As I was driving down my subdivision, I saw a bunch of nice looking wood on the side of the road.
The guy was still out in the yard working, so I stopped and asked if I could take some of what he had cut down. He obliged, and asked if I was a woodworker. He was as well, and offered to leave me some logs from a cherry tree that he was cutting down.
So, I will find myself with a variety of cuts from a few cherry trees; I've got cuts from both the limbs and the trunk in just about every diameter from 2" to 6" -- maybe a bit larger even.
So, I guess my question is, what do I do with all of this?
Any green woodworking projects that I might try?
I'll definitely be making some wooden spoons out of the smaller bits. But what can I do with the larger pieces?
Mallets? Bowls?
Any other ideas?
I could also attempt to split out (or saw? Yikes.) some boards. I know very little about this process, but I have at my disposal:
- A hatchet, drawknife, a number of bow saws, and a bow saw blade suitable for a roubo-style frame saw, if I want to make one of those.
I don't have access to a bandsaw, or other power tools.
My pieces are a bit small to be split radially. From the limited research that I've done, it doesn't seem that you can split boards out in a "flat sawn" orientation in most cases, correct? I have heard that you can do the latter with some woods, but know nothing about how this applies to cherry.
Also, as far as storing the logs, would it be sufficient to leave the bark on and seal the ends for anything that I'm not going to process right away?
I know; these are quite open ended, and in some cases pretty elementary questions! I just jumped on the opportunity to pick up some free wood and gain some experience working, processing and drying green wood.