seasoning a piece of tree trunk

[porthos]

i have a piece of dogwood that i want to make scales with. its for a k-bar. the chunk is 8 in. by 6 in. it is 15 in long. cut the tree down because all but one branch was dead. my dad planted the tree around 50 years ago. i slabed the piece to the above size. still feels a little damp. how can i rush the seasoning. i have a cabinet that i used for drying gunstocks that i was finishing, it has a heat lamp in it. could this be used??

[HWooldridge]

Too fast and high on the drying time and the wood will likely split. I cut a couple pieces of osage this spring and skinned off the bark for ax handles - both pieces split so deeply that they are only good for firewood now.

[36g]

My understanding is that the thicker the piece the longer the drying time, regardless of method. For knife scales you could cut off a 2" thick piece and dry it separately as opposed to the whole chunk. That being said, I'd take the smaller piece, seal the ends with paint, put it in your gunstock drying cabinet with a small dehumidifier, and use stickers above and below the piece to allow airflow with some weight on the top stickers to prevent warping. Would still take a couple of months.

Here's a good basic reference:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGdGAKNJGWI&t=60s

[Armorer77]

I saesoned some cherry a lit of years ago , Cover the slabs heavily with salt , this will minimize the splitting .

[Wayne Smith]

If you have a drying cabinet it is worth investing in the stuff to coat the ends of the wood. I would second slabbing to 1/2" thicker than you need and drying that separately, with the ends coated. Oil base paint will work, latex does not. Generally air drying around here is 1/2" a year, so six quarter stuff takes three years air dried, and that is on the Atlantic coast.

[15meter]

I saesoned some cherry a lit of years ago , Cover the slabs heavily with salt , this will minimize the splitting .

Look up salt wood Brownings[smilie=1:

[Smoke4320]

seal the grain ends with sanding sealer / oil base paint
let that dry for a couple days .. Then heat in oven as low a temp as the oven will go (180 to 200 degrees max) for 24 to 36 hrs .. you are using the oven as a cheap kiln substitute
this is what wood turners do to condition green or questionable wood to keep the ends from spliting and to turn without tears/catches

[15meter]

Rush it too much and it will split and crack, slow and easy is usually the only way to dry wood unless you have experience and moisture meters.

A picture would help, if it is still as a round limb, split it in half lengthwise, coat the ends heavily with oil based paint and stand it vertically in an unheated garage for a couple of years. Last year before use, bring it in to a heated and air conditioned space.

I'm a semi-serious woodturner, the vast majority of what I turn is from air dried stock that I have been collecting as far back as the 70's. In Michigan, rule of thumb was a year per inch thickness to get to equilibrium.

Smaller pieces typically don't take that long. Weigh your pieces and write down the weight. Get three readings in a row over a month or two and you should be good to go.

300875


This piece probably air dried for 5 years before I turned it.
Air dried apple from my backyard. Firewood other people are burning(or tossing, the nasty, gnarly stuff that is too big or too hard to split) usually yields the best stuff.

[metricmonkeywrench]

How does dead standing effect the drying time?

We had 2 white oaks dropped late last year. One died 4 or so years ago and we lost the second over the winter last year. I had dreams of taking sections to the local sawmill, but don’t have anything near big enough to move them after the tree company dropped them in our woods, our pool was in the danger zone if either one fell

[porthos]

between 1965 and around 1972 browning arms cured 10s of thousands of gunstock blanks in salt. it turned out to be a disaster. it took several years for the salt cured stock blanks to start to rust the gunmetal that it made contact with.

[15meter]

How does dead standing effect the drying time?

We had 2 white oaks dropped late last year. One died 4 or so years ago and we lost the second over the winter last year. I had dreams of taking sections to the local sawmill, but don’t have anything near big enough to move them after the tree company dropped them in our woods, our pool was in the danger zone if either one fell

I had two white ash's sawn into lumber, both had been killed by the Emerald ash borer. Both seemed to dry into usable lumber a little faster that green that I had sawn in the past. Trees were only dead a year when I had them sawn. Back about 1980 I had a white ash that had been dead for several years sawn into lumber, thickest plank I had from that tree was only 6/4 thick. I asked for 8/4 but the guy running the mill didn't have a clue how to run a saw. I was using that at the 1 year mark.

[Wayne Smith]

How does dead standing effect the drying time?

We had 2 white oaks dropped late last year. One died 4 or so years ago and we lost the second over the winter last year. I had dreams of taking sections to the local sawmill, but don’t have anything near big enough to move them after the tree company dropped them in our woods, our pool was in the danger zone if either one fell

Search the internet for sawyers. I am in Virginia Beach, and when the white oak in my back yard was taken down I had two 13' sections. I contacted a local sawyer and he backed his sawmill into my back yard and sawed them up. I dried the wood on my back deck- screened in.

[garandsrus]

You can use your microwave: https://www.ehow.com/how_8697080_dry-wood-microwave-oven.html

[waksupi]

I saesoned some cherry a lit of years ago , Cover the slabs heavily with salt , this will minimize the splitting .

It will also rust any metal in contact with it forever after. A gun stock supplier used salt wood years ago,, and ruined a lot of guns.

Hard wood should generally be dried one year per inch of thickness.

[Handloader109]

Yep, just don't even think about salt helping speed up wood drying, it won't, but moisture in the wood and air will melt the salt enough to suck it into the wood fibers. And ruin it.

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

[ebb]

Like smoke said seal the end grain to stop splits. Melted wax covering both ends will work, latex paint. The blanks I get from Calico rifle stocks all have wax on the ends.

[jsizemore]

Short times (like an hour) in your oven at no higher that 150°F. Remove it and let it cool overnight inside your air conditioned space. Don't leave it in the oven!

Plywood box with a 100watt incandescent bulb. Leave enough space between bulb and wood.

Seal the end grain before you start. Boat builders used whatever hull paint was left over from a job.

[porthos]

i tried the microwave method. started off with a piece that had a weight of 8.6 oz. after 6 one minute sessions in the microwave; the weight was 6.5 oz. WOW

[bangerjim]

I use paraffin wax on the ends of green wood to slow drying and minimize cracking. But it still takes about 1" per year. I have cut and dried several species of hardwood and that 1" per year pretty much covers it. I check mine with a digital moisture meter to know when it is ready to work.

[Dio]

I wonder if you could cold smoke the wood to speed up drying? Works for meat.

[Wayne Smith]

For small pieces the microwave works well, just don't go too fast. I once burned a hole in the middle of a block of wood, didn't find it until I turned into it and found the charring. I was working on a bowl blank that time.

[waksupi]

For small pieces the microwave works well, just don't go too fast. I once burned a hole in the middle of a block of wood, didn't find it until I turned into it and found the charring. I was working on a bowl blank that time.

I ruined a piece of ebony in ten seconds in the microwave.

[bangerjim]

Forget salt (OMG!!! We are not making mummies here! :shock:), microwaves, heat lamps, and other drying efforts. See my #19 post above. The only way to rapidly (sort of a relative term) dry green wood is in a commercial drying kiln with pressure, humidity, and temperature controls. And even then, it still takes time. To drive most/all of the engrained moisture out of the wood fibers and cells takes a long time. That is why long-term air drying is the best and oldest way of curing hardwoods. I have 800+ board feet of 4x4 and 6x4 eight foot long by 8-10" wide slabs of Iowa black walnut that has been air curing in one of my storage sheds for 7+ years and it is perfect now. They are racked up with 1/2" pine slats between the layers for good air circulation and to minimize warpage and winding.

Take your time. You should have a beautiful piece of wood to work with in the future if you dry it long enough and properly.

Good luck on your project.

[Sig]

I've done a little bit of turning on my lathe. I read about soaking green wood in denatured alcohol to shorten the dry time. I roughed out a couple of bowls while green, then soaked in D/A for a day IIRC. It worked as best as I can tell. Google it.

[bangerjim]

I've done a little bit of turning on my lathe. I read about soaking green wood in denatured alcohol to shorten the dry time. I roughed out a couple of bowls while green, then soaked in D/A for a day IIRC. It worked as best as I can tell. Google it.

Working green wood is not impossible. But what you have to consider is what will it do 3-4 years after you are done working with it? I have turned green wood treated with PEG and it worked OK. But I prefer to use good seasoned hardwoods for my projects and not worry about possible/inevitable dimensional changes, warping, cracking, and winding.

[Wayne Smith]

Yup, any time you are in a hurry with wood you are likely to make a mistake. Shortcuts typically don't work well.

[Brokenbear]

OP ...I am a professional grip carver and I re-saw and process all my own green logs, blocks and blanks ..
It IS correct to get the "chunk" reduced to working size you expect to create your scales from ....
Once you have your sized piece of scale block(s) ..do more than one as a suggestion ...
Paint the ends with any latex paint ...
Place the blocks with stickers in between them so air can flow around them ..place them in an air conditioned portion of your shop/office/house and place a fan directly on them 24/7 ..you need the wood down to 7 to 8% water content ..to do it right buy from Harbor Freight a moisture content meter ( around $20) ..write down your starting water percent then about the third day start checking daily ..most wood.. stump dead will be about 18 % H2O ..3 days fan air and AC will drop it near to 10% ..don't go below 7%
I've had guys argue you cannot put wood in a room with 60% humidity and get 8% wood but the fan is the wild card and the killer to most folks' sometimes tragic attempt at "air drying wood" is direct sunlight and intense temperature and/or humidity swings

You've got a plenty big enough piece of wood so take a chunk around the block with the fan and latex painted ends ..pretty sure you will like it.

Bear

[jonp]

Seal the ends with wax and set outside under cover in ricks. Stickers every stack for air and weight on the top to keep them straight

[gwpercle]

Another good place for air drying small amounts of wood ... at least in Louisiana ... is a well ventilated attic . Our gas fired central heating unit is up there and aids in keeping the attic dry and warm during the winter .
Of all the places around my place the attic stays dry and well ventilated .
I even made beef jerky in the attic once ...before splurging for a food dehydrator .

Gary