why bother :smash:

This is a great success story. Thanks for sharing the exp.

cut green all the time.cherry.maple...thundercloud plum etc....cut leight one inch longer then I need, spin green to round abit oversize. then nuke it on 30 for 10 to 15 minutes or till dry.Never a split on the leight but may get a hairline crack on the end but that's why it's cut longer just for this reason.

yeah scott, on a much smaller scale. i cut down and removed my neighbors dead plum tree for him this spring to "help" him out (maybe some alterior motive)....i broke down the trunk into workable sized pieces and dried it as others recommended. i had some splitting. i weighed it periodically and when it stopped losing weight (dehumidified basement) i figured it was ready.... last night, as a matter of fact, i turned my first plum wood needle! nice wood IMO. i cannot wait to show my neighbor what his tree became!

Salty,

I have done considerable drying over the years and recommend it highly. I have given up on wooden stickers and use 3/4" pvc pipe with a hole drilled for a 10d nail to prevent rolling, this prevents sticker stain caused by the transfer back and forth between the sticker an the green stock. These stains may not affect your product but they did mine. I also position my stock with the ends facing north to south to take advantage of our prevailing winds. I haven't much of a problem with end checks in pine but I do take note of when the hardwoods are cut, winter cutting is the best as most if not alll the water is out of the bole. I don't have the link handy but the Forest Products Laboratory has information on drying. They also publish the Wood Manual 7th ed.

Ed

i really like apple

i got a white birch sitting on the lawn that I cut 2 weeks ago.. me thinks I have an idea..:)

:nopics:

Salty save the stickers and reuse them, you won't get the staining if the stickers are dry. Not that it matters for painted stuff.
If you just need a little for plugs, cut the log into 16" pieces and split it in half. Rough out chunks on the bandsaw and stack them and let them dry, leave some space between them.

Got a whole bunch on apple drying since last year in the cellar. Makes really nice needles. Still got a 10" dia. piece of apple 4' long ready to be cut up when I remember it. Going to try some darters, maybe.

A few years back I made some darters for a swap out of black birch. As far as I know none of them split and at least Christian got fish on them.

I cut the logs to about 18", split them in 1/8ths and dried them in the cellar by the woodstove. I cut the checked ends off and worked the material down to size by splitting it closer to turning size and viola plugs were born. I did have a lot of waste, but it was firewood to begin with anyway...

I really don't think drying or how dry the stickers makes much difference, the water in the green stock will migrate to the stickers above and will also dry out during the process. What I have found is that the area under the sticker captures the moisture and mildew begins to grow resulting in the "sticker stain". I have had no problems with the pvc to date.

Me too. just ordered 500 ft 4/4 18 to 24" wide clear 14' lengths... and the wait begins, although this time of year as long as it stays above freezing is great for drying, particularly a day like today.


Ed

Scot, the problem with paying for shipping green stock is the excessive water weight, some hardwoods at ctting can have a water to wood weight ratio of 300%. That's literally a ton of water

FWIW, if the trailer has open sides,it should present no problem in drying. However,if it is enclosed you may get a load of poor quality stock due to the lack of air circulation.

If you can get it 12% you should have no problem with plugs.

As an aside, would it be possible to stop by your shop to get some ss wire?

Ed

caught a smallish 9 pound striper on my neighbors plum wood stubby needle. :) i just started turning in april and it was my first on this type of plug i made. from cutting down the tree to releasing the fish is an awesome feeling you couldn't get any other way! i like it. anyone have any small trees they need removed? (only kidding!)
jeff

I found some birch in the rafters of my basement last night, god only knows how long it's been down there and there are right above the woodstove, so I think they should be dry, I gotta cut it and spin it out and see what happens.