Question on how to cut a crotch.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

MP Wall

>If you want to put the figure into a turned piece you want to have the bottom of the turning just past the joining point of the crotch with the top of the turning just on the other side of the joining point. This allows the area of figure from the joining area to be closest to the surface of the turning and show the figure. Platters are very good at showing figure from crotches and if the joining area is deep enough several blanks could be saved from each crotch. I don't think this description is the best but if you back search the topic I am sure someone has explained it a lot better than I can.

MP Wall

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Barry Irby

>I sorry but you lost me. (Not hard to do) How should I look at this? I may have jumped in the wrong direction. I sliced though my piece so that the fork in the tree created a "Y". I tried to go right down the pith of the two branches and the stem of the tree. I thought there would be a bowl or plater on each side of the cut.

Should I have gone straight down from the top of the tree as if looking into a wine glass?

Thanks again.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

John Lucas

>Hold a bowl in your lap and carve down toward your thigh. One slip and you will know how to cut your crotch. Sorry I just couldn't help it.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Ron is Drums pa

>For the best figure the bottom of the bowl should be the center of the log, close to the pith.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Ron is Drums pa

>You cut it right Barry

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Barry Irby

>Thanks to both of you. When I posted the question I almost put (insert bad joke here), I knew someone would come through.

This has been interesting. I cut the piece I had in half as I described, thinking I could do one side one way and then try it the other way on the other side. I have more respect for those pieces with flame or crotch pattern in them now. If you make a bowl that way, it is hard to get one of any size, unless you want a bark edge. Then it turned out the wood was full of small old limbs the were long gone and voids full of crud, cracks, etc. Not pretty, not even interesting. You cuts your wood and takes your chances. Also explains why wood is so expensive even though it grows on trees.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Doug Trembath

>Barry, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Probably 80 percent of the crotches you cut, especially with cherry, will be less than spectacular, if usable at all for what you're looking for. I cut up about a 40" cherry log with multiple crotches last week, hoping to get some massive wall hanging blanks, and ended up with a lot of shavings, and normal turning blocks with spectacular figure in a thin layer on one side, which would be removed to shape the piece. The crotch portion of each was split, or hollow, had pitch inclusions so bad that the wood had no chance of staying together, and more. All bad. I'm pissed.

You are on the right track on how to cut the Y, and you've heard that the finest way to highlight the feather is to orient the platter with the bottom facing the pith. You just have to find a thick, solid, well grained piece to have the success you envisioned.

Another way to approach a crotch is to split the branches away at the pith of each branch, then cut the branch sections away flush with the bottom of the V, and make a hollow vessel with the bottom of the V becoming the top of the vessel. Wonderful grain patterns, and quite often there will be strong figure in opposite patterns, making a really nice piece.

Doug Trembath

Studio in the Woods

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Barry Irby

>Thanks. I had pretty much figured out what you told me, but now I won't approach these pieces with quite so much optimism. I went back in the shop last night and tried for a platter, with just the flame in it and about an inch thick. I was crack right down the middle when I sliced it off the blank. Now I have a huge pile of shavings and two nondescript bowls.

Do you have any experience with walnut? Are the crotches any better to harvest?

My son suggested a hollow form with the flame on the top and the plain wood as the bottom. Sort a bowl with a lid shape (flying saucer?). He has made some and it worked for him. Preserves the flame as the most prominent part of the piece.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Bob Hackett

>I`ve had pretty good luck splitting the main forks of larger trees(the secondary crotches not so much)of cherry,walnut and ash by cutting just as you have done and then sawing off a platter blank to preserve as much of the feather as I can.The rest becomes a conventional bowl blank with rim towards the pith.

The bowl blanks I`ve been getting this way always have some interest as far as swirling grain and different color between sap and heartwood.I`ve also had some luck offering both the bowl and the platter together.Once people see they`re from the same tree they like the idea of a matched set.

I know what you mean as far as being disappointed in the grain/bark inclusions.I go thru about 6 trees before I get one that`s solid and will hold the figure.That one that does makes all the ones that didn`t worth while.

I coat the roughouts completely in wax,bag them and dry very slowly so the platters don`t crack and the bowls don`t check through the sapwood.Lots of stresses in these type pieces.

I`ve also had some luck with large sugar maple,birch and red oak.These run about 1 in 10 though.

Good luck and keep trying,you`ll be glad you did after your first successful ones.

Mainely,Bob

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

George Van in WI

>Barry, I am attaching a photo of a recent birch crotch and the roughed blank pith to bottom, hope this helps. It is anchorsealed and has not checked or split.

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Dave Winters, Steamboat Springs, CO

>The best flame is right between the piths. So I have found that you need to allow for the chainsaw kerf and the thickness of the platter or bowl to yeild the best figure. Of course this only yields one piece generally, not two. But if you go into it knowing and expecting this it doesn't seem wasteful. If you saw right down between the piths to get two platters, you're turning the best figure into sawdust, and then you'll have the best figure on the bottom of your two platters. Hope I've explained it properly.

Cottonwood Feather  *LINK*

Dave Winters, Steamboat Springs, CO

>




http://www.davidwinterswoodworker.com/

Re: Question on how to cut a crotch.

Lou Krupnick

>You might want to check out Darrell Felman's web site, he 's got a good photographic journal of cutting out a crotch

http://aroundthewoods.com/whatmake.shtml