How to dry without splitting

[jackdaw]

Hi all,

 

Trying to find a bit of advice as to the best method of drying thinly ringed Hornbeam/Oak etc without the wood splitting. I've attached a pic of the sort of thing I'm on about for guidance. I'm really just looking to produce Bird table tops, house signs etc, and they would be roughly half the thickness of those in the pics.

 

The ones in the pic are just for fire wood, but a few that I've kept garaged have started to split 3-4 weeks in.

 

Just wondered if their better left outside open to the elements of treated somehow ?

 

Thanks JD

[Starscream]

use paint to seal the ends? Think that's what a green wood worker told me once. Look up 'Thehungrysquirrel' on here if you get no joy. He's good with things like this.

[Steve Bullman]

Danish oil I believe?

[richy_B]

My experience is rings will always split. The thinner the item the quicker/worse this will be.

 

What you could try is cutting the rings at a much steeper angle so you get more of an ellipse shape instead of round.

 

Maybe you could keep two rings and do straight cuts at 3 and 9 o'clock to allow it movement to shrink as it dries. Then cut the two rings in half an glue to two intact sections together?

[gdh]

I tried drying some but gave up, cutting diagonally did help a bit but I couldn't stop the splitting.

[wills-mill]

Two things will help. One is to cut the slabs on the diagonal (as RichyB says), you get an oval shaped slab like a house namesign, but they are much more stable.

 

The other is soaking them in a jollop called PEG (polyethylene glycol), it's a waxy substance that fills the cells of the wood and displaces water, so you can dry without shrinkage and splitting. If you google it up, you'll find lots of info on woodturning websites.

 

Hornbeam and Oak are both fairly unstable blighters.... good luck.

[wills-mill]

http://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/peg.pdf

[arboriculturist]

Water resistant EVA is what you need - Unibond make it. good luck.

[jackdaw]

http://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/peg.pdf

 

 

 

This is why I love Arbtalk !!!, what a star, and thanks very much for sharing.

[se7enthdevil]

Hi all,

 

Trying to find a bit of advice as to the best method of drying thinly ringed Hornbeam/Oak etc without the wood splitting. I've attached a pic of the sort of thing I'm on about for guidance. I'm really just looking to produce Bird table tops, house signs etc, and they would be roughly half the thickness of those in the pics.

 

The ones in the pic are just for fire wood, but a few that I've kept garaged have started to split 3-4 weeks in.

 

Just wondered if their better left outside open to the elements of treated somehow ?

 

Thanks JD

 

 

 

hornbeam will be useless for exterior projects as it's in the birch family and lasts about 5 minutes outdoors. if you want to keep oak rings for bird tables then drill out the middle (1" will do) and re-plug once dry. you can seal with paint or wax but to be fair i would expect to lose a fair few.

 

for the house name plates i would go for diagonal cut birch cut at about 55 degrees perpendicular to the bole.