ColoradoHermit
Member
This is probably a stupid question but I'm new to wood working. My favorite niece had to cut down one of her cherry trees and wants me to turn some things out of it for her. I started on a bottle stopper but ran out of time and had to stop till the next day. When I got back to it, it was split almost in half and had several cracks in it.
I had cut one small branch of the tree into a few sections for pens and tried sealing the ends with some clear polyurethane spray, (that was all I had) but that didn't work either.
Now I also have a peach tree that I need to cut some nice size branch's off of along with a couple of apple trees. I would like to be able to use the wood for turning pens and maybe a few small box's. So how do I keep the wood from cracking and splitting?
I do have a couple of long pieces of choke cherry wood that I cut from my over sized bush several years ago. I had thought about using it for walking staffs and forgot about it. I got them out the other day and they were split about a foot and half to two foot from the end but the rest was OK. I've made a few pens out of it that came out OK. I was kinda surprised that the choke cherry wood came out almost pure white like ivory and was very hard and hard on the cutting tools too. There's a lot more of it that I could cut out to use but I don't want to loose that much of it to splitting.
Any who, how do you keep it from splitting?
I had cut one small branch of the tree into a few sections for pens and tried sealing the ends with some clear polyurethane spray, (that was all I had) but that didn't work either.
Now I also have a peach tree that I need to cut some nice size branch's off of along with a couple of apple trees. I would like to be able to use the wood for turning pens and maybe a few small box's. So how do I keep the wood from cracking and splitting?
I do have a couple of long pieces of choke cherry wood that I cut from my over sized bush several years ago. I had thought about using it for walking staffs and forgot about it. I got them out the other day and they were split about a foot and half to two foot from the end but the rest was OK. I've made a few pens out of it that came out OK. I was kinda surprised that the choke cherry wood came out almost pure white like ivory and was very hard and hard on the cutting tools too. There's a lot more of it that I could cut out to use but I don't want to loose that much of it to splitting.
Any who, how do you keep it from splitting?