first wood "gloat"

[Chris Studley]

Today I had two maple trees taken down. I bagged out of work to hay some choice pieces. I grabbed mostly crotch pieces and upper trunk pieces. There were a few pieces that the trimming folks though I might want as well(the flatter pieces w/ bark inclusions). It will be only my second time turning wood that is green so any suggestions or helpful hints are appreciated.219395219396219397219398219399

[David E Keller]

Have fun... That's the important part! My best luck twice turning green wood has come when my roughouts have been consistent in thickness before sealing them. I generally seal the entire surface(inside and out) on bowls, the outside of hollowforms, and the entire rim of platter blanks. I'm told that you can get by with sealing the endgrain only, but in my shop, the humidity is so low that I feel safer with them totally sealed.

Next time around, I'd opt for a few pieces from the very bottom of the tree... Often there's a nice bit of figure there that's worth saving.

[Michael Menzli]

Looks cool. I will say that just b/c its recently cut doesnt mean its in its green state persay..some trees die standing up and or break down. Your 3 pic looks like cool spalting. May want to peel some bark to see how punky and or soft things are. The last 2 look cool but appear to be in the rot phase. Id clean out that rotten pith to see what you have left.

1st priority should def. be sealing these...maple loved to check/crack

[Jim Burr]

Great haul!! Another method that is working great for me is to wrap it up tight in plastic wrap. I have some walnut from Michigan that came UPS wet! There is mold on the outside since it's been wrapped up for a year now. The good part is...no cracks! Was thinking about masking up and giving it the bandsaw treatment this weekend and see what happens.

[Chris Studley]

These are all sealed now. The only down side to having all this is, that I can't turn any until Saturday...

The dark part that appears to be rot is actually bark and is quite solid.

I'm looking forward to turning the spalted pieces. I have a 3' log that seems to have the spalting throughout. I is also much dryer as the log is noticeably lighter. The bark came off some of it when it came down and it feels pretty solid.

I would have grabbed more from the trunk area but the trunk was over 2' in diameter.

Is it possible to turn to finish from green maybe on of the smaller pieces?

As far as the "green-ness" most was even dripping as I was getting it sealed.

[Steve Braman]

I could have had the wood flu today and come up to help chunk up some of the trunk for you. Free wood is good wood. Grab as much as you can. I wasn't able to make much time to turn last year, so I passed on a lot of wood. Now I have managed to schedule in a little time each week and am rapidly rough turning all of my logs. Maybe I just need to make more storage. Have fun!