Drying Twisted Wood And Knowing When To Walk Away
When I started cutting lumber for myself, I thought I could do it better than Home Depot. No more twisted and crooked lumber for this guy. I was gonna be the guy that did it right, the one that wasn’t affected by the limitations of mass output, the one that made sure every step was followed, and the one that made sure that every board behaved. I thought that if I properly placed my sticks and used more sticks and weighted down the pile and otherwise paid attention, that the lumber would respond in kind. Boy, was I wrong.
One of my favorite stories to tell people is from my early milling days when I tried to dry some sweet gum. The customer wanted to make flooring out of the tree, so I milled the log into 4″ wide boards. I took that nice-looking, 4″-wide sweet gum and stickered it on the bottom of a stack of lumber the was as tall as the Bobcat could reach. There must have been at least 3,000 bd. ft. and about a billion pounds on top of that sweet gum to help keep the notoriously ornery lumber flat as it dried.
After a few months on sticks, the lumber had twisted in unimaginable ways. Some of the boards twisted 45 degrees. Somehow, they pushed up the entire stack as they dried and went on their merry way getting all crooked without regard to my perfectly placed stickers and extra weight. It was really incredible. Even if I showed you a dried board in person, you may not have believed it. I had to cut some of the wood as short as 8″ long, just so I could straighten it on the jointer before it went through the planer. I don’t cut sweetgum anymore.
After my sweetgum “education”, it was clear that some wood is just not going to dry straight. Certain species always dry wonky. Flatsawn sycamore, elm and cottonwood all come to mind, along with the sweetgum, as bad actors. If quartersawn, they are all more stable, but if flatsawn, all bets are off. I always say that flatsawn sycamore dries like a potato chip. Elm and cottonwood dry more like thinly sliced potatoes that are fried in oil.
And, it isn’t just certain species that twist. Branches or trees that grew with a lean will dry crooked, even if they came from normally cooperative species. Certain areas within the good lumber can dry crooked too. Wood around a branch or crotch always dries spastic because the grain of the wood is flowing in many different directions. And, the lumber can still dry crooked if the lumber isn’t cut with the pith of the tree down the center of the board. There are just too many forces in the world trying to make the lumber unstraight.
The last one, and the one that I cannot defeat, is the tree with a twist. Not twisted lumber, but a twisted tree. The twist gets in the tree as it grows, and it twists the lumber as it dries. I have seen it in may different hardwood trees and the resulting lumber is always twisted. This past summer, I took a photo of a dead sycamore that showed off this “death-twist”, which would make an already cantankerous lumber throw an off-the-charts fit. It is easily identified by looking at the surface checks in this dried out log.
Click on any photo to enlarge.
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- This sycamore “stood out” along the road.
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- This close-up shows the grain of the tree running up at a severe angle.
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- This view shows the consistent twist all the way to the top.
Sycamore doesn’t always look like this. The grain is normally wavy, which makes the lumber dry unflat, but it isn’t usually twisted. This tree is very, very twisted and will dry with a pronounced twist in every board. It is best left as a decoration in the field. The good news is that this twist is usually obvious, even when the bark is on the tree. The bark will have the same twisted lines as the log, and let you know that it isn’t worth milling.
In the world of sawmilling, however, very few logs come right out and announce that they are going to twist. They don’t say, “Don’t waste your time cutting me, idiot!” Many logs and pieces of lumber look good but end up doing what they want, and you have to accept that some lumber just won’t dry flat. I still do everything I can to make the lumber dry straight, but I know now that crooked lumber is part of life and, in the meantime, I have become really good friends with my jointer.
River Logging Begins At WunderWoods
“The June rise used to be always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins, here comes cord-wood floating down, and pieces of log rafts – sometimes a dozen logs together; so all you have to do is catch them and sell them to the wood yards and sawmill.”
–Quote from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
I am reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn right now (mostly because everyone that considers themselves a fair-bit learned says it’s a proper read) and I came across the above paragraph about wood floating down the river. It struck me for two reasons. First off, I see the river every day and can’t help but be drawn to it for the logs that float past my shop. The second, and most appropriate reason, is that it mentions the “June rise”.
I didn’t know the “June rise” was a thing, even though I knew the river was highest in the spring. Personally, I think of June as the summer, but early June is still spring, and this year the rise was in spring and interestingly enough, in June. As a matter of fact, it was June 1st officially, but started with a vengeance on May 31st.
That night we were at the Ameristar Casino, on the Missouri River, in downtown St. Charles for my dad’s retirement party, planning on an upscale night out with the family. We were going to attend the retirement party, go swimming, watch TV in the bathtub (they have TV’s in the bathrooms), probably go swimming again the next morning and go out to breakfast, and just generally live it up as much as possible with our 7-year-old daughter. I say, “We were going to,” because things didn’t go as planned.
After the party, we went to the pool and were told that we would have to get out because a storm with lightning was headed our way. It wasn’t a big deal because we knew that we could swim the next morning, so we headed up to the room to find something else to do. We ended up watching out from the 22nd floor, with a great view, to see the approaching storm and lightning. It looked rather ominous, so we turned on the news to see that a tornado was headed in our general direction, and so, ended our night of fun.
We sheltered in the basement, hearing second-hand damage reports as we waited for it to pass. We weren’t in the basement long, but the hotel lost power, so we spent the rest of the evening in the lobby until the power came back on. When we finally got up to our room, we, of course, looked out the window and could see vast areas of darkness where there should be light, punctuated by areas of bright flashing lights. The tornado had come very close to the hotel and the lights were from emergency response teams. It looked like the tornado might have went close to our house as well, but there was nothing to do that night. All of the power was out and traffic was all locked up because the highway was closed, so we just hung out in our room, watched the news, watched the rain, and went to bed.
When the sun came up, there was some evident damage from high winds, but the most obvious outcome from the storm was the rising river. It was already a little high before this latest storm, and the all-night rain pushed it to flood levels. The water from the river was starting to fill the lower parking lot, making the hotel an island.
As I looked out from the 22nd floor, I could easily see a large segment of the Missouri River, and guess what I saw. Logs, logs and more logs. Huge ones floating right on by, and in good numbers. In just one minute, easily three to four giant trees would go by, along with all the smaller pieces. The “June rise” was on.
As much as I wanted to get all of those logs, it was obviously too dangerous. The water was high and swift, and as far as I could tell, only an idiot would get on the river in those conditions. It didn’t matter right then anyway, because I had to focus on the ramifications of the tornado.
A few days later, as I was looking at some downed trees from the tornado, one of the guys in the conversation mentioned how fast the river can drop in just a day, “like someone pulled the drain plug,” he said. Near the river, he had a house that was flooded the day before and was now on dry land. He also mentioned that he had a lot of trees just float onto his land, as well as some that were knocked over by the tornado.
This got me thinking more about the logs on the river, and that it would be a good time to look for logs or driftwood. But, I didn’t do much about it. I had a never-ending supply of logs right around my shop from the tornado and didn’t need to go looking for trees in the river. Plus, the river was still high, even though it had dropped a lot.
As much as I tried to avoid them, I couldn’t. Within just a couple of days, I was headed across the Missouri River on the Blanchette Bridge back into St. Charles, when I noticed the mother lode. Off to the right, near a parking lot for downtown St. Charles and Frontier Park was the biggest log jam I have ever seen. It was as big as a football field full of logs and driftwood, all piled in tight and screaming my name. It was huge, and I expected that I could pick logs from this pile for a long time. All I had to do was wait for the ground to dry a bit, and I could move in (with the proper clearance, of course). I knew that the logs would be there awhile because every person working for St. Charles was cleaning up the tornado debris and none of them were going to worry about this pile of logs, no matter how big it was, on the banks of the river. Heck, another good rain would take it down river anyway. So, I waited – but not long.
Only two days later, I was headed across the bridge in the same direction and looked down at the giant log jam to see only dirt. A football field-sized piece of real estate that used to be covered in logs, was now just dirt. It was incredible that they could have cleaned up that many logs that fast, but somehow they did. I thought I had plenty of time, but I still missed them, just like the great walnut log I let go downstream at the end of winter.
I told myself it was for the best, and that I didn’t need to chase river logs, but I was sure that the “June rise” had left something for me. It is a big river, and I knew that there were treasures to be found. I held out as long as I could, but then finally, I took the official “plunge”.
It happened a couple of weeks ago and knowing that summer was coming to an end, I went out and picked up five river logs, figuring that I better do it now before the water gets cold. I didn’t find any walnuts this time, but I did find one, in particular, that makes me want to go back. It is a silver maple, like the others that I picked up, but it must have spent more time in the water because the sapwood was very dark, almost black. At the same time, the heartwood looked almost new, making the boards with both sapwood and heartwood have amazing contrast. I was especially excited at how the dark sapwood looks like marble or some other stone. I always say, the less it looks like wood, the better it is.
Here are some photos of my prized log. Click on any of the photos for a closer look and to view the slide show.
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- The first cut on this log revealed dark-stained sapwood mixed with bug holes.
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- This photo shows the beautiful mix of stained sapwood, bug holes and a little tan-colored heartwood.
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- The second cut shows how well preserved the log is from the water. The log is solid and the heartwood looks almost new.
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- On the left is one of the first cuts on the outside of the log. On the right is a second cut, which better shows the contrast between the heartwood and sapwood.
The entire log was solid, including the sapwood and produced six slabs up to 22″ wide and 2-3/8″ thick, and in case you were wondering, all of them smell like the bottom of a river. Other than that, milling this log was a completely enjoyable experience. And, even though I can find plenty of logs on land, this one log will have me going back to the river again, especially around June.
Pecan Bent Branch Bench (say that five times)
Not too long ago, I got on a kick milling wide slabs on the Lucas Mill. I was milling some pecan branches from a giant tree and the slabs were coming out great. The crazier the section was, the better the slabs were. Then I got to this last branch. It was the smallest in diameter, but I thought it still had potential. My plan was to clean it up and make it more “log like” without the extra branch and then mill the slabs. The problem was that every time I tried to move it with the forklift it kept rolling off of the forks. The forks of the branch made it want to spin, and every time it landed in the same position. It was almost yelling at me to leave it alone, so I did. For awhile, I just kept moving it out of the way so I could work on better logs, and it kept flopping off of my forks.
It took me awhile to clue in, but then I realized that the final piece was going to be a bench cut from the branch and not slabs cut from the branch, and the way it kept landing was the way the bench was going to sit. So, I stopped fighting it and made a few cuts. I ended up with this excellent outdoor bench (and one bonus slab). I milled both the top and bottom to make it sit level at 18″ tall. The widest flat area is 24″ wide, while the entire bench is about 10′ long. I don’t know how much it weighs, but it is very heavy and will require a Bobcat for loading and delivery. The top has been sanded and then finished with Sikkens Cetol, which I have found to be the longest lasting outdoor finish. I expect that the bark will fall off, but so far it is staying on pretty good.
I have never made a bench like this before, and I am quite proud of this one. It looks nice, functions well and is hard to steal. And, the best part is that now, for some reason, it doesn’t roll off of the forks. I guess it is just the way it was meant to be.
How To Make A Thick Countertop Out Of Thin Wood
Lately, I have had a run on countertop orders. They have all been walnut (which is the hottest wood around right now), and all 1-1/2″ thick. These jobs could be as simple as gluing up boards 1-1/2″ thick and going home, but I don’t make anything simple.
First, a little background. In case you haven’t read much of my blog, I cut and use as much of my own lumber as I can. I get all of my logs for free and have little jurisdiction over what I get. When I mill the logs I rarely have a specific job in mind. I am cutting lumber and guessing what will sell. I tend to cut 4/4 lumber because it is the quickest to dry and the easiest to sell. It makes up about 75% of my sales, and is my fallback position.
I only cut thicker lumber when I have a really good log that will produce high-quality thick boards or I have an order for it, and then only when I am not in a hurry (thicker lumber takes longer to dry). So, that leaves me with a lot 4/4 lumber that needs to magically grow to 1-1/2″ thick when a countertop comes along. Martin Goebel (a friend and fellow woodworker) would call me an idiot and tell me to cut all of my wood thick, that there is no substitute and anything else I do is just nonsense. I am OK with that, but that isn’t the real world.
In the real world, regular woodworkers (and even irregular ones) are often asked to make some magic happen from time to time. Often, it involves stretching lumber to make a project even possible. And, so it was on my latest countertop, when I was asked by a customer to make a large island top out of their small walnut tree.
In this case, I didn’t have enough lumber available in the logs to cut them thick and still get the coverage I needed. I also needed to get the top installed in just a couple of months and thicker lumber would have made that nearly impossible (without my dream vacuum kiln).
I pulled out a trick that I “invented” years ago when I had a similar situation with lumber that was too thin for the job. In that first attempt, I reassured myself that I could do it because the room it was going in had little light and no one could look at it closely anyway. It so happens that it turned out great and now it is my go-to move (much to Martin’s chagrin).
The concept is simple, but until you see a finished piece you may be as skeptical as I was on my first one. Keep an open mind and be sure to look at the final pictures, and I think you will be a believer.
It all starts with picking out the lumber and laying out the boards to be about 1-1/2″ to 2″ wider than the finished piece on all four sides. For the countertop in the photos, the finished size was 42″ x 96″, so my final glue-up was about 46″ x 100″. After the top is glued up and sanded, it is time to lay it out and trim it to the final size.
The top was glued up with extra wood on all four sides. 1-1/2″ to 2″ is the perfect amount.
A circular saw with a straightedge (3/4″ plywood in this case) is all it takes to trim the top to size.
As you trim the top, keep track of the offcuts and their relationship to the countertop. All of these pieces have to be flipped under the top to make up the extra thickness, and they need to line up with their original position. Start with the end grain pieces because they are the most critical as far as alignment goes. Miter the corners, flip them over and glue them on.
The ends of the top are trimmed to length, the offcut is mitered to width and flipped, so the end grain is bookmatched. This view is of the bottom side.
After gluing the end-grain pieces, do the same thing with the long-grain pieces. The grain alignment is less critical on these pieces, so focus more on the fit of the miters and making sure that the corners look good.
The long edge is trimmed to width. The offcut is mitered to length and the piece is flipped so the outside edges are bookmatched. This view is also of the bottom side.
After the glue is dry on all of the edges, it is time for more sanding. I use a 6″ random orbit sander for this task. Spend enough time sanding to make sure all of the saw marks are gone on the edge. If you are doing a top with a square edge, it is time to do the final overall sanding and finishing.
After the glue is dry, it’s time to sand everything flush. This photo shows how the end grain would look if the edge wasn’t profiled.
The top I did got a profiled edge, which helped hide the glue lines even more. Look at the photos below to see how the endgrain on flatsawn and quartersawn lumber looks.
On this corner, the end grain from the flatsawn boards has opposing arches, but they still blend well.
On this side, the end grain is more vertical and helps hide the glue seam.
After profiling the edge, just a little more sanding finishes up the woodworking portion of this top. Next, it is on to the finish.
The walnut countertop is sanded and ready for finish.
When finishing walnut, I usually put on a coat of walnut stain (yes, walnut stain on walnut). It is a 50/50 blend of Minwax Special Walnut and Minwax Dark Walnut to maintain the dark color, since walnut lightens with age. The stain does a great job of enhancing the rich color without hiding the grain. Waterlox, which is easy to apply and repair, was used as the topcoat.
Now, it’s time to bask! The walnut countertop is finished and the cooktop fits without incident. Whew!
After all is said and done, I think you’ll agree that the top looks great, and appears to be made from thicker lumber. I even ended up with a few extra boards.
Walnut And Cherry Are Great Exterior Woods
I’ll admit it, I am not as fast as I’d like to be. I always think that I will get things done quicker than I do. And, I always say that things are done when I mean they are “basically done”, which means that I still have a few things left to do (therefore not done). I like to think of it as being optimistic. Well, while I am being “optimistic”, a lot of other things aren’t getting done (mostly because I am busy working on the thing that I thought was already done).
The one thing usually not getting done is sawing. After all, the logs aren’t going anywhere and a lot of them are just getting better with age. I’ll let them sit for a while, depending on the species, and try to play it just right for special things, like spalting, to happen. Sometimes I push it too far and the log rots and becomes unusable. Species like ash and maple, which have a lot of sapwood, need to be milled sooner than the rest. They (especially maple) will quickly stain, spalt and then rot, while others will be fine. I often use this rotting process as a gauge to decide which log to mill next. I like all of the logs I bring in, and I don’t want any of them to turn into dirt before they get turned into lumber.
Through the years, as I have kept tabs on the disintegrating logs, I have learned what it means to be “durable”. In the books about different species of wood, they always list their durability, which I thought meant how they handle wear and tear, like from a hammer, but they mean from the weather. Turns out some woods last longer outside than others. I knew this, of course, but only from reading it. Now, after all of my “wood collecting”, I know it from watching it happen. Some woods go fast, but some never seem to go. And, they are not necessarily the first ones to come to mind.
I was inspired to write this because of the two that are extremely durable, but no one ever thinks to use outside – two of my best friends – walnut and cherry. These two just don’t rot. I should say the heartwood doesn’t rot. The sapwood on both of them rots as fast as any other sapwood, but the heartwood doesn’t rot. I commonly find old logs with no bark and sapwood that just flakes off in my hand, but the heartwood is fine. It might have cracks in it from the log drying out or bug holes from sitting too long, but the heartwood will be just as solid as the day it was cut down.
This walnut looks rotten at first glance, and although the inside wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t rotten. The inside looked the same as a fresh log. Click on the link near the end of this post to see the inside.
This cherry log came from a tree that stood dead for years before it was cut down and then the log sat for two more years before it was milled. The next photo shows the inside.
The sapwood (dark band at the top of each piece) turned from white to gray on this cherry, but the heartwood was perfect.
Of the species I mill, these are not the only ones that perform great outside, but they are the surprises. I bet almost no one would think of using walnut or cherry outside. They always end up inside because they are so nice, maybe too nice to put outside. I will tell you that this one has me baffled, and as of yet, I have no idea why this is. However, my main interest is to spread the word that walnut and cherry are great outdoor choices. Walnut may not be the best because the price is going up, but cherry is becoming an even better choice as its price is on the decline. If you don’t mind a few knots in your outdoor work, common-grade cherry is very affordable. And, if you are doing a high-end outdoor piece clear walnut may make sense. It is more expensive than Ipe (an imported wood great for outdoor work), but it is easier to work with and it just feels right to use an American wood.
Again, the sole reason I know that these woods are durable is from my own experience. If I have a walnut or cherry log and it doesn’t get cut right away, I don’t sweat it. I know that years down the road that logs from these two species will still have solid wood in them, while others have rotted away. The best example I have is from a recent post about a walnut that I found on the Missouri River. It was the driftiest piece of driftwood you will ever find and the inside still looked like new (click here to check out the post and video from the picture above and to see the inside of the log).
Aging Metal Hardware Like A Man
I am a man. I like to build things and I like to burn things. Heck, I have even been known to build something just to burn it down or blow it up (especially around the Fourth of July).
Fire mesmerizes and bewilders me. I find it amazing that it can come from virtually nowhere, you can’t really touch it even though you can feel it, and it makes things disappear into thin air. Heavy things, really, really heavy things, like a whole stack of wood, can be gone in no time.
I know this, of course, because I have burnt a lot of things in my lifetime, including my last shop (a complete accident, by the way). What was amazing about it was the fact that just the day before, I had a shop filled with tools, and the next day I had a shallow pile of charcoal mixed with rusty metal. I remember going there the morning after the fire and looking for anything to salvage and being amazed at how rusty the metal was. It looked like it had set out in the rain for years and it was only hours since the fire department was there.
12″ Crescent jointer and 20″ Grizzly drum sander (click on the photo to read about the fire).
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I was just cleaning up the debris and throwing the chunks of rusty steel into the scrap pile. But it didn’t take long for things to click. You see, rusty metal is a very desirable finish in these days of worn, industrial, antique, distressed furniture – a style that I find myself doing on a regular basis. Even if it’s not officially a rusty finish that I am looking for, it is usually something that looks not new in some way. And, I have to tell you that burnt, rusty metal does not look new. It looks very, very old.
All of this was a welcomed revelation because I have spent lots of hours in the past trying to get the “not new” look. I had used paint stripper to remove the protective clear finish from new hardware. I soaked steel directly in salt water and in salt water towels so it would get more air, and hopefully, rust faster. I’ve tried a lot of things on brass too, like ammonia and vinegar. But, I never considered heat until the shop burned down.
Heat makes sense. Heat is what they use to make the metal, so it seems like it could work to “unmake” it a bit. And after I saw the magic that happened to all of the metal in my former shop, I gave it a go. The first batch worked great. I was doing a cabinet with very small hinges, so even if I destroyed them it would only cost me a few dollars. I made a little fire and threw them in. I put the fire out with a lot of water and just let it sit in the water-logged charcoal mix for a day and it looked just like the rusty metal from my shop.
The second attempt was as amusing as it was informative. Now that I had one burning under my belt, I confidently came home, started a fire in the fireplace (it was winter time), and nonchalantly threw them in like I had done it a thousand times. Chris (my lovely wife), of course, questioned my actions and I, of course, acted like she was the idiot this time. Turns out, I was the idiot again. Why do I always have to be the idiot? Mostly, because in this case, I threw what appears to have been aluminum or some other metal that easily melts into the fire. It burned in a beautiful rainbow of colors, which told me that the metal was actually being consumed by the fire. After the fire died down, I dug around and found only the screws. Everything else vanished. I made myself feel better by saying that they were cheap and I didn’t want them anyway.
Because of that, I now make sure that my victims are made of steel or something like steel, something that can take the heat. I would recommend testing one piece before you throw them all in the fire if you aren’t sure about their metal content. Besides that one bit of caution, all you have to do is build a fire and throw your hardware in. Make sure that you act like you have done it before and don’t even bother to take it out of the packaging (it all disappears).
This is how the hinge looks almost new, with a little bit of melted packaging on it (just after I quickly took it out of the fire when I forgot to take a photo).
Let the fire burn until all of the wood is charcoal and the metal looks discolored. While everything is still hot, put out the fire with plenty of water, just like the firefighters would do it. At that point, you can immediately dig out the hardware if you don’t need the metal to rust, or you can let it sit in the wet charcoal for a day or two and get rusty. The amount of time will depend on the metal. Better steel, hardened steel with more carbon, will rust quickly.
Let the fire burn until all of the wood turns to charcoal and the metal gets discolored.
When the hardware comes out of the fire it looks very different. If you like the look you are done, but for me it looks a little rugged on most pieces. I usually put a thin coat of lacquer on the hardware to make it look more like an old piece, but one that has spent more time indoors than out. Depending on how it looks when it comes out of the fire, it may only take a little bit of cleaning to have the right look.
Just out of the fire, the hinges need a little cleaning.
I just brushed them off with an old paint brush. If you like this look, you are done. I prefer a little lacquer to lessen the burning effect.
After the lacquer, the hinges still look old, but feel more like they go on an interior piece of furniture
A closer view shows the different colors and textures created by the fire (click on the photo for an even closer view).
The beauty of the burning process is that each piece comes out different and looks authentically aged. Compared to “antiqued” hardware from many large hardware makers, which often look like a lackluster attempt at aging, the difference is night and day. And, the best part is I have a reason to burn things. Now, I need to find a reason to blow things up.
Martin Goebel Has Big Plans
Martin likes big logs too.
About a week ago we milled a big Black Oak log for our friend Martin Goebel of Goebel & Co. Furniture. It looks like he has some big plans, and they include a large tabletop for a customer. Our mission was to get at least one good slab, cut at 4″ thick, that would stay together through the drying process. The log was stout with a lot of character and a few bad spots, but it was so big that getting some slabs that met the requirement was no problem.
This is the first log that I have milled on the Lucas Mill that required the mill to be jacked up (by about 10″) to get started. The mill will cut up to 62″ wide with the chainsaw slabber attachment, and we still had to trim both sides of the butt end for the log to fit. We milled the bottom log with the slabber, and Roger Branson of Red Rooster Sawmill cut up the top logs on his Wood-Mizer LT40. In all we got about 1,600 bd. ft. out of the tree, with about 1,000 bd. ft. coming out of the bottom 10′ log.
Here are the photos of the event:
Even with the mill jacked up and elevated as high as it would go, the log needed to be trimmed for the mill to work.
After we got a level work surface, it was easier to work on top of the log.
This is a manual mill and needs to be pushed through the cut. To speed things up, Scott helped Dan push the mill.
This is the natural-edge slab Martin picked out for the tabletop. It is just over 10′ long and 5′ wide on the end with the trimmed sides. It was cut 4″ thick and will take over a year to dry, even with the help of a kiln. There are a couple of spots that Martin sealed up to help prevent large cracks. Overall, an impressive piece of wood.
After the milling we got all of the wood back in the shop and stacked to start drying. It is nutty to know that the lumber is so big that it takes two of us just to slide one end of the slab on to the sticks. Luckily, the stacking is done, and now we wait, with our fingers crossed, in hopes that nothing breaks as it dries.
Tornado Takes Down Giant White Oak
After the latest tornado to roll through, I have been out looking at logs to pickup. I ran across this White Oak not far from my sawmill that was listed on Craigslist for free firewood. I could tell even from a blurry, out-of-focus photo that it was giant and needed to see just how big. It is 52″ in diameter about 8′ from the base and one of the two biggest White Oaks I have run into (the other is actually a Burr Oak, but it is in the White Oak family. Click here to check it out). Unfortunately, it was hollow all the way up, but I still had to get a photo. Good luck to the kids that want to firewood that one!
Click on any photo to get a closer look:
Missouri Botanical (Shaw) Gardens Is For Tree Lovers Too
Two weekends ago we were looking for some local entertainment and ended up taking a little trip to the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It is on our short list of great St. Louis attractions, and even though it isn’t free like the zoo, the science center, or the art museum, we go there at least once a year. We live in St. Charles now, which is just outside of St. Louis County, so we don’t get a reduced rate or free days like we did when we lived in Hazelwood, but it doesn’t matter. It is well worth the full price of $8 for adults. Children under 12 are free, but the Children’s Garden will add $5 to the bill. Still, for about twenty bucks, it is well worth it.
As soon as I walk through the main building I feel a little lighter and happier, like the worries of the world have just vanished. It feels right. It is so nice and clean and Disneyesque. I can’t help but think that someone needs to build a hotel next to the gardens to capitalize on what they have going. Of course, I’m biased though. I love the outdoors, plants, gardens, and trees.
As soon as you walk out of the main building and head down the path to the right, you are greeted by large trees. I noticed Tulip Poplars and a big Sycamore right away, but they are mixed in with every tree you can think of. The beauty is that they are big, they are old, and they are labeled (by people who I trust).
This path sets the tone at the front of the gardens with big trees like the sycamore at right.
The trees are set among themed gardens and are usually together in a small group or grove. The Children’s Garden, which is an excellent recent addition, is built in and around a grove of Osage Orange trees like you have never seen. Usually these trees are bushy, with short crooked trunks. Sometimes, they are called “hedge apple” or just “hedge” for short, because they will form a fence-like impenetrable barrier. They are rarely trees that you would look at and say “I could make some good lumber out of that”, but these are a different story. One, in particular, that I photographed is 36″ in diameter at 8′ from the ground and has 16′ or more of good trunk. “Unbelievable!” I say.
This osage orange is 36″ in diameter at 8′ from the ground. Notice how almost straight the trunk is (not normal for osage).
Throughout the park the story is the same. Big trees mixed in with beautiful gardens are a constant, except of course, in the Japanese Garden, where everything is more petite. Back by the English Garden are the biggest trees; Ash, White oak, and a record Basswood.
Keep moving! Nothing to mill here. All of the trees are so small in Japan.
The formal English Garden uses lots of plants, but they are surrounded by plenty of trees.
One group that stood out during our visit was the Black Gums or Tupelo. Three smaller trees hung over the path and were buzzing with the sound of thousands of bees. I have heard about Tupelo Honey and I got a chance to hear it being made (the girls were not as excited as me to be under those trees). There were a few beehives a short distance away, and you could smell the honey in the air.
These black gum (tupelo) trees were buzzing with the sound of thousands of bees.
As always, we didn’t see everything because the park is so big, but we got to fly through most of it in a couple of hours. If you really wanted to take in everything there, it would take a full day, and I am sure you would still miss something. Even so, I highly recommend that you visit this world-class park. You will not be disappointed.
Here are some other photos of the park for your enjoyment (click on any photo to view the slide show):
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- A large Chihuly glass sculpture greets visitors as they enter the gardens. In this case it said, “bye” to us as we were leaving.
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- The reflecting pools are focal point in the middle of the gardens.
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- Mira loves to swing like a monkey from vine to vine in the Children’s Garden.
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- The Treehouse and General Store always have customers.
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- One of our favorite areas is the locks and dams in the Chidren’s Garden.
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- Even Chris gets into the fake action in the Children’s Garden.
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- Mira posing on the log pile for me (look she even smiled).
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- Mira always picks the smallest lamb to sit on in the walnut grove.
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- The fish and ducks are well fed in the Japanese Garden.
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- Even though the trees are small, the Japanese Garden is still very nice.
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- From the tower that overlooks the English Garden you get a good idea of how lush this place is.
What Makes A Good Crotch?
When I cut wood, I am always on the lookout for the unique. I don’t always know what I am going to find, but I know that the less it looks like wood or “regular” wood the easier it is to sell. And, even though I like to cut anything and everything wood, it just makes good sense to cut the stuff that sells. Often the lumber goes up in value because of things that happen to it after it is dead, like spalting and bug intrusions, but a lot of good things happen when the tree is alive and growing too, like burls and curly figure. I guarantee, if I ever cut a curly log, with burls, that is spalted and full of bugs, that it will sell – quickly and at a good price (for me, that is).
Every log has wood in it somewhere that is at least a little irregular. You just need to know where to look. One place that holds a lot of promise is the crotch area, another is the stump and a third is at the base of large branches.
All of these areas have one thing in common – None are regular, plain, or straight-grained. Some are better than others, but none are regular. They stand out because the grain is figured, usually referred to as curly (at least by me). The curliness happens when two directions of wood grow into each other. It is a little hard to explain, but easy to see, especially in a crotch.
This photo from Weinig custom gunstocks shows the beautiful figure from the crotch of an American Black Walnut.
A crotch is an area on a tree where a single trunk splits into two, forming a “Y” shape or an upside-down pair of legs, similar to your own crotch. In this magical area, the tree is short on space for the material that is added to the tree as it grows. With each year of growth and the addition of another annual ring of thickness, things get crowded. Wood pushes against wood and the grain starts to buckle in different directions. It shimmers in the light and looks like waves of liquid. The crotch, in particular, can be large and somewhat predictable. If the crotch is built well, the wood inside will be worth the work.
Notice I said, “If it is built well” – not all crotches are. The good news is that usually everything you need to know about the inside of the crotch is labeled on the outside. You just need to be able to read it. Here are a few keys to the language:
1. Bigger is better. The bigger and wider the crotch, the bigger and wider the figured wood. Wider crotches are also longer. Every ring of growth adds to the width, but also pushes the crotch up, adding to the length.
This white oak crotch was trimmed on both sides to 48″ to fit in the sawmill. I need a bigger mill.
2. Pointed isn’t the best. Between the two branches, at their intersection, things should be rounded, not pointed. Round inside curves show that the crotch is increasing in length every year as one piece and not two pieces crashing into each other. I like to think of a really good crotch as being “U”-shaped as compared to “Y” or “V”-shaped. A truly “U”-shaped crotch is difficult to find.
This crotch photo from Talarico Hardwoods shows a crotch with an almost perfect shape. The branches meet at an angle that is a little steep, but notice how the natural edge between the branches forms a “U” shape instead of a “Y” shape with a hard angle. This is a big one too.
3. Parallel is worse. If the branches that meet to form the crotch are close to parallel, the crotch will be long, but broken into two separate pieces. Bark from each branch gets forced into the wood as the crotch grows over it. A 90 degree angle between the two branches is ideal. Think perpendicular, not parallel. Parallel is just two branches growing next to each other, not a crotch.
This American Elm slab shows two branches that are parallel to each other and separated by bark. Notice that the “crotch” area has no special figure and is really two separate pieces. This slab is leaning against the wall opposite of the way it grew (the branches are pointing towards the ground).
4. Bulges are the worst. If a crotch is forming correctly, with no bark inclusions, the crotch itself will be flat on the outside where the branches meet. A bad crotch will have a bulge, indicating that the crotch has bark in it (bark inclusion) and the tree had trouble growing over it. It may look like one solid piece on the outside, but the inside will be divided into two pieces with bark down the middle (not exactly what you are looking for in a crotch).
This walnut crotch has branches that are almost parallel and meet at a steep angle. The crotch intersection also shows a large bulge. Both characteristics indicate a crotch that has a long bark inclusion and that most of the center cuts will separate into two pieces. Photo from Tennessee Tim on Woodworking Talk.com
These photos are from the inside cuts of the above walnut crotch. All of them have bark inclusions and the center cuts are completely separated. Photo from Tennessee Tim of Woodworking Talk.com
Besides the size, all of the other concerns above (#2 through #4) are regarding bark inclusions (which we are trying to avoid). Without bark inclusions, crotches are a single piece of highly-figured wood. With long bark inclusions, the crotch is usually unimpressive, not figured and broken.
For most of you, deciding how or whether to mill a crotch will never be an issue. At the same time, I have run into plenty of people who want to have logs milled and are especially excited about a crotch section that just won’t pan out. If you find yourself trying to decide how to cut up a tree with a crotch in it, I hope this proves to be helpful. Notice how I gently worded that and didn’t say, “Don’t mill it.” I would never say that.
What’s Going on at WunderWoods
Everyone always asks what I do. Here's the answer. Click on the photo above for a short video tour and see all of the steps it takes to go from a tree to finished furniture.