oak slabs, feathered?

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Jennifer@Indy.USA

>Jim, Are you sure that is oak? Looks like maple to me?

Cool figure...

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Gary Evans, Tallassee, TN

>Jim,

I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but if those are endgrain slabs, as they appear to be, you are going to have a hard time drying them without cracks.

This is because they will shrink more tangentially to the circle than they will radially. The resulting stresses will create the cracks.

I have seen advice that the best way to salvage something from these type discs is to go ahead and make a radial cut in 2 different places on 2 sequential pieces. They are likely to dry without further cracks because the stresses are relieved by the saw cut. After drying, a pie-shaped section with similar figure can be cut from each round, the section from piece 1 containing the previous saw cut. That piece then receives the corresponding section from piece 2.

Hope that makes sense. Good luck.

Gary

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Gary Evans, Tallassee, TN

>Jim,

Forgot to mention that feather grain in oak usually refers to the figure that you get when you split a crotch into two Y-shaped pieces.

Gary

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Jim Davies, Clayton, NJ

>Sorry, and thanks! You are right, it is maple. Been a long day.......

Jim D.

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Dick Hines

>Looks more like ambrosia oak or maple or what ever it is. I hope the logs are as long as they wide. If not you may have trouble with cracks.

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Carole in VA

>Jim,

That looks like some of the maple logs I found roadside and lugged home. Some of mine turned out to have pretty unique figure when turned. I Anchorsealed the ends of the logs then later cut it to blanks (get rid of the pith!) and Anchorsealed again. After I rough turn them, I use the alcohol drying method and have not had any cracks or checking. Once the rough turned blank is dry, the figure will look strange, but turned and finished it's cool!

Oh, crosscut slabs

Carole in VA

>Just re-read your dimensions. I had a few slabs that I cut off my logs (about 3" thick. I Anchorsealed those too but they still checked. Maybe if you can cut the pith out, and use the wood to either side you might have better luck.

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Jim Davies, Clayton, NJ

>First, thanks for all the quick responces! It sounds as if I mesed up when I cut these pieces. Live and learn!

Tomorrow I will cut them down the center to remove the pith and hopefully be able to salvage some of this wood for small bowls and platters. The markings in the center is too pretty and would hate to add it to the firewood pile.

THanks again!

Jim D.

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

adrien

>You'd have been better off had you cut the logs to a few inches longer than the diameter and then split them down the pith.

Depending on your skill, you might look at Alan Lacer's article on the latest Fine Woodworking. He was tuning SMALL end grain bowls, but unless you turn small objects like tops and little bowls, you might take that 3 inch thick piece and try a bowl or platter.....I think one of our gurus�was it Russ?�had an article on turning larger end grain bowls. That way you could preserve the lovely pattern seen in the picture.

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

n2wood

>I just brought a load of Ambrosia Maple and this looks very much like what I was after. So when will we be able to see some of your results????

Re: oak slabs, feathered?

Jim Davies, Clayton, NJ

>Good question. I have two blocks of stone and a small chinese cherry burr monted right now.

I will post the photos as I manage to get caught up though.

Jim D.