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Thread: seasoning a piece of tree trunk

  1. #1
    Boolit Master
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    seasoning a piece of tree trunk

    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??

  2. #2
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  3. #3
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    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

  4. #4
    Boolit Bub
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    I saesoned some cherry a lit of years ago , Cover the slabs heavily with salt , this will minimize the splitting .

  5. #5
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    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.
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  6. #6
    Boolit Master 15meter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Armorer77 View Post
    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

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    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
    Last edited by Smoke4320; 06-01-2022 at 04:49 PM.
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  8. #8
    Boolit Master 15meter's Avatar
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    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.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    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.
    Last edited by 15meter; 06-01-2022 at 04:55 PM.

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    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

  10. #10
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  11. #11
    Boolit Master 15meter's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by metricmonkeywrench View Post
    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.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by metricmonkeywrench View Post
    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Armorer77 View Post
    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.
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  15. #15
    Boolit Master Handloader109's Avatar
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    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

  16. #16
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  17. #17
    Boolit Master
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    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.

  18. #18
    Boolit Master
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    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

  19. #19
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    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.

  20. #20
    Boolit Bub
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    I wonder if you could cold smoke the wood to speed up drying? Works for meat.

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