Using collected wood

[Pguil]

Hi all

I have offered to make some pens for our golf club using wood from the course. These would be for our Centenary year 2020.
Can I get some advice from anyone on if I collect some wood, what I need to consider with regards to storing / drying before I cut into blanks.

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[D.Oliver]

If it were me, I would collect the wood, cut it oversized (say 1x1x7), seal the ends, and let it air dry for at least a year. You will find the wood will probably warp, but buy cutting it oversized you will still be able to get pen blanks out of it. Some blanks may check a little. That's why you need to initially cut them longer than needed. You can then cut the minor checking off and still have enough for a pen blank.

 

[Dehn0045]

Cut oversized blanks, they'll shrink a bit when drying, start with at least 1"x1"x6" or maybe a shade more -- I would do longer, like 12" or 18". Drying too fast from green will cause a lot of cracking/checking/warping -- depending on the wood. This tends to be worse on the end grain, you can paint the ends to slow the water loss and make the drying more even. You can wrap then cut blanks in a bundle with spacers and secure with a couple ratchet straps to limit the bending. Put in a warm/dry place with decent air flow - some people put them in the attic in the summer, or heat duct in the winter. Weigh a couple at the beginning and then check them every month or so, when they stop losing weight they are dry.

There are other faster methods, but most will increase the risk of cracking or checking. If you have plenty of extra wood, it usually isn't a problem to get a high percentage that is workable for penmaking. Microwave, food dehydrator, oven baking, denatured alcohol, boiling (releases moisture that is trapped cells and speeds up drying). The list of methods is as long as our collective imaginations -- even things like vacuum kilns or using silica gel desiccant.

Personally, I would cut blanks, air dry for about a month, and then throw in the food dehydrator for a couple days... Hopefully this gives you a little food for thought and help searching.

 

[thawkins87]

I feel like there's some buried puns in there between your "golf club" and some wood from around the course (1 woods, 3 woods)... It's been a long day, I'll stop now.

I am curious to learn about this though. We had a storm come through this weekend that knocked some branches... well, logs... off a tree that have some really interesting spalting to them, but I don't know much about prepping something like that to turn.

 

[JimB]

Good advice above. In addition, cut extras so if some crack badly you have enough extras. Some woods crack more than others. If you post the type(s) of wood you will be using I'm sure there will someone here that can speak about the risk of cracks.

 

[MRDucks2]

Been approved this for less than a year but here is what I have learned:
-wood has dried out much quicker in my shop than many indicate. I used, I think, George's recommendation of cutting into at least 1x1xwhatever length. I sticker them in stacks about a foot high with space around every piece.
-I seal the ends with paraffin (gulf wax) from the canning area of the grocery store.
-wood measures dry and loses no more weight in 1-3 months.
-dead wood that is still solid dries faster ie. your spalted limbs.
-once measuring dry, I cut square to the largest size I can get (3/4 to 1") and 5.25" length.
- I store in the open air of the shop and they not further change shape or split from the initial drying.

Notes:
-this drying process has taken place into the winter months outside Indianapolis. With a furnace running indoor humidity is often in the 20-30% range.
-all of this wood is from either logs/pieces from others so pieces have already been cut from 1-3 months a laid outside.
-the dead wood that is not solid, with punky area, actually takes longer to dry. Soft areas are sponges.


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[Woodchipper]

I was thinking like thawkins87. But now the woods are metal. Huh???? The first set of clubs I bought had a real wood driver and real wood fairway woods.

 

[MRDucks2]

Oh, picked up various wood headed drivers at Goodwill to try and salvage the wood. Not real practical. The face is both screwed and bonded on and may have a dime size hole behind it with lead or plastic in it. The plate on the bottom is only screwed in but under it is another hole with lead in it. The shaft also goes nearly through the head and is virtually non-removable. You could get 2 usable short pieces out of the head, or a longer short piece from where the shaft enters the head by leaving the shaft in for a graphite or other non-metal shaft. Overall, huge effort for very little wood unless you want accent pieces.


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[wolf creek knives]

I'm trying something that might relate to this. Where I live in Montana we have a tree (it's actually a big bush) called Rocky Mountain Maple. Beautiful grain but the pieces you can cut from even the biggest trees are no larger than 2" in diameter. Last summer I cut several limbs out of one of the tree bushes and painted the ends with a latex paint I had laying around. Let them sit in my shop and air dry with the bark still attached. After about 8 months I cut a 8" piece and squared it up with my bandsaw. At this time the moisture content showed 17%. Put it in a baggy with some silica gel for about 2 weeks and the moisture content dropped to 15%. Put the piece in the oven and got it down to (according to my moisture meter) 0% after cooking in the oven for 1.5 hours at 200 degrees F. As soon as my Cactus Juice gets here I'm going to stabilize some of this piece with some other wood and see how it turns out. Hoping to use it for a fly fishing pen which is a big sport here in Montana.

 

[Dehn0045]

After my first post in this thread I decided to give boiling a try. I was drying Texas Ebony, which is quite hard, dense and has a tendency to crack. I cut into pen blank sizes, boiled for about an hour, let dry for about another hour, painted the ends with latex paint. I put half of them in the food dehydrator for two days and left the others out to air dry. There was slightly more cracking in the food dehydrator, but not bad (I put the pieces that we're already starting to crack in the dehydrator because I didn't want to ruin too many good ones). I was also surprised by how fast the others air dried, I figure they are close to EMC already. I don't think the boiling had too much effect on the wood color. Anyway, long story short, if you're in a hurry - I suggest trying the boiler then food dehydrator (or oven) method.

 

[Dehn0045]

At this time the moisture content showed 17%. Put it in a baggy with some silica gel for about 2 weeks and the moisture content dropped to 15%.

Only dropped 2% in 2 weeks? How much silica gel did you use? I watched a YouTube video where a guy dropped it to 3% or something in a pretty short amount of time. It was from green though, and took a boat load of silica gel.

 

[Kenny Durrant]

I read and it seems logical to me that what causes warping and cracking is the way the wood dries. The bigger the piece of wood of coarse the longer it will take to dry and it will not dry evenly. As the wood dries it also shrinks. So when the ends or the outside shrinks faster than the center of the wood that's when it cracks. Keeping this in mind I've cut blanks slightly larger than needed and wrapped them in newspaper and or a paper grocery bag and put them in a closet. The goal is slow even drying. This has worked well for me and it's normally about a month or so and I can use the blanks with no other prep.

 

[Rick_G]

I bought a small microwave just for this. I cut the blanks a little over an inch square and stick 6 to 8 of them in the microwave for 3 minutes on defrost, let cool to room temperature, check moisture content and repeat if necessary. I've done walnut and maple that only took a couple cycles in the microwave and weeping willow that took more than a dozen before it was dry.
Not a good idea to leave while doing this as they can catch fire, if you see any smoke drop them in a pail of water as they start burning from the inside out.
Do Not use your wife's microwave in the kitchen. If you do you will regret it when she finds out.
When I'm not in a hurry I just stick the oversize blanks up on top of the furnace ducting that runs through the shop.

 

[leehljp]

I second Kenny's use of wrapped newspaper of paper grocery store bags.

I have forgotten the formula generally used for air drying logs in so many inches per year, but in this case you are not dealing with multiple inches, only about 1 to 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 inch. Air dry in a bag in the attic would take a month or two at the most. I would apply wax or paint on the ends and let it dry through the sides. Much more controlled that way.

I have microwaved wood before with good results (and a few bad ones - which gave me the experience that I previously did not have.) :wink:

Also, oven drying on low temp (130° - 140°) in a bag for several hours also works. I did some initial microwave heating, let it return to room temp over an hour, then did the oven thing for several hours on some fresh cut holy. Worked very good, but the holy did warp more than expected. Good thing I cut them 1 1/2 inch square.

 

[Fred Bruche]

I have dried oversize pen blanks in a sealed 5-pound bucket of this desiccant (between 5 and 10 blanks) and they typically stop losing weight in about 2 weeks. Sealing the end with wood glue helps prevent cracking as well.
Fred

https://www.amazon.com/Industry-Ind...srs=15127534011&ie=UTF8&qid=1519429100&sr=8-1