Furniture from Swamp Logs With no Drying?

[Steve H Graham]

I've been watching a "reality" show called Ax Men. One of the characters raises old logs from swamp floors. Recently, I saw an episode where a furniture maker teamed up with him to get wood for a charity project.

They found some wet logs and took them to be milled. Then the woodworker made furniture from them. No drying involved.

Is this possible, or is it just typical reality TV nonsense? I would expect the furniture to twist itself apart.

[Martin Wasner]

It had to have been dried. I don't know how long it takes for given thickness' or specie to run through a kiln, but it's not that long. I'm guessing it just wasn't shown as it is way less interesting than watching the clothes dryer.

[johnny means]

Furniture and structures have been built with freshly cut timbers for millennia. It's not like a little movement, shrinkage, and twisting makes the material disappear into another dimension.

[Mark Wooden]

Those "reality" shows are getting farther and farther away from the "reality" of the subject. I mean, it's nice they did something for charity- if the charity is real. But, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the log 'found' on the bottom and the furniture shown weren't exactly "related" to one another.
But I do agree the shows are fun

[Osvaldo Cristo]

I've been watching a "reality" show called Ax Men. One of the characters raises old logs from swamp floors. Recently, I saw an episode where a furniture maker teamed up with him to get wood for a charity project.

They found some wet logs and took them to be milled. Then the woodworker made furniture from them. No drying involved.

Is this possible, or is it just typical reality TV nonsense? I would expect the furniture to twist itself apart.

I already saw furniture made of wet lumber several times but always rustic (or even very rustic) furniture. I guess fine woodworking would be impossible or, at best, extremely difficult, to be done with wet lumber for obvious reasons.

All the best.

[Lee Schierer]

A lot of those shows compress time so much to get the project done within the shows episode length that a lot of the details get left on the cutting room floor. I'm sure that rough cutting the wood, stacking and stickering it in a kiln, and processing it into usable boards wasn't enough action to make the show.

[Michelle Rich]

I don't know what the show was about or how the furniture would hold up...but years ago I used to get willow out of swamps and make willow rockers/settees /chairs etc. I cut the willow ( your boots are always one inch shorter than the depth of the swamp) and brought it home and kept it under water in tanks. Used it wet, so that when it did dry it cinched /shrunk over the nails that were used to hold it together. No joinery for wet wood. These things last for many many years

[Pete Taran]

COME ON NOW PAW PAW! I know you are talking about Shelby Stanga, the lone survivor of Ax Men. Has his own show, Junior, called "The Return of Shelby the Swamp Man! It's a proper Toni Roni event, you just have to watch to understand how they do things down in the bayou. Worth a look, but purely for the entertainment value only.