Rob Price
01-20-2012, 1:20 PM
Total surprise yesterday, one of my co-workers' father runs a nursery up in Ohio. He also likes to turn bowls. He has a lot of the local tree surgeons bring him choice lumber and apparently has piles of stuff sitting around. He came to town for a hunting trip with his son and to my surprise also showed up with some black walnut and cherry for me! Now comes the hard part- I really am not set up to process logs like this. I have a 12" resaw bandsaw but no chainsaw- until today. I told the wife the chainsaw is cheaper than buying walnut blanks.
The two smaller pieces are about 8" diameter (they are sitting on some scrap 1x6's from my deck. Apparently they have been out under some snow and are sopping wet and a little funky- these will be the practice pieces. I'm letting them dry a hair before I jump in. They have some spalting, I'm concerned about bugs, so they stay outside for now. The larger one is very green, 12-13" in diameter and 3' long. It's in a plastic bag in the shop right now. It has three different piths on one end, so I'm guessing there's some cool grain inside. The bark is also in great shape- would make some great NE pieces if I knew what I was doing. I haven't even turned a single bowl yet though.
There's also a branch of cherry that should make some nice smaller bowls.
My question for you guys- what's the best way to store the big log so I can hone my skills a bit before I try to tackle it. Cut it up into blanks and seal it? (I have paste wax on hand) Leave it as a log? My basement has a storage area, we keep the humidity at 50% and the temp stays between 70-74 degrees year round (it's next to our finished/heated basement). Could I store it in there?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-GUFINxHaMQg/TxmsY1Fk7_I/AAAAAAAABjU/jfX-NGFD2ak/s800/IMG_1084.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rKWMGvbeqyo/TxmsaHkkKPI/AAAAAAAABjc/8Gvzu1J7AKU/s640/IMG_1085.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EhFD6X7TyWw/TxmsazbadZI/AAAAAAAABjk/jZcFBgCkZlA/s640/IMG_1086.jpg
The two smaller pieces are about 8" diameter (they are sitting on some scrap 1x6's from my deck. Apparently they have been out under some snow and are sopping wet and a little funky- these will be the practice pieces. I'm letting them dry a hair before I jump in. They have some spalting, I'm concerned about bugs, so they stay outside for now. The larger one is very green, 12-13" in diameter and 3' long. It's in a plastic bag in the shop right now. It has three different piths on one end, so I'm guessing there's some cool grain inside. The bark is also in great shape- would make some great NE pieces if I knew what I was doing. I haven't even turned a single bowl yet though.
There's also a branch of cherry that should make some nice smaller bowls.
My question for you guys- what's the best way to store the big log so I can hone my skills a bit before I try to tackle it. Cut it up into blanks and seal it? (I have paste wax on hand) Leave it as a log? My basement has a storage area, we keep the humidity at 50% and the temp stays between 70-74 degrees year round (it's next to our finished/heated basement). Could I store it in there?
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-GUFINxHaMQg/TxmsY1Fk7_I/AAAAAAAABjU/jfX-NGFD2ak/s800/IMG_1084.JPG
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rKWMGvbeqyo/TxmsaHkkKPI/AAAAAAAABjc/8Gvzu1J7AKU/s640/IMG_1085.JPG
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EhFD6X7TyWw/TxmsazbadZI/AAAAAAAABjk/jZcFBgCkZlA/s640/IMG_1086.jpg