Madrone - a couple questions.

[Joey Kochlacs]

Hi, I'm new here and have a couple questions about madrone, one of which may be better suited for a different sub-forum.

1. How should I go about finishing a madrone table top?

What grit should I take it to?

What finish is best? I had one with termite holes so I finished it with polyurethane out of necessity but for stuff without a bunch of holes, what should I use? I hear tung oil and wax are good.

2. Has anyone here tried drying madrone as a log before milling it? I keep hearing awful things about milling and drying green madrone but I milled out some logs that had dried for 3-5 years just sitting out in the forest and their lumber is still fine after 3-5 months of sitting around stickered. They hadn't been rained on since about March when they were still logs. Do I still need to kiln dry them even though they are at 10% naturally? Should I just keep them in a dry place for a few months before tackling them? Put a wood burner in my woodshop and leave them in there with the fire going? I don't have access to a kiln or the money to pay someone else with a kiln but I could at least heat my shop to 100 for a few days and stay out of there.

[Jamie Buxton]

If you're making rustic furniture, you can build it from green wood. However, if you want to build fine furniture, you should learn a lot more about water in wood, and how to dry wood. There's a very good book on the topic, called Understanding Wood, by Bruce Hoadley. It'll cost you $15 or so online.