Wood management advice

[Fish30114]

Hey folks, I have a couple of trees on the property that I am about to cut, they both have a large fork and one of the forks is all dead going up. My question to ya'll is once I cut it up into say 12" or so logs, how should I treat them before I sit them under my outside water-shedding deck--meaning the wood won't get wet to any extent except if we get a really side blowing rain.
I know a lot of ya'll are knowledgeable on wood treatment and I would appreciate any coaching--advice input welcome.

Thanks--Don

 

[woodwrkr221]

If you try to leave the logs whole and in one piece they'll crack and split where you don't want them to split so they need to be split into halves or quarters.

Immediately after cutting the tree trunk into logs seal the end grain. Any number of things can be used to seal the end grain but two of the better ones are carpenters wood glue or aluminum based paint, but any good exterior based paint will do if you put a good heavy coat on or better yet several coats.

Keep the logs up off the ground and lay them on their sides. Don't stand them up on end, they'll attract moisture up into the bottom end of the log so laying on their sides is best.

Make sure they get lots of air flow around them, they don't get wet, they aren't touching the ground and they are kept out of the sun.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

I find the best place to dry wood is sitting in the back of the storage shed or under a workbench in the garage. Prepare the wood like woodworker said. Split it in half and paint the ends with a couple coats of old house paint. Stack it with "stickers" between the pieces and forget it for a year or two. Then cut into slabs, let dry another six months, and cut into blocks. Let dry three to six months, and it will be ready to process for knife handles. My view of knife handle wood is ,"If it is pretty enough for using on a knife, it is worth stabilizing." Except the few woods that do not stabilize well, I stabilize all handle wood.

 

[Fish30114]

Thank you fellas, I knew it was a long term thing-just didn't know how long--I'll have to dig out some house paint--I've read that something called Anchor Seal is good to use--what's ya'lls thoughts on it?

 

[weo]

Don't want to be a contrarian here, and it's possible/probable that, being on the wet side of Washington makes my situation unique. So take my thoughts/experiences with a grain or two of salt.

I've cut trees for both post and beam construction and for handle material and originally used anchorseal as above. The wood took MUCH longer to dry. What I do now (and recently cut up a maple burl that I cut last summer) is cut the wood into logs as big as the burl (or about 18-24" long) and then into slabs ~1/4" wider than I want, and then cover them with sawdust from the cutting and put them in a place where they won't get rained on. After 6-9 months, they dry out to ~15% (by my moisture meter) with minimal cracking only on the ends of the pieces. I then cut them into block sized pieces that I want (mainly for bowie handles) and take them inside and stack on stickers to finish the drying process which takes anywhere from 2-3 more months. There is some warping /or further cracking if I try to speed that up by using a portable heater of fan but on less than 10% of the pieces. I'm not too concerned about the 1/4" loss on each block because I have large burls, I got 110 bowie blocks that I've started to send to K&G (just got my first batch of 22 block back Friday) from the burl I cut up last summer. Some of the blocks were above 10% when K&G got them but they dried them out the rest of the way and it only took about 2-3 weeks.
I know they are acceptable because an ABS Master Bladesmith has purchased many of my blocks in the past and is looking forward to me going to his shop in a few weeks so that he can get first pick,

Another thing that I do is place some of the chunks directly on the ground or wrap them in plastic to get some spalting.
Let me know if you'd like some pictures.
Again, your results may vary depending on the climate.
~billyO

 

[golfer1]

What WEO said will get you your best results. I'm not so cool on covering with sawdust but at least sticker about 2" apart in a dry place. You will still need to final dry the wood after rough cutting into knife handle size blanks. Assuming stabilize yourself or send out you want near 0 moisture content all the way through. I've never sent wood out to stabilize so not certain how it us usually sent. As others said, coat the ends with wax or paint as suggested to help keep it from checkering. Probably more wood is lost by the handyman than saved because it was improperly handled after being cut. Read up on it elsewhere too if you seriously want to salvage your wood.

 

[woodwrkr221]

with minimal cracking only on the ends of the pieces.

The purpose behind sealing the ends of the logs is to minimize the cracking and splitting on the ends. There are particular species of wood, like American Black Cherry for example, that will split from one end to the other down the entire log no matter how long the log is if the ends aren't sealed and often will split even when the ends are sealed.

 

[weo]

Another thing that I did with my last burl was to cut the tree down in the winter, then harvested the burl the following summer. What I saw happen was that the maple started to grow back with a bunch of little shoots all over the burl and I thought that this would add to or help to define the pin marks. Was the delay and regrowth worthwhile or did it just delay the process?
~billyO