Locust turning and shrink wrap

[Ron Bontz]

I have a couple of questions for those who do a lot of turning.
1) Has anyone tried wrapping green logs with shrink wrap to preserve them until they can be turned?? I came into some cherry, sycamore, and ash logs I want to turn this winter. It's been some time since I had a chance to turn anything.

2) I am cutting down a large Locust tree, the kind with the monster thorns. ( ouch ) Better than 24 inches at the base. How does Locust turn, green and after the drying process. ie: rough turn, soak in denatured alcohol, wrap in construction paper, and slowly dry, then re-turn.

3) lastly, if anyone wants a piece of this thorny tree and live close to Edwardsville/ Holiday Shores, IL. you are welcome to have a chunk. Thorn free, of course. . Otherwise it will wind up as fire wood of some sort.
Best wishes,
Ron

[Brian Brown]

I tried that once. I don't remember the species, but it was probably maple. It molded badly (maple will mold worse than most because of the high sugar content). It also didn't seem to help with the cracking. If the wood is smoother on the outside it will allow the plastic wrap to cling more tightly to the wood. Tighter means less oxygen inside to promote mold growth. If you are wrapping a rough turned bowl, you will have a very large oxygen pocket.

As for locust I only turned it (honey locust) when I was new to turning. It was dry, not green. It is beautiful but very hard with interlocked grain. It broke my tool rest. Certainly that was the woods fault, not mine . I'll pass on the free wood. My brother in law had one come down in a storm, and it is cracking much faster than I can get to it.

Good luck, and we want to see some finished products, or even in process pics.

[Rob Luter]

Locust makes great firewood. It also excels at dulling sharp edges of all kinds.

[Richard Coers]

Locust makes great firewood. It also excels at dulling sharp edges of all kinds.

Black locust is the hard species, honey locust that has the thorns, turns very nicely! Beautiful colors too. I would not use plastic, unless you want to mold or rot the sapwood. It would also make a wonderful bug motel.

[Ron Bontz]

Thanks to all for the heads up. I guess I will have to track down some anchor seal in the next few days. A lot of blanks to seal. Wishing I had a big vat of hot wax.

[Robert Hayward]

I am a user of Anchorseal and like it, so this is not a bash of Anchorseal. Titebond ll does the same thing as Anchorseal for me and is a lot cheaper. $25 a gallon versus ~$50 a gallon. I will occasionally thin Titebond with water so it soaks into the end grain a little deeper.

[Reed Gray]

For whole logs, if you can, store them under a tree, or at least in the shade. Heavy tarp on the ground to keep out bugs, and heavy tarps over the top so they are protected from sun and wind which will accelerate the drying, and cracking. If you have a couple of bottles of Elmer's or Titebond glue around, they make excellent end grain sealers. If you have maple, then film cover protection is not a good thing. It has a lot of sugar in it, which is prime food for mold and other things. Black locust is a green color which will oxidize to a nice amber color, and can have small thorns, like an inch or so long, and that seems to be mostly on the lower branches. The wild honey locust has thorns 6 to 10 or more inches long, and they can go through tractor tires. The civilized version does not have thorns, and Moraine locust is one name it is called. The locust trees are generally harder than most woods. Oh, black locust will glow under UV lights. It does make excellent split rail fence material and the posts last a very long time in the dirt. It is a very hard wood when dry, and still, when green, you can't rough it out as fast as the softer woods.

robo hippy

[Russell Nugent]

I've had good luck storing elm, ash and a balsam poplar using shrink wrap for a few months. Get some mold sometimes but it turns away just fine. I've actually had a few burr oak blanks wrapped in plastic wrap for almost a year, they haven't cracked and didn't mold.