Tree trunk table?

[John Hollander]

My girlfriends uncle recently had quite a few yellow pine trees cut down on his property. I thought it would be neat to make a table top out of one of them. How do I go about seasoning the wood? The tree we wanted to use is cut into about 10ft sections and is 2.5-3' in diameter. Can I cut it down into more manageable sized pieces? How do I keep them from cracking? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Ive never harvested my own lumber.

[Brian Kent]

Hi John.

I am speaking from sheer ignorance and Zero experience.

My guess is that a solid section of trunk will crack, no matter what you do. It still could be used, as long as you can see that as a natural part of the beauty.

[lowell holmes]

You speak for me too Brian, but didn't I read some where recently that coating the faces of the slab with melted wax and letting the slab air dry untill the moisture content was right would prevent the cracking. It's worth a try. A moisture meter would be needed to know when the moisture content was under 20%, preferably 9% -10%.

Another approach might be to let it dry and crack and then glue it back together.

Nakashima made some slabs into furniture and they cracked, this the decorative use of butterflys holding the slabs together.

The link below shows some of his work.

http://www.1stdibs.com/furniture_search.php?i_creator=George+Nakashima

[Ted Calver]

John...please clarify whether you want to saw the trees into boards and use those for a table top or ...do you want to take a cross cut section of the trunk and make a round table?

[John Hollander]

I dont want to cut it into rounds. I would like to cut it into a single board and make a table top somewhat like this:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BRRytZDsnD4/SOq7Pl4XNjI/AAAAAAAAAMU/uoNLcnKiG1E/s1600-h/000_7891.jpg (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_BRRytZDsnD4/SOq7Pl4XNjI/AAAAAAAAAMU/uoNLcnKiG1E/s1600-h/000_7891.jpg)

[Ted Calver]

OK. Easy enough. Look for someone in your local area with a transportable WoodMizer type sawmill. Have them slab the tree or trees into 2-2.5" slabs. Stack, sticker and cover them and let air dry for a couple of years. Coat the ends with anchorseal. If you use the search function here you will find many threads dealing with harvesting your own wood.