Milled Sweet Chestnut

[spiral]

Sweet chestnut is the only timber I have ever found which edge bends itself! I cleaved a load of it for the battens for the extension (tile and cladding) but because of modern building regs I then had to plane the clefts to an even thickness and to install it in straight lines I had to cut 2" widths out. I was using overstood coppice lengths, about 8-12" diameter, and they started off dead straight. No spiral when cleft, but they ended up looking like bananas! Fortunately the batten could be edge-bent back into shape when fitted.

 

Alec

 

Wow! guess I was very lucky as the board even included, cross cut burr & fiddleback, It was from a pile of timber that had been in a cellar for years though, perhaps time played a part.

 

spiral