How to dry without splitting

[treequip]

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

 

As the timber dries, water loss leads to volumetric changes which causes internal stresses to build up, which is what leads to the splits. Just call it "character" and crack on (no pun intended)

[Woodworks]

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?

 

This looks like sound advise. Be interested to hear if you can get PEG as not seen it done in years. Good luck either way

[wills-mill]

I think that PEG can end up being quite dear to get started with as you need to immerse everything. Without looking, I bet there's quite a bit on Youtube....

[delabodge]

Have tried both peg and pencryl both not a viable option commercially ,although I wanted to see the end results as I do a lot of wedding stuff,mbut to make it pay on small stuff it's a gamble, some discs split some don't when air dried,even submerged ones in pencryl didn't last,and an expensive test,all in all I,d cut loads and hope for the best,on the other hand if it was a one of for a project for myself I may be more patient

[jackdaw]

Thanks to all for your advice.

 

" hornbeam will be useless for exterior projects as it's in the birch family and lasts about 5 minutes outdoors ".

 

With reference to Hornbeam being not the best option, I've always found it to have really good longevity. 2-3 year old felled lengths sitting uncovered in the woods, once logged up, produce rock hard, stable logs in my experience., must be the Kentish clay their growing in.

Edited March 8, 2016 by jackdaw