>After the chat last night (Thanks Terry!) I asked about some problems I've been having with some black walnut I've got. The tree was cut down 4-5 years ago and was fairly large. The sapwood is fairly rotten but the heartwood seems solid. However, I'm having some problems where the wood is separating along the grain.
First two photos are of a finished bowl. The split is highlighted in green. the blobby stuff is CA I used to fill the crack as an experiment, but had already turned the base off. It's a practice bowl that now holds my change and keys :)
The second piece is on the lathe. You can see white... mold? the dark color is thin CA I tried to get into the splits to hold it together. It doesn't fall apart. I had another piece that I threw down to see if I could break it off, but no good. It's solid, just... split :) I suspect this is a lost cause, but I don't have enough experience to tell!
This wood is just going to keep giving you problems. I turn a lot of walnut and black walnut. Once the log gets that inside crack, it probably will run the whole length.
In the words of John Jordan, "Life is too short to turn crappy wood." Move on to the next one and remember our medium grows on trees!
That looks like either ring shake or wind shake. I have no idea how to tell the difference just looking at it, and I suspect that there is no real difference. Both are characterized by the wood separating along the growth rings, and they make the wood pretty much useless for turning. Like Ruth says, don't waste any time on it.
Now, if you have some larger pieces and the shakes are further apart, then you might try some spindle work. I have a huge red oak stump in the field that has ring shake, but I have let it dry for a couple of years now to see how bad it is going to get. It looks like I will get some spindle material out of it on the order of 4" thick. No bowls will come out because of the curvature of the rings. Why am I putting this kind of time into red oak? It is curly, and it might make some nice looking lamps. But most of the time this stuff goes into the firewood pile.
>Thanks Ruth and Bill. I'll go cut up the rest of the log and see if there's any chunks big enough to keep. Cutting for spindles is a good idea. The wood is purty! I don't suppose walnut makes good tool handles? I imagine I can get pen blanks out of it at the very worst :)
>Ruth's right -- this wood isn't worth your efforts, and yes, even Walnut grows on trees !
I have never learned any difference between ring shake and wind shake -- are they the same ? These cracks along growth rings seem to happen when trees sway a lot in the wind, and the rings appear to slide over one another to allow the tree to move. Sometimes one tree, out in the open, will have terrible ring shake, while another tree of the same species, just 50 yards away, but protected from direct blasts of wind, will be just fine.
This tree could also have shattered as it was felled. The light patches are probably what passes for spalting in Bl. Walnut -- since this tree was on the ground for a few years, you probably got drying on top of the log, and pooling of moisture, and some spalting or staining on the botom. I have some Walnut which was on the ground for about 18 months, and had begun to spalt in a fairly unattractive way, leaving patches that looked water stained, and a little lighter colored than the rest.
This tree also has very wide growth rings, which might be reaction wood formed if the tree leaned out at a significant angle; if so, the growth rings will be more closely spaced on the other side of the pith. If this is the case, you might have better luck with the wood with tighter annnual rings, and it would be less likely to crack. If you make pen blanks, you will probably be able to make an entire pen from one year's growth, with no rings visible -- cool !
>Instead of just CA glue on the split, why not try making a slurry with Danish oil and sand paper. Fill the crack with the slurry which will be of walnut sawdust and oil, THEN, if you wish, use the CA glue to make it really permanent.
>They are actually the same thing, with the term "ring shake" being more accurate. Shake is a bacterial defect and has nothing to do with wind.
And blanks with shake have the potential for flying apart on the lathe, so I'd do what Bill says and let it dry good and see if you can cut around it. But if it wasn't something special, like curly, I'd burn it.
