Question on cutting of freshly felled tree

[Trent Shirley]

A friend of ours had a very large old apple tree come down in her yard and I salvaged a few large diameter but not too long pieces.
My thought is the wild grain of this wood would make a nice veneer for some projects.
The wood currently is very wet as it just came down recently. I took one of the smaller logs and cut it into slabs on my band saw to let it dry.
Should I let the logs sit and dry for a while before cutting it into slabs or should I slab it now and sticker it to dry? I know it will take a long time to cure but not sure about the wait before cutting it down to manageable slabs.

This tree was really huge but a lot of it was rotted inside so there was not a lot of really good wood there.
There is one long section that I could try using a large chainsaw to cut long slabs off of but I am not sure if it is worth the work given the nature of the apple wood to twist and warp so badly and the way it sets my alergies off cutting it.

Thoughts?
Thanks.
Trent

[Jim Matthews]

I, for one, would not knowingly work with wood that sets off my allergies.

Responses can be increasingly worse with repeated exposure.

[Tom Hargrove]

If the dust makes you sick, don't use it. You may not only get sick the first time you work with it, but the residual dust hiding in the shop could cause continuing reactions.

[Tom Fischer]

Coincidence, I just took down a crab apple. The main stick is 4' X 14"-16"" diameter. The butt looked interesting (weighs at least 300 pounds),
Applewood, from what I know, is very unruly as it dries. I dried some planks once years ago, they all cupped.
So I ripped this log in half with my chainsaw, If it cups, twists, let it be done before it is boards.
The tree is so wet, no sawdust at all. Took 15 minutes to rip it, pretty straight, not perfect, better than nothing.
Both halves are standing in a shed, very damp area, slow dry.
Maybe I'll get a few pics tomorrow. The heartwood is almost red.

t

[Ryan Baker]

Apple will crack and split very badly and very quickly. Seal the ends immediately and cut it up as soon as possible. If you are making veneer, you can slice it thin now and flatten it later. If you are making thicker stock, cut it oversize enough that you can resize it again after it dries and warps.

[Frank Drew]

Seal the ends immediately and cut it up as soon as possible.

Sound advice for any logs you're interested in converting. At the very least, seal the ends and cut the log lengthwise through the pith (middle), both of which will help prevent the worst of the cracking and checking a drying log is subject to.

Apple is a fine turning wood if that interests you or anyone you know; again, though, best to seal the ends in whatever lengths you choose and halve the log(s) lengthwise.

[Trent Shirley]

Thanks for the advice folks.
I cut one log up into roughly 12 quarter slabs as a test. It was so wet that as Tom mentioned above there was little sawdust, just mush. I wondered if being so wet it might not be a good time for cutting.

I will at least halve the logs though some I will have to do with a chainsaw as they are quite large and would not cut on my band saw.
Before I can try any fine resawing for veneer I will have to get a new blade and really learn how to properly set up my band saw. I get a lot of wander in the cut right now. I am newbie with a band saw and this will be my first time resawing so I need some practice and to properly tune the tool. Free wood is a great place to start.

I do not have a lathe so turning is not an option for me but if I cut large pieces I will keep them big enough to make some good turning blanks in case I ever get myself a lathe or meet someone who has one.

[Prashun Patel]

Cutting green wood on a bandsaw requires a low TPI (like3) blade with a good set so wet slush can evacuate.

For the veneering, if it were me, I'd wait until the slabs are dry, then get them to s4s, then resaw. Doing it now will just give you a bunch of curly veneer.

Seal the ends with a lot of wax.

Others may have different experiences, but most of the wood I get that sits as a 'blank' for more than 6 months develops cracks. I try now not to keep more than I know I'll need. Too much turns into firewood.

I'm all for the learning in this, but IMHO, it's just not worth it for flatwork. For turning blanks at least you can cut up a bunch and some of them will probably be ok.

[Bob Feeser]

I am the farthest thing from a pessimist. Optimism is my middle name, well almost. Anyhow I had many forays into using fresh felled trees. I had a sawyer with a portable saw that I called out when I had the opportunity, and he would make lumber for me. What I learned was don't do it. Buy the already sawn stuff that is dried, and find a good sawyer who has cured stock and is willing to sell it very reasonably. You avoid a lot of headaches that way.
Just to shed a little light on my mistakes.
1) I had a woman who wanted these huge maple logs removed from the back of her driveway. They were 8 feet long and a couple of feet at the least wide. So I called my sawyer, and setup the appointment. I went to bed the night before dreaming of hitting the jackpot and having a ton of birds eye maple. Lesson learned; when maple sits and is exposed to the rain for even a short period of time it wicks moisture in from both ends and that stains the wood. It becomes like a chocolate milk shade of brown. I spent a lot of money and time, and wound up selling all of it to some guy who just needed wood that was going to get painted.
2) A huge hickory tree was coming down in a townhouse project, and the tree surgeon said he would be glad to drop the wood from the trunks and large rounds off. So he did, and out came my sawyer again. He sawed it all up into boards, hitting many a nail along the way. I also learned the hard way that hickory is very "barky" and tough to get much finished wood out of it. That is the reason why you see it in glued up 2" strips.
3) I took some maple branches that were cut down in my own yard, and it already turned milk chocolate brown. I band sawed a few pieces and wound up using it as firewood. You can bleach maple that is that way and it will come up bright white again, but only on the surface. I have enough to work on when doing a project let alone have to worry about whether I will sand down to some brown wood, and what affect will the bleach have on repairing spots in the finish.

So as pessimistic as it may seem. My advice is get some already sawn rough stock from a sawyer, and save yourself a lot of aggravation, time, and expense.
Of course if you are out in the wild with fresh felled trees that are not riddled with rot, and you saw them up right on the spot, and seal the ends, and stack them with spacers out of the sunlight if you have the protected space available, then by all means go for it.