Timber in the Raw.

[boysie39]

To All, are there Books.DVDs Web sites or anything to help me to sort out fresh timber. I live out in the country and have put out feelers about turning clubs or someone to advise me. They have a Turners Association in Ireland but where I live I'm a long way (for me) to make contact.
I have just been given 20 x 8/10 ft. lenghts of Ash, Yew, Holly, Blackthorn, and other timbers which I cant make out what they are. they are between 4"to7"in dia. I've cut most up into about 30" lenghts and put them in a shed, what else should I do with them. My friend is clearing out an old laneway entrence to build a house and was going to get it shredded . So any help would be more than welcome. Regards boysie39. . . . .

 

[CHJ]

First thing to do boysie, is seal the ends to reduce splitting from moisture loss from the cut ends.

Candle wax, Old paint anything that will seal them, even tie old polythene bags over the ends will help.


Some help with Bark HERE


EDIT: File now works in Firefox.

 

[Paul.J]

All that Chas as said really Boysie.
Keep it dry,out of the sun but with plenty of air circulation.

Chas glad to see you've got the bark I.D going.
Would it be a good idea to have one of your turnings,or someone elses if you haven't turned that wood yet :shock: along side each species showing the finished wood.

 

[CHJ]

Paul, It's Pete's project, he is trying to get round to some proper database presentation of the info.

I just kept a copy of some of the original thoughts rather than dump them.

I expect we will end up with some guidance pieces of typical figuring to go along with them along with the best ident info. references we can find for each species.

So many of the Barks are very similar that it will need Twig, Bud and Leaf examples for some of them.

 

[Wanlock Dod]

Boysie,

There's a book on green turning (O'Donnel) which you might find useful, although I'd argue that your time might be as well spent "setting to" with some of the wood that you plan to turn, should you wish to turn it green.

My preference, for the moment, seems to be to try to dry the wood as much as possible before I turn it, although with thickish pieces this can take quite a while. Some folks like to rough turn blanks, because they will dry more quickly, then finish turn them when dry. Mr O'Donnel seems to like doing the whole lot wet, but I can't say it appealed to me all that much.

The wood that you have will dry more readily, and with fewer additional splits of you split it down the middle. Drying anything in the round is unlikley to be very successful. If you plan to use any of the wood for spindles it could be quartered for quicker drying.

Enjoy,

Dod

 

[boysie39]

To All, Thanks again fellas you came up thrumps again ,have a lot of paints and stuff around including a bonding sealer that my mate had in his shed after useing it on his decking.
Great idea with the bark pictures Chas, all of the stuff has good bark showing so identifing should not be too hard, there are a few that dont show on your pictures I expect these are the bush forms like Blackthorn, and others. Shall do my best new lathe arrives Thursday which will be my third in 3 months not bad going for an auld fella I hope this is the last for some years. Regards to all boysie39

 

[CHJ]

If you have Blackthorn then you will have some very viscious thorns on the smaller branches at least. :lol: and the wood will be quite dense.

 

[Bodrighy]

Paul, It's Pete's project, he is trying to get round to some proper database presentation of the info.

I just kept a copy of some of the original thoughts rather than dump them.

I expect we will end up with some guidance pieces of typical figuring to go along with them along with the best ident info. references we can find for each species.

So many of the Barks are very similar that it will need Twig, Bud and Leaf examples for some of them.

I have just started working on it again Chas, a couple of bust ribs, moving house and Christmas sorta took priority. I have found a couple of good sites that have given me some ideas so hopefully I'll get something online in the next week or two that we can all add to as we go along.

Pete