Oak branch questions

[Rough Hewn]

The tension and compression in that branch will make it useless to turn until it stabilizes. I’m guessing 5 years in a breezy covered place minimum.
Otherwise it’s firewood.
[emoji106]

[stuckinthemud]

I think if I were to carve bowls and such I'd split it along the neutral plane rather than turn as rounds, but my main interest in this stuff is to use some for disc animals / snowmen, some for reindeer (wife will be asking me to make Christmas presents before long) and then to carve hawks/owls/dragons/garden ornaments- to try and develop my chain saw carving skills 

[wisewood]

As already mentioned, oak sap wood will rot quickly.
If using sections in the round, they will most likely split big time as tension will have been locked in unevenly. If you have nothing better, then OK use it but looks like firewood from here.

[stuckinthemud]

Yeh, they're already starting to split. Been a lot of wasted effort I think. Ah well, you live, you learn. May well end up as many, many, small carvings instead of a dozen medium sized ones. What's poplar like for chainsaw work?

Edited September 13, 2020 by stuckinthemud

[wisewood]

Yeh, they're already starting to split. Been a lot of wasted effort I think. Ah well, you live, you learn. May well end up as many, many, small carvings instead of a dozen medium sized ones. What's poplar like for chainsaw work?

Poplar is quite popular in America, over here it's not great. Wooly, smelly and won't last outside without excessive preservative treatments. If it's free and you just want to practice then go for it but it's no use for higher value pieces.

[stuckinthemud]

Think I'll leave it well alone in that case, I'm out of storage space until I get my act together.