Cut off checked ends before sealing?

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I'm finally home after a long day at the VA. I cut the ends off a few of the logs and the pictures are below. I really like the spalting in some of these logs and because I have no experience how to deal with these if I get some cutting advice based on what you see in the photos I would appreciate it. The moisture content ranges from 24 to 31% depending on the log. The rather two large ones by my boots, anyone have any idea what those are? I see some checking at the end of each log but would really like to take advantage of maximizing the wood. My only experience with green wood has been with pine and I've never been careful with those as pine is a dime a dozen here.

Is there wood here where I can do some small bowls and hollow forms? I would like to get some spindle blanks for tops and other small things as well if possible. Or, based on the moisture content, am I better just sealing them as they are and waiting until the moisture content drops before doing any processing? I can do some green turning this weekend but I won't be able to turn all of this in a weeks time. Thanks again for all your input.

David

I do not know what type of wood this is. The next photo shows it with the end cut off and it measures about 11" in diameter, the third is a smaller log from the same tree (I think)
Attachment 353137 Attachment 353138 Attachment 353142

Here are the cherry logs, with some of the splitting what is the best way to process these (I think these are cherry as that is what I was told)
Attachment 353140


(I tried to delete the attachments below but couldn't figure out how, sorry for the redundancy)

The larger pieces in the last 2 pic’s are Birch, with the high moisture contend in them they are continueing to rot, and will get to soft to turn.

Here’s a picture in how I would cut this log, the left side would be used for a bowl and the righthand piece with another pith in it you could cut up for spindle blanks.
Birch.jpg

Just look at the other pieces and see what it shows, cut out wat’s going to cause problems, and cut then into useful pieces.

Just don’t wait or all you get is rotten wood that’s no good for anything.

[Damon McLaughlin]

Thank you Leo for the cutting advice. Because I don't want it to rot should I still seal the ends and maybe wrap it around the side an inch or so? Or with its 30% moisture content and it being only 20 degrees here should I consider leaving it unsealed?

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Thank you Leo for the cutting advice. Because I don't want it to rot should I still seal the ends and maybe wrap it around the side an inch or so? Or with its 30% moisture content and it being only 20 degrees here should I consider leaving it unsealed?

You want the wood to dry but not too fast, in freezing temperatures it is still drying, you could leave it unwrapped if you have it sit out of the wind or draft (I assume you are talking Fahrenheit, not 20 Celsius)

The moisture has to go below 20% to stop rotting, and I’m afraid you do not have the time to get this with the logs as is.

If you can rough turn them you don’t have the mass of wood and more surface area to have it dry, but still have to control the rate of drying, sealing the logs now is the really the last thing you want to do, stopping it for a few days or a week is not good, but neither is the farther splitting of the wood, that’s why I said stick it in a plastic bag, but if the temps are as you say than you don’t have to do that, just get it cut up and turn the large pieces.

[Damon McLaughlin]

Well, I have good news, but first let me thank all of you for your suggestions, I couldn't have done this without your help. I processed 1/3 of the logs tonight, it was fun, messy and a lot of work. I'm pleased to say that the moisture content wasn't as high as I had first reported. After trimming away on the ends where it was sopping wet the moisture as I got to good wood was only 14 to 16%. The wood came from two brothers I had met at the VA Medical Center last fall. We were in the waiting room and started talking and they said they had tons of wood. Today at my appointment I ran into the two brothers and they had wood in the back of their truck for me. So three of the smaller logs is bing cherry, the rest is birch.

I processed one cherry log of which I have two small bowl blanks (probably will be for loose change), and some nice spindle blanks. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the cherry was lightly spalted. Then I processed one of the really large and heavy pieces of birch along with a smaller birch log. I did take pictures of all the blanks before I sealed them. It wasn't until I was almost finished for the night that I realized I forgot to put the memory card into the camera. So I only have a few pictuers which show two 6x6 and two 8x8 bowl blanks of the birch. Once the wax dries if anyone is interested in seeing the rest of the birch or cherry I'll be happy to take more photos.

So tonight I out of three logs I ended up with quite a bit of cherry spindle blanks ranging from 1x1x10 to 2x2x10 as well as some that were close to 3x3x4. From the birch I have blanks from 8x8, 6x6, 4x4 and spindle blanks from 1x1 to 4x4. I the highest moisture content was 17% so hopefully the rotting wont' continue. Before sealing the blanks I wrote the moisture content and weight with a sharpie. I'm really amazed at how much wood I was able to get. I'm even more amazed at how messy my small shop is! Its never been this messy. Oh, I did turn one bowl blank but because I don't know yet what I want to turn I'm keeping the rest as unturned blanks. I have a lot of pen blanks that I don't need as I don't have equipment to turn pens so I'm not sure what to do with them, I might see about donating them to the woodworking shop on the Air Force base just down the road.

I'm not going to be able to process the remaining logs as I'm out of Anchorseal and with the snow storm we're having it won't be until some time next week that I can get to the store to get more. So I think I'll follow Leo's advice and store the logs in large plastic bags and put them outside out of the wind for the next week.

Thank you again for your suggestions on how to process these. Once I got into it it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. When two of the large bowl blanks dries I'm going to make really nice thank you gift for each of the brothers, then I'm going to offer to help clean up their property of more wood!

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[John K Jordan]

Oh boy, you're in the wood now!! The moisture sounds close to air dry - about 12-15% around here - there are on-line charts for much of the country. I think wood likes at least 20% moisture and warm temperatures to deteriorate by fungus.

The problem you might have now is the opposite of not enough wood - too much wood! Many people find good wood sources and get so excited they take far more wood at once than they can process or use. Much of it ends up as a driveway full of cracked firewood.

The wise Stephen Russell said he finally learned to take no more wood than he could turn in a couple of weeks. For those of us who like to turn dry wood, I would expand this to say I don't take more wood than I can process into turning blanks within a couple of weeks, plus some to set out to spalt. In a few years, you'll be like me - more wood than you can possibly turn, looking for people to give it to, able to trade with people in other parts of the country for their local wood. Good clean fun!

A local woodturning club or other organizations may love to have pen blank sizes for their pens for the troups.
http://freedompens.org/
https://www.woodcraft.com/pages/turn-for-troops
http://turnonchicago.com/Pens-for-Troops.html
etc...

I don't know anything about and have never tried bing cherry. All ours is black/wild cherry.

JKJ

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Well, I have good news, but first let me thank all of you for your suggestions, I couldn't have done this without your help. I processed 1/3 of the logs tonight, it was fun, messy and a lot of work. I'm pleased to say that the moisture content wasn't as high as I had first reported. After trimming away on the ends where it was sopping wet the moisture as I got to good wood was only 14 to 16%. The wood came from two brothers I had met at the VA Medical Center last fall. We were in the waiting room and started talking and they said they had tons of wood. Today at my appointment I ran into the two brothers and they had wood in the back of their truck for me. So three of the smaller logs is bing cherry, the rest is birch.

I processed one cherry log of which I have two small bowl blanks (probably will be for loose change), and some nice spindle blanks. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the cherry was lightly spalted. Then I processed one of the really large and heavy pieces of birch along with a smaller birch log. I did take pictures of all the blanks before I sealed them. It wasn't until I was almost finished for the night that I realized I forgot to put the memory card into the camera. So I only have a few pictuers which show two 6x6 and two 8x8 bowl blanks of the birch. Once the wax dries if anyone is interested in seeing the rest of the birch or cherry I'll be happy to take more photos.

So tonight I out of three logs I ended up with quite a bit of cherry spindle blanks ranging from 1x1x10 to 2x2x10 as well as some that were close to 3x3x4. From the birch I have blanks from 8x8, 6x6, 4x4 and spindle blanks from 1x1 to 4x4. I the highest moisture content was 17% so hopefully the rotting wont' continue. Before sealing the blanks I wrote the moisture content and weight with a sharpie. I'm really amazed at how much wood I was able to get. I'm even more amazed at how messy my small shop is! Its never been this messy. Oh, I did turn one bowl blank but because I don't know yet what I want to turn I'm keeping the rest as unturned blanks. I have a lot of pen blanks that I don't need as I don't have equipment to turn pens so I'm not sure what to do with them, I might see about donating them to the woodworking shop on the Air Force base just down the road.

I'm not going to be able to process the remaining logs as I'm out of Anchorseal and with the snow storm we're having it won't be until some time next week that I can get to the store to get more. So I think I'll follow Leo's advice and store the logs in large plastic bags and put them outside out of the wind for the next week.

Thank you again for your suggestions on how to process these. Once I got into it it really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. When two of the large bowl blanks dries I'm going to make really nice thank you gift for each of the brothers, then I'm going to offer to help clean up their property of more wood!

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Lucky you David that your wood is already that low in moisture, still do seal the endgrain on those blanks if you want to let them dry, however I’ll put my thoughts here, if you want to make gifts for the brothers, I would rough turn them now, that way you’d have dry pieces to return in half a year or so, rather than a year or two before you can even think of turning these solid pieces of wood.

Waiting to let the solid blanks dry first will take much longer than if you rough turned them now, and even then you’d still have wood that will warp after you have turned it, just the way wood reacts to changing the stresses in the wood.

[Damon McLaughlin]

If I do some rough turning, say a bowl or platter, then set it aside to dry do I still need to seal them? And if so do I seal the whole rough turning or just where the end grains are? My plan is to process all the logs this week and cut solid blanks and seal them. Then once all the logs are done I have a couple of turnings that I want to do but will try to rough turn some of these here and there when I can.

[John K Jordan]

If I do some rough turning, say a bowl or platter, then set it aside to dry do I still need to seal them? And if so do I seal the whole rough turning or just where the end grains are?

Dave, It seems like everyone has their own method they swear by: seal just the end grain, seal the outside or the entire bowl, wrap the outside in plastic, put in paper bags, bury in a pile of shavings, just set out on the shelf, put directly into a home-made kiln. What may work well may depend on the type of wood, the thickness, the humidity, and just plain luck.

I personally seal at least the end grain on walnut and cherry, sometimes the entire outside or entire bowl depending on how I feel at the time and how much AnchorSeal I have on hand. I don't do a lot of green bowls but for those I've roughed, even large, I have not once had one crack. Just good luck, or clean living? Ha!

Note that if you start using a lot of AnchorSeal you can get it in 5-gal buckets directly from UC Coatings. I once bought a 55-gal drum full and even with shipping it was 1/3 the cost of retail by the gallon. Some clubs buy in quantity for their members.

JKJ

[John Keeton]

As JKJ noted, everyone has their own method. I have had great success sealing only the outside and around the rim with Anchorseal.

[Damon McLaughlin]

Thank you John. My quart of Anchorseal ran out on Saturday so I bought a gallon yesterday. Not cheap, but at least it goes a long way. If I need more I'll look into the five gallon bucket. I did do two rough turnings yesterday and sealed only the end grain on one and the entire turning on the second, just to compare the two over time. I think my issue with rough turning green wood is that I don't know what I want the blank to be yet. Maybe that will come to me easier in time. We got about eight inches of snow in the past three days so I've been busy snowblowing. Today its back to finishing up the remaining three or four logs.

[Damon McLaughlin]

Thank you John. I'll try that method too.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

If I do some rough turning, say a bowl or platter, then set it aside to dry do I still need to seal them? And if so do I seal the whole rough turning or just where the end grains are? My plan is to process all the logs this week and cut solid blanks and seal them. Then once all the logs are done I have a couple of turnings that I want to do but will try to rough turn some of these here and there when I can.

David, I have for many years already been drying in brown paper bags, as I said before, I tried the sealing and other manners of drying, but have the best results with placing a rough out in a brown paper bag.

This should work for most people that live in a house and have a cool place to set the bags to let it all dry, peoples places have mostly similar environments.

It is a very simple way of drying the bowls, nothing fancy needed for it, and it works by just doing that, [Place the rough piece in a brown paper bag and set at a cool place without draft] and that’s all that is needed.

I do check the bags the first couple of weeks to make sure there is no mildew starting to grow, if that happens I wipe the bowl down and place it in a dry bag.

Here’s another one of my pictures of dried bowls, these were just taken out of the bags you can see, the bowls are dry and are than left to dry some more before being stored to be returned eventually

Dried bowls.jpg