Working with fruit woods

[Brian Brown]

I got a whole apricot tree about three months ago, and knowing the propensity for fruit wood to crack, I cut the live tree, pithed it, cut the blanks, and anchor sealed them all in three hours start to finish. I had hoped my working so fast woiuld keep them from cracking. A lot of the blanks are now developing serious cracks. I used about 3/4 gallon of anchor seal.

I got a few plum logs the other day, and cut and sealed almost all of them right away. This tree had no pith, because the heart rot was so bad throughout the whole tree. What I am wondering is if there is anything more I can do to reduce the cracking in all woods, especially fruit woods. This area is extremly arrid, and I wonder if that has a lot to do with the problem. Would sealing the entire blank help, rather than just sealing the ends? I sealed a few of the new logs completely, but it will be a while til the results are in.

Does temperature make a big difference? The temps range from 100 high in the winter, to -40 winter. The blanks are mostly in my garage (90 summer to 10 winter). There is a lot of temperature fluctuation in winter because I heat the garage to turn. Any suggestions? I hate spending this much time gatering and sealing, to just lose so much wood. :(

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Brian,

I was in the same boat 2 years ago and the general feeling was that if I could find a way to keep fruitwood from cracking I could become a millionaire.:(

I had apricot and apple....

The apricot I've turned.....when it's dry.....you don't need a hammer head....just turn the handle and leave the rest. Extremely hard. Couldn't get through a single project with just one sharpening.

Plum? I have no experience.

[Toney Robertson]

Brian

Since I live in the humid midwest I have no real life experience but it would seem to me that if you piled it all together and loosely covered it with a tarp or poly that might slow down the drying process.

Just a thought.

Toney

[Brent Ring]

Brian,

I had an old Apricot tree milled into lumber. It is cracking, but I will just fill it with epoxy and live with it. It still has another 6 months to a year to dry and we will see what we end up with. I am nervous, but it was free, so I can't complain.

[Tom Wilson66]

Brian, during the kiln drying process, the humidity in the kilns is controlled very precisely, to prevent drying too fast and causing splitting. You say you live in a very arid area, so you will need to put your lumber in an enclosure where you can control the humidity. You will have to put a humidifier in it to raise the the relative humidity. Also, the air will need to be kept in motion, using fans, to make sure there are no "dead" areas, where the air is not moving to keep the wood drying as evenly as possible. I usually leave green wood in my basement, where the humidity is higher in the winter, and put it outside in the summer, where the humidity in Southern Illinois is usually very high. Stack it under shelter, and use stickers to seperate the pieces for air circulation. By the end of the year, the wood is approaching equilibrium with the air and I can store the wood in a building with some assurance it will not split too much. The thicker the wood, the longer each step will take.:(

[Paul Atkins]

Cutting off the sap wood really helps to reduce splitting with fruit woods. The sap shrinks quite a bit more. There are lots of almond orchards here and that seems to be the consensus here. Slow drying is another key. Plum, apricot, almond, nectarine, and peach are all related and the wood is very similar.

[Kim Ford]

Brian,

Fruitwoods can be a bugger. What I have picked up from experience and other Creekers has been helpful.

My suggestion is to get them turned into blanks as quickly as possible. Go the extra mile to get the wall thickness as consistent possible. I go the extra step and even take off the tenon. Then a couple of ways to go.

If you have a couple of years completely coat them with anchor seal and throw them in the dark basement.
If not, the DNA process seems to work but the sucess ratio for me is moderate on fruitwood.
Boiling them in water and then bagging seems to work the best. There was a good post here on the creek last year that gives all the specifics.
Home made kiln drying on fruitwood is something I am experimenting with, but no great stories to tell as yet.

Good Luck.

[Frank Kobilsek]

Brian

I have had similar experience with fruitwoods, mostly apple, especially if the tree was down for more than a few days before I got to it. This past summer I had better luck on an apple tree.

I got to it two days after the wind blew it over. I cut it, slabbed out waht I wanted, coated all in one session. I was very conservative in what I choose to keep. Throwing any piece with branches, punky spots, or suspicous form into the firewood pile, no risk at all. Then I made a real effort over the next several days to get it all rough turned. I used the DNA method. Only minor checking has appeared. It is my opinion that apple just won't keep in log form as well as other hardwoods.

I am told a couple things about fruit woods that may apply here.
1) Modern grafted trees are for some reason more prone to cracking than older 'seed' grown trees. That answer may lie in point two.
2) Fruit woods are full of sugar, its their job to pump taste to the fruit. So this sugar more rapidly degrades the wood than with other trees.

Now I gotta ask myself why is sugar maple easy to cure if the sugar arguement is valid.

Frank

[robert hainstock]

Years ago I was given an Apricot log. It still had the bark on it, and no cracks. It was at least thirty years old which makes it well over forty now. Still no cracks! If somebody can set up a seance with my deceased brother in law, maybe we can find out his secret. All kidding aside, I think the suger camp has some good theories on this problem, (except for Maple. :)
Bob

[TYLER WOOD]

everything I have tried with fruit has not worked out real well. Too cracky for my desert area. YMMV in a more humid environment. I need a huge humidor for storing wood in!

[Curt Fuller]

One bright spot with cracked apricot is that you can grind up some coffee real fine and mix it with epoxy and it looks good with the dark stripes in the apricot grain.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

I've pointed this out before, but it takes dedication to do exactly what is needed, and that is to SLOW DOWN the drying, I've made hundreds of Apple, Mulberry and other fruitwood bowls and even boxes, with no splitting and cracking but for a very few.
And yes I do use Alcohol in moderation, but NOT on wood :eek: :).
I have all kinds of pictures of fruitwood bowls I've made, and even from some that had pith split to start of with, and they are still like that, never opened up anymore than that they started out with.
Here just a few samples, including a Beech bowl and a plum root bowl, very warped but not any splits that happened after cutting up the tree

[Richard Madison]

So Leo, HOW do you slow down the drying. Inquiring minds want to know your secret.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

There is no secret, just surround your turning with air that has the same moisture level or close to it as the wood has, and your woods moisture is going to stay where it is, very easy is it not. (the sawmills have Kilns that do the same thing but they want to speed up the drying, so they also increase the temp and then keep lowering the moisture level).
But since I do want the wood to dry, be it slowly, I surround the wood with a barrier to the moisture, but one that will absorb and then slowly release the moisture in the air that is surrounding the wood, so what will absorb and release the moisture at the same time ???
HEAVY BROWN PAPER BAG, it is closed and the bag with the object is then placed in a area where there is no draft and no direct heat source to warm the it up and NO AC either, very simple.
I will turn my piece in one go, and place it in the bag as soon as I am done turning it, NOT a few hours later !!!
I also have a very close "looking over" of the piece, and any area that I suspect might be a source for a split to start gets CA put on/in or let it soak in.
In the next couple of days I will check the pieces to see if anything untoward is happening, like mildew (wipe off) or checking/splitting, (apply CA at once), if the next check still shows mildew I will change bags, this does sometimes happen in very damp summer weather.

[Gary Herrmann]

Leo's description of the process makes sense. I have noticed I get less cracking if I let a bowl dry in the air or in a bag than if I accelerate the process with DNA - at least on some woods.

I have not had much luck with Plum tho. I picked up some trunk sections last year and was amazed at the deep cracks that developed. Similar sized pear sections - no cracks.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Gary I have used this drying of my rough turned pieces with good success for quite few years already, and yes I have tried a few of the what I call gimmicks also, soap alcohol boiling etc., and yes boiling does help and some woods do need that, but not like every kind of wood should be boiled, if you can get a piece of wood turned almost before it hits the dirt, and put it away like I explained before, you have a better than good chance the wood will not split or crack.
The thing is some wood will release tension as soon as the log is cut and you have the pith start splitting, and other dense woods that have just no give and split right away if densities change but a little, like moisture loss on end-grain, so work with the known facts and act accordingly, like don't keep split-prone wood lying around, get it processed right away, and not even as soon as possible , as it will not wait till you are ready :rolleyes:
I will show again some more turnings, most of these have end-grain knots, that have no splits or cracks, and no it's not failure proof, but better than even steven ;)

[Skip Spaulding]

Great information Leo, thanks, I for one will try it.

[Richard Madison]

Thanks Leo.