candy1land
Member
I have a freshly cut apricot tree that will make great blanks...what is the process to chain saw it up and dry it out so I can eventually cut blanks?
Thanks Candy
Thanks Candy
Apricot splits terribly - I have a piece that a friend gave me and even though I wax sealed it on each end of the section of branch that he gave me, it split and checked throughout. It is, however, a pretty wood and smells (to me) like anise (licorice) when you turn it.
If I ever get another piece and want to make strictly pen blanks out of it I would probably cut it up into pen blanks on the band saw and completely seal each blank and then sell it to unsuspecting IAP members through the site, here, with the disclaimer that if it cracks when they try to use it that they must be doing something wrong.
Seriously - the piece that I have could still be sawn into pen blanks if it were sawn between the cracks - I would seal the ends and put it in a dry spot and forget about it for a couple years.
If you saw it up into individual blanks, seal each end. They will most likely warp and shrink so cut them a little larger than you would dry wood. Cut the middle (the pith) out of the branches and discard it.
Fruit woods are difficult but lovely and apricot is one of the really fine ones. General rules of thumb is to cut out the pith so the radial (along the rings) movement from the bark to the pith can move without cracking. Sealing the end grain is intended to slow the drying and allow the wood to move slowly and better adjust without breaking. So I tend to bandsaw or chainsaw along the length through the pith (ripping cut vs cross grain cut). Anchor seal is my spread of choice. One of the wood vendors I use (Gilmer Wood in Portland) uses shellac by the gallon sealing wood.
Branches have reaction wood as does the lower parts of the trunk into the stump and roots. Harder to work with, but good chance of special wood. Reaction wood is the result of weight and gravity. Bottoms of branches compress and tops of branches streach (tension). Two schools of thought -- one rips through the pith at the mid line (neither tension or compression) and allows reaction wood to move together. Some advocate ripping vertically. The engineer training suggest the mid line rip is a better probability call but nothing is perfect.
There is some spectacular wood in stumps and roots.
I had a piece that was garage dried for 3 years and I was making the first cut on the bandsaw and releived stresses and three cracks needed to be addressed in the design. But spectacular wood.
Pen blanks because of size are easier to recover than those prized bowl blanks - so you are almost sure of getting something.
Good luck and show us pictures
Just this year I was the lucky recipient of an apricot tree. I cut up the trunk in some large sections for bowls and some smaller sizes for pens and other things like game calls. After cutting up some of the bowl blanks I turned them and finished them with a BLO and wax finish and then let the bowl find its shape as it finished drying. Here is a picture of one. This bowl started out round and ended up oval shaped and did not crack. I made a smaller one for my wife to use to hold her rings and it did not move as much. I'm drying the rest of the wood in paper grocery bags.
+1 denatured alcohol.
Cut into blanks, then soak for 6-8 hours in DNA, then allow to dry for about a day. Then load in cardboard boxes with newspaper between each layer.
I had this work with a trees worth of Madrona (another notoriously long drying species) earlier this year. Lost well less than 10%.
Available by the gallon at your local hardware store. Can be used for more than one batch. I soaked my blanks in a 2$ rubbermaid that I could get 70-80 blanks into at a time.
Just my experience. Worth nearly what you paid for it
Sam
So you cut up the wood and turned the bowls when it was still wet wood? I just want to figure out how you dried it.
+1 denatured alcohol.
Cut into blanks, then soak for 6-8 hours in DNA, then allow to dry for about a day. Then load in cardboard boxes with newspaper between each layer.
I had this work with a trees worth of Madrona (another notoriously long drying species) earlier this year. Lost well less than 10%.
Available by the gallon at your local hardware store. Can be used for more than one batch. I soaked my blanks in a 2$ rubbermaid that I could get 70-80 blanks into at a time.
Just my experience. Worth nearly what you paid for it
Sam