Band saw cutting of a maple crotch

Re: Band saw cutting of a maple crotch

Dick Coers

Find a vacuum kiln service. They don’t get the wood much over 90 degrees and have very little degrade. All the other methods of drying are a crap shoot. Especially if are talking hard maple. Be sure to spray it with TimBor if it’s going to sit around. This is a horrible time to slab hard maple. You have a high likelihood of getting sticker stain due to mold. Winter is the best time.

Re: Band saw cutting of a maple crotch

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Most of the crotches I have sawed had bark inclusions that rendered them near useless as crotch panels. But one gets lucks sometimes.

This project would have been more assured of success if the tree was cut in winter. Some mills don't cut maple in the summer months. I presume you know how to orient the log for sawing a crotch?

At once, after the tree is cut, wax the ends. If the ends have dried some and started to crack waxing will not be helpful to mitigate end cracking.

Once sawed get air to the surfaces quick and a lot of it. Must get surface dry or it is going to mold. It can mold to ruination in 48 hours if humid and hot. Given that it will be slabs it is not important to get it on sticks. I would stand the slabs on edge and get a fan on them. These small pieces are going to do what they want to- warp, crack- and there is nothing I know of that will stop it. The piddly amount of weight of stacking them in layers on sticks will not prevent anything except good air circulation. Your critical issue is mold at this point. Once the surface is dry then the goal is to dry the interior more slowly and this step could be on sticks.

Do you have a market for 6+ tables? I would have sawed the crotch thin for veneer if sawing was on a band mill and some thicker for door panels.

There will be lots of end grain so the slaps will dry quickly. Moisture loss out end grain is at least 10X faster than through the surfaces.

Re: Band saw cutting of a maple crotch

Barry Irby

I bought some Boracare with Mold preventive in it to spray my huge Oak slabs. Nisius Corp. makes it and I talked to their technical department and they recommended the version that has the Mold preventative.

Good advice from Dick and Bill. If I had A few hundreds of pounds of weight to put on top I would sticker and stack.

If you are counting on them warping, saw them a little thicker. Most of them are cut at least 9/4 (2 1/4"). Mine are huge, so I went for 3", hoping to get 2" or more finished out of them.

if the goal is to turn crotch to money...

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I'm skeptical you will find buyers for as many tables as this crotch will yield. Find a professional turner in your area and sell the crotch to someone that turns bowls and vases. Hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars of tuned objects could be made from a crotch this size. I had a huge cherry crotch at one time. Slabbed it at 4-5" with chain saw so I could move it. Never could find anyone to buy any of it for furniture in my area but I sold all but one piece to turners and made several hundred dollars from it. Someday I will need cherry door panels and that is where the rest will wind up.

Re: Band saw cutting of a maple crotch

John K Jordan

You might search the web for drying blanks for woodturning or ask on the turning forums. Some of us dry thick chunks and slabs often.

The basic procedure is to cut it a little oversized, coat well with AnchorSeal or something to slow the drying, and try to keep it out of heat and very low humidity. Drying quickly can cause all sorts of stability problems. Wide slabs should be well stickered and weighted. The vacuum kiln sounds like a good idea but I have no experience with that.

Crotches are a special problem since for stability it's best to cut a slick of the pith out but the best figure is at or very near the pith. A larger crotch is likely to have a bit more figure but you never know until you cut it. And as mentioned, crotches often turn out to be completely useless inside - best to reserve planning until you have the pieces in hand!

For burls and crotches I generally seal all the way around or at least surfaces that are highly figured. And all end grain.

Also, what kind of maple? Trees of even the same species are different, but I've had soft maple that seemed far more stable than some hard maple.

JKJ

conflicting advice

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

You are advocating slow drying. How do you deal with mold on easily molded species in the hot humid summer moths? I have seen soft maple with mold all the way through a 4/4 board in 48 hours in the summer. A friend had 8/4 holly mold throughout in 24 hours.

There is no shrinkage of wood until it reaches about 25% moisture content, the point where intercellular water is gone and the water within the cells begins to leave and the cells shrink. And once the intercellular water is evaporated mold is not a risk. Hence, on something easily molded like maple I would think that rapid initial drying would be desirable, if not essential, to prevent mold. That said, you have vastly more experience drying chunks and thick slabs than I.

Re: conflicting advice

Ed Wesolek

Thank you all for the advice. The tree had to come down because it was to close to the house and they were afraid of it hitting the house. So timing is not what I would like for this wood. I will look on the web and see what I can find to spray the wood to keep the mold off of it. Most likely I will set up to dry the wood as quickly as I can using the suggestion about the fans.

The tables that we want to make are just for ourselves and maybe a few friends that like them. There are also some nice logs that we are going to cut up as well. These are going to be for thick table tops and a bar top for his daughter-in-law. Looks like we will be having several fans running to dry them out.

Thanks again for your advice. Hopefully I can show some pictures of it once we get them cut up and dried.

Ed

guiding principals

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

The wood will not crack, or warp until the cells start to shrink, which occurs at about 25% moisture content. The live tree will be 80% moisture content or thereabouts. Mold will not colonize a dry surface. Given the time of year I would see if I could get a few days of initial drying with the boards out in the fresh air but shaded from the direct sun. Then get on sticks when the surface has dried, but before the surface dried to where checking was a risk.

Summer barns can have high internal humidity and can be bad places to dry lumber when mold is a risk. But they can be a dandy place to slow dry when slow dry is called for. In the perfect case you would dry outdoors in the breezes until the lumber was 30-40 % moisture content and then move indoors.

Must use DRY sticks. These can sun bake to be sure they are dry. Repeat- DRY!

Re: conflicting advice

John K Jordan

That's a good point. I've dried many types lumber and slabs from the sawmill stickered out in the shade but can't remember cutting maple trees for slabs. I dry all turning wood indoors in my shop where it's not so hot and humid.

When I process dripping wet logs into turning blanks I seal the end grain and dry on racks. For thick figured maple turning blanks with burls and crotches I still seal the figured sides when wet but have no experience with them molding. But my bigger blanks are mostly soft maple.

JKJ