ernst Zürcher, PhD, currently lectures in wood science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, and at the Bern University of Applied Sciences in Biel, Switzerland. He trained as a forestry engineer in Zürich and obtained his doctorate there on tree morphology and wood anatomy. Subsequent research activities included tree vitality, spiral grain, and chronobiology. He spent 4 years in Rwanda with the Swiss Development Cooperation, and has since led research projects on temperate and tropical wood biology, physics and technology, natural wood protection, and on the role of felling date on wood properties."
Referenced study (with same primary author):
72. Zürcher, E., Schlaepfer, R., Conedera, M:, Giudici, F. (2010): Looking for differences in wood properties as a function of the felling date: lunar phase-correlated variations in the drying behavior of Norway Spruce (Picea abies Karst.) and Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.). TREES (2010) 24 : 31-41.
http://aetherforce.com/lunar-influence-on-agriculture-by-ernst-zurcher/
I believe the Cherokee bowyer's also prefer to harvest during the waning moon. Hence my interest in Ernest's chart that he was gracious enough to share. So many folks are to quick to pass off information that is handed down to us as dogma. I will stay off my soap box and not say anymore...
Just another example of how in tune with nature people were in past....We can definitely learn form the old traditions.
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Don't do it. For one thing linseed oil is permeable so evaporating water vapor (is that a redundancy?)will go right through, the oil also is good food for mold.