Salvaging a tree for lumber

[Garth Almgren]

Hi all,

We have some beautiful Japanese cherry trees in the front yard of our new house that are about 50 years old, but unfortunately one of them is almost completely dead so we're going to have to remove that one.

Cherry Trees.jpg Cherry Tree 2.jpg

Is there any reason to try and salvage a tree like this for lumber or turning blanks, or should I send it straight to the chipper? They've all been fairly heavily pruned throughout their life, so they're pretty spindly (very little actual trunk), but I was thinking it might be good to save at least some of it. Maybe something to try on my new lathe, for example.

Opinions? I don't have a mill and only a 14" bandsaw (no riser) so it'd be whatever I could get with just a chainsaw.

[Mark Bolton]

Might get something funky out of that small butt log for sure. Easy work for a chainsaw then the band saw. Cant hurt to try no?

[Garth Almgren]

True true, it does look a pretty burly from the outside. Has anybody worked with Japanese cherry before? I'm not finding much when I'm searching...

[Ryan Mooney]

Dunno - I'd personally try taking some blanks for turning wood out of the but end and see how they worked. Any wood with that much convolusion in it has to have at least some interesting figure and in the worse case you've spent some time practicing on some free wood.

I'd also take some of the limbs for spoons but that might not be interesting to everyone.

[Joe A Faulkner]

I would definitely try to do some small scale milling and make some boxes, trivets, possibly frames, even perhaps a mallet or two, maybe even a small cabinet. I'd even mill some of the secondary wood. Cut some logs, seal the ends, remove the bark let it air dry for a year or turn some of it green. Have fun with it.

[Thomas Canfield]

Cherry seems to have check problems. I have had some Ornamental Cherry that had some pretty grain and color, but the checking was very bad. Some of the checking problem was increased due to spring cutting, and now in mid summer and fall with sap down should have less check possibly. I would try to save some.

[Ken Platt]

Having a lathe makes any wood at all fair game, and a possible holy-cow-lookit-that! project. There are all kinds of small things that could be made from all those secondary trunks on the tree pictured. )By the way, that's a stunning display in the blooming trees). Just one example of a surprise - I had gotten a load of free firewood, which was some sort of non-black, non-flowering, wild growing cherry. One piece had a little burl-ish looking thing on the side, so I cut it up and ended up with about 8 pen blanks some of the wildest wild burl-curl type figure I've ever seen. Pens, styluses for tablets, small vases, small bowls, handles for cutlery (check any turning catalog like craft supplies for project ideas), and many more projects could be made from that wood. And, it's all one of a kind, since I can't imagine any such wood is commercially available. I'd cut the biggest pieces into sizes which I could store, and save them. Or, depending on appearance and figure, you could cut pen blanks by the score and trade them for other wood types of pen blanks.

That tree looks like it has some serious awesome potential. Chainsaw then bandsaw, and don't forget to post pix.

Ken

[Jim Matthews]

Why not?

Free lumber, and all that.
Dare to be original.

Fruit trees can be tricky to dry, seal and store in a stable space for some time.
I would not kiln dry something that is likely intertwined grain.

Local Rhode Island apple is prone to warp while drying,
and the old hands here like to slab cut into 4/4 for drying.