Drying Wood, Minimising Splitting.

[Hugh M.]

Hi All. My son has been volunteering at a local nature reserve. The winter storms wreaked some havoc bring many trees down. Most had a large load of ivy.
As it is unusual to find ivy with such a diameter, a few choice pieces were saved for me. It is very heavy and will need drying over time. Here is a typical piece:

Not huge but it’ll make something interesting I’m sure. I remember reading somewhere that you are supposed to wax the ends? It will be on a shelf in my garage which is dry (attached to house on one side and end) but not a lot warmer than outside.
Is there a special purpose wax? Will melted candle wax do a job? Did I dream the whole thing up? TIA.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Anything. Old oil based paint or varnish, pva glue, wax, anything that seals the endgrain. Leave the lengths quite long if you can, the ends will split to a degree, you're just minimising it. Wax alone will tend to break away a little, though.

 

[Stigmorgan]

As someone who has turned quite a bit of Ivy (it's great for small mushrooms), first get the ends sealed fast as it dries out very quick unlike normal woods it can be bone dry in a month or two, I like to use a tin of melted candle wax and dip the ends in, then I use a blow torch to burn off the fuzzy roots, then store up off the ground, because it dries so fast it also rots fast, you'll also find the some will get very soft and punky whilst the next piece will get quite hard, I tend to harden the soft stuff with CA, the results can be quite stunning. You may also notice that it may "bleed" through the bark, this seems to be fairly normal and has happened on most pieces I've processed, once dry the bark is almost impossible to keep on unless you glue it on.