Recommendation? Processing curly maple logs?

T

Tenebr0s

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My folks in New York recently had to have a tree taken down – a large old maple I used to play in as a kid. I'm home visiting now, and the other day I was preparing one of the large stumps for an anvil stand, when I noticed something familiar about the chips...

Well, the whole tree is beautiful curly maple. Besides being beautiful wood, the tree itself has sentimental value to me, so I would love to use it in my knives. Does anyone have experience with this/advice?

So far what I've gathered is that I will need to have the wood quarter sawn to show the grain. Ideally, I would like to prepare and dry a lot of blocks and send them to K&G for dying and stabilizing. I know air drying is an option, but it will take a lot of space. Has anyone here used an oven/HT kiln for drying wood?
 
One of the points is that if you have the wood already cut into “hand moveable” pieces, you have to have it cut (either quarter or just plain slabbed) NOW. delay and it will start cracking. If longer pieces (say five feet or more) you have more time, but still will need to act pretty quickly (2-3 weeks maybe?). Then for drying, air drying from what i have heard will work but will take a while. For kiln drying you should search for an experienced business near you that has the equipment to do it
 
I was in a similar situation about 4 years ago. I had to take a maple and crab apple tree down that my kids climbed and zip lined from when they were growing up. I first cut them into 2 foot logs and painted the ends. After a year or so I cut them into 4" X 4" X 2ft blocks. After another year or so cut those into 2" X 2" X 2ft blocks. I put these in a homemade kiln for 6 months that uses a 100watt light bulb for heat. They measured around 7% moisture and then sent them off to K&G and just last month finished up 4 to give to each of my kids. It was tough waiting but well worth it.
I don't know if this is the best way but it worked for me.

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Here's what (and why) I've done with my maple trees:
Knife handles are around 5-6" long, so I cut my last tree into 12+ or 18+ inch thick slabs. I did this so I could get 2-3 layers of handles with some extra to allow for any slitting/cracking that may occur. When dry enough, I then cut them into oversized blocks (to account for any additional warping/checking) to finish drying. Then when fully dry, send them to K&G and go from there.

Here's a thread that covers what you are asking:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/how-to-cut-curly-maple.956950/
 
Unfortunately, the tree was taken down a couple months ago, so there is some checking. But since I'm going for knife handle blocks, I think (I hope) that there's still plenty of usable material in the larger logs if I cut past the checks. When the material is quarter-sawn, is it the wide faces of the boards or the edges (facing the outside of the log) which have the best figure?
 
weo said:
Here's what (and why) I've done with my maple trees:
Knife handles are around 5-6" long, so I cut my last tree into 12+ or 18+ inch thick slabs. I did this so I could get 2-3 layers of handles with some extra to allow for any slitting/cracking that may occur. When dry enough, I then cut them into oversized blocks (to account for any additional warping/checking) to finish drying. Then when fully dry, send them to K&G and go from there./
Click to expand...
When you do this, you do not get a lot of cracking? I did something like this with black walnut, and within a couple weeks the pieces were badly cracked - hence my earlier post to this thread...
 
Cushing H. said:
When you do this, you do not get a lot of cracking? I did something like this with black walnut, and within a couple weeks the pieces were badly cracked - hence my earlier post to this thread...
Click to expand...

Hi, Cush. I forgot to mention in this thread that I live in the PNW on the wet side of the state, so I should probably say that painting the ends as is recommended by just about everyone else is a good idea to slow the drying.

Also, my experience is almost 100% with Big Leaf Maple, so I'd look to others (like Ben Greenberg) when looking for specific advice on processing other species in areas outside of the Western slope of the Cascades.
 
weo said:
Hi, Cush. I forgot to mention in this thread that I live in the PNW on the wet side of the state, so I should probably say that painting the ends as is recommended by just about everyone else is a good idea to slow the drying.
Click to expand...
Got it. Thank you for the clarification William.
 
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