I’m doing a project that involves taking all the bark off of some air-dried red oak, black cherry and apple tree branches. The branches are around 4” to 5” in diameter, were cut in mid-winter, the ends were sealed and they’ve been stored in a dry indoor environment for 6 months, so they’re hard and the bark isn’t very easy to remove.
I’ve done a couple with regular carving knives and it’s fairly slow going. I’ve got a good number of them left to do, so I’m going to try other techniques in the hope of finding a quicker, easier way to do this. I’m going to try rasping the bark off, but I don’t know if that’ll be much easier or quicker.
So---my questions... What’s the best way to debark air-dried hardwood branches? What tool(s) would be the best to use to get this job done the quickest and easiest? I’m guessing the answer is probably a drawknife, but I’ve never used one and I don’t know anything about them. If a drawknife is the way to go, what would be a good size and brand to use?
Thanks for your help.