One of the wonderful things about having Dave Schweitzer (D-Way tools) as a member of our local club is the amazing knowledge, both depth and breadth he has.
Last month he was leading the Show & Tell for us and someone had something made from self harvested Holly
As anyone knows, that has tried to harvest, process and dry Holly knows that it's really hard to get it dry and white. Due to the common fungus that turns it a ucky grey, oh so quickly.
One commercial wood processor I know says they have at most two days from the time the Holly is cut down, to get the Holly processed and into the Kiln to dry.
Last year I tried sticking the Holly I had just cut down, directly in my greenhouse, hoping that would dry it quickly, before the fungus did it's thing.
It didn't work
Dave told us a method he has used. Cut it down, process it quickly, wrap it in plastic and stick it in the deep freeze and let it freeze-dry.
He admitted he did not recall how long he left it there, other then it was at least a year and could have been several.
He also noted that you probably didn't want to use the "house" freezer as the wife might object, I suspect I could get around that by telling her that she could have most of it for her spindle work.
Which reminds me, the Holly farm down the road is got a land-use request in, they want to cut down all the Holly and develop the land as high-end homes....
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