What to do with large dogwood logs

[John W Johnson]

My brother and I pulled several large pieces of freshly cut dogwood from a neighbors trash pile. We had visions of making some tools for green woodworking, froe clubs, mauls, and gluts. But the logs are so big, I think we'd end up wearing ourselves out and wasting most of the wood. There are two four foot+ straight, fairly clean logs with no branches, one tapers from around 12" at the butt to 9-10" at the top. The other is 8-9" at the bottom and 7-8" at the top. We also have the branch section from the middle with one dead limb and three live ones. That section has a dead core running thru the pith which runs into the ends of each clean log. It is about 2" in diameter on the large log and a little smaller on the "small" log. We have a fourth clean log about 6" x 2' with a couple of softball sized nodes where fairly good sized limbs were removed and healed over.

I thought about cutting the 2' section into 12" lengths and making massive mallet heads to use for driving gluts and hatchet heads used as a wedge. The limb stumps coming out of the branch section are all at least a foot long and 5" in diameter. Is there any way they could be cut out and made into gluts? I'm not much of a turner but I thought we could salvage what we could from the big logs to make bowls. Or maybe save parts to carve bowls or spoons.

[Warren Mickley]

I have made mallets from dogwood. The mallet I made for mortising weighs 30 ounces and I have used it since 1979, maybe 5-8000 mortises. I would split your pieces in half right away to avoid heart checking. I also have a dogwood bench screw a friend made in 1977. The head is four inches, the shaft is 2 3/8. Barely worn from my career.

[Stew Denton]

Hi John,

There is an article about making a glut on Lumberjocks website. If you do a search for Gluts and lumberjocks it should come up. One such listing had no details, but the other one had the details. He only used s couple of hand tools to make them.

From what I've read, it should make great mallet heads, as Warren mentioned above, and I though it might make good chisel handles.

Stew

[Mel Fulks]

It was definately the wood most used in the South for mallets. Some of the old books mention it for devices used for holding and handling glass lenses since it does not take up much silica from the ground. Even something as small as a mallet head can move and twist a lot...so probably not good for gavels.

[Tom M King]

The woods around here have a lot of Dogwoods, but I've never seen one anything like as large as 12" at the stump.

[Richard Line]

Tom's comment raises the question of how old was that really large dogwood tree. I've never seen one near that large. Have fun with the wood.

[Mel Fulks]

In April of 1796 the English architect B. Latrobe was in Virginia and wrote in his journal he had not yet seen a dogwood larger than 8 inches in diameter. He then described it's beauty and mentioned its use for mallets and tooth brushes.

[John W Johnson]

It is the biggest I've ever seen, it measured 12 x 14 where it was cut at the base. I drove past it 5-6 times without even thinking it could be a dogwood. We've been on the lookout for oak or hickory we could use for green chair parts, and smaller trees for mauls and gluts. My eagle eyed brother spotted the leaves. The trunk is huge, but the amazing thing to me was the clear lengths. If it came from the house we think, there is no telling when it was planted since the house is over 120 years old.

I had a pretty big dogwood at my old house but the trunk was crooked and it didn't have more than 18-24" inches without a limb or a fork. I bet it wasn't 8" at the ground. This house had another pile of cuttings with pretty long lengths of 5-6" crepe myrtle. I wonder if it's good for anything.

[Paul Saffold]

John, what part of the country are you from? You don't have your location listed. That's interesting for others to know.

[John W Johnson]

John, what part of the country are you from? You don't have your location listed. That's interesting for others to know.

I live in Nashville, but the tree came from a house literally astride the Alabama - Georgia line in Lanett, Alabama. It is located in the Chattahoochee River valley about halfway between Atlanta and Montgomery. The tree was likely located on the eastern side of a small hill that overlooks downtown West Point and the river. There was a Civil War battle about a quarter of a mile south on the same ridge at Fort Tyler. Several of the houses that were destroyed then were rebuilt some 20-30 years after the war. We think this tree came from one of those homes. I'd be interested to know how old a dogwood that size would have to be. Most of the ones I see are much smaller and many have significant dead parts.

[russell lusthaus]

never saw a dogwood that big. Would love to see a pic. Dogwood makes excellent split arrows, if you have the inclination. if you were closer to me, I would look to trade you for it as I have a similar sized log of black locust sitting around and doing nothing . . . . .