Fresh cut walnut

[Mike Willeson]

Hi all,

Picked up some walnut today that was cut about a week ago. It has been sitting outside in the snow. Also picked up a chunk of maple cut a few months back, and one piece of locust - not sure when it was cut.

The high in South Dakota today will be around 10 so the wood is basically frozen. How can I best go about preventing cracking. I don't have anchorseal, but could probably order some. How well would it work to spread anchorseal on frozen wood? Do I need to warm up the wood somehow?

Along the same lines, has anyone ever used sanding sealer to seal wood?

Thanks,
Mike

[Randy Gazda]

I don't know that the wood will check while frozen. However, I would keep it out of the sun. Lots of ways short term and long term to minimize checking. I have left 1/2 logs in garage bags for month in the shade in the winter (and for weeks in the summer-mold will start). If you bring it in and want to seal the ends yellow glue or elmers glue work just fine for me. Titebond by the gallon is cheap at Home Depot and will seal a lot of wood. Anchor seal is highly recommended but not cheap in my opinion.

If you plan to rough out some pieces in the next few days/weeks you may not need to do anything.

Good luck.

[Curt Fuller]

My experience with frozen wood is that it seems to be self preserving as long as it stays frozen. With temps that cold it would probably be fine to leave it as is until you can get some sealer. I've never tried sealing frozen wood but I know from experience that you don't want to let your green wood sealer freeze in the jug. It gets all lumpy like curdled milk. And the sealer doesn't dry very well even in close to freezing temps. So if you cut the wood into blanks, bring it inside and let it thaw, seal it and let the sealer dry while inside, and then you could store it outside.

[Sean Hughto]

My expereince with really wet walnut is that anchorseal on large balnaks will give you weeks extra to rough, but if you extend to months, checks will happen even with the anchorseal. In short, the best bet in most every situation is to rough turn and anchorseal the rough asap.

[tom martin]

"Titebond by the gallon is cheap at Home Depot and will seal a lot of wood. Anchor seal is highly recommended but not cheap in my opinion. "

Randy, Anchorseal can be expensive ....by the quart, but if you are a member of a turning club, and can get some fellow turners to pitch in you can purchase a 55 gallon drum which reduces the price to around $23.00 for 5 gallons. That is less than half of what titebond costs.