update: mission, build pens

[John Pratt]

A little update and question to my earlier thread about the Fort Sill Post Commander's desire to turn the oldest tree on post (damaged in the Jan. 2010 ice storm) into pens to give away to soldiers and at conferences. Attached are pics of the tree and larger limbs that are on the ground. My guess is White Oak, what say you? The whole tree did not fall but snapped off about 30 feet off the ground (one of my soldiers is standing next to the tree for perspective). Given the size of the limbs on the ground it looks to have been 70-80 feet high. What should I expect turning white oak? Keep in mind I am a flat work woodworker who is a novice at turning. Many thanks to Michael James who gave me a great class with tips and tricks while he was here at Fort Sill last weekend. Decisions still have to be made about milling this down, but I think I can handle some of the smaller stuff in the shop or with my chainsaw. Thoughts?

[Roger Chandler]

White Oak it is! There will certainly be a need for drying this wood, or you will have crack, split, check, warp and any other way you want to describe the drying without controlling it.

One positive, is this is a really old tree, then the growth rings should be close together and that will make it more stable than a fast growing tree. You should at least get it cut up in logs, and then make your pen blanks a good bit larger than needed to accomodate the drying [may 1" to 1-1/4"] and you could soak them in Denatured alcohol and put them in some shavings to cure out for a few days.

A bandsaw with a resaw sled could handle the logs up to about 12 inches in length, but you must be very careful and have a sharp blade with the correct teeth configuration [2-3 tpi]

[Andrew Kertesz]

Any oak I've turned (and it ain't a whole lot) required a light touch and sharp tools. Even though it is considered a hard wood it is so open grained that it doesn't take much to cause tear out, hence the light touch and sharp tools. The over sized blanks Roger suggests are a good idea...

[Mark Patoka]

I've turned a couple oak pens and you will have to watch for tearout. Try cutting some of the pen blanks on a slight angle or bias to the grain and you should get some interesting grain patterns, kinda like when you quartersaw white oak.

[Michael James]

John, thanks for the kind words. Can't claim a creeker visit without a photo, so it didnt happen:eek:
I'm not a chainsaw expert, but my .02 is get it down to size however you safely can. ( - a little piece of crotchwood for a friend to turn;))
You're turning pens not making dining tables. It would be very helpful to decide what kit you're assigned, but that shouldn't prevent you from starting to cut it into manageable pieces. If you know the length of the tube, you can be more precise and the cumulative savings in a tree that large would be significant, in pens saved.
Remember the wood needs to dry, so cut them oversize and allow for the wiggle.
Personally, I'd cut up some blanks right away from the downed piece, and soak em in DNA for a couple of days and let em dry off and see how that goes....no major loss if it goes south and you will have valuable info about THAT tree.
Best of luck!
michael
ps - if that visit would have occurred, I would have loved it!:D

[Jim Burr]

I may be opening a can of worms here, but why don't we turn the pens? :eek::rolleyes:;)

[John Pratt]

Jim, that is an interesting option. Not sure how that would go over with the big bosses, but it is worth asking. We are really in the early stages of this right now. My biggest concern is that they get the larger sections of this tree milled rather than let it sit on the ground and rot why they try to make a decision. Right now, nobody is allowed to touch the tree. If the final decision is made to make pens out of the majority of the tree, then they also need to decide the style they want. Even though this is the military, it does fall into the area of Government bureaucracy Especially when the hysterical (historical) society gets involved because of the age of the tree and its significance to Fort Sill.