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Thread: Riving dry, rough dimensioned lumber

  1. #1
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    Riving dry, rough dimensioned lumber

    There is a lot of good info on riving green wood into lumber. I have been doing a good bit of it recently, but it's difficult work. Finding good logs and then manipulating them can be difficult and dangerous. And then you have to deal with drying and shrinking.

    I am sure I'm the last to the party on this, but I have recently found it worthwhile and fun to rive dimensional lumber that's already been milled into rough boards.

    On this desk project for my son, I am starting with reasonably straight-grained stock. On 8/4 or 4/4 boards, you don't need a giant maul or sledge hammer like Curtis Buchanan wields so deftly. A simple hatchet and deadblow hammer gets the split started easily. On stock like this red oak that splits easily, you don't even need a froe. Once the hatchet gets below the surface it's actually more controlled to lift the piece off the ground and let it drop, holding on to the handle of the hatchet. You can get a very controlled split this way.

    Ordinarily I might be tempted to get 4 legs out of this piece, but the hatchet doesn't lie. When riving I usually end up with less yield, but the resulting pieces are fairly strong, and the natural sweeps offer (to me) some great design opportunities.

    These pieces are ready to joint or turn and have as little run out as you can hope for.

    Those who have worked with riven stock can attest that that it planes nicely by virtue of minimizing the grain run out. This is especially nice on curves and steam-bent pieces, where the plane or spokeshave can approach from either direction with little tear-out.
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    Last edited by Prashun Patel; 12-30-2018 at 2:15 PM.

  2. #2
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    Thanks, Prashun.

    Wood is wood, although it's probably easier to rive greenish wood - but a lot of the wood that shows up at the lumberyard these days is pretty green.

  3. #3
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    A particular kiln dried S4S board from the hardwood dealer was just so stinking straight grained that I just had to split it into the longbow and arrows that I've been promising myself. Yes,, lot's of waste, but it was a cool thing to work with the grain.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bill McDermott View Post
    A particular kiln dried S4S board from the hardwood dealer was just so stinking straight grained that I just had to split it into the longbow and arrows that I've been promising myself. Yes,, lot's of waste, but it was a cool thing to work with the grain.
    I have done this a few times with store bought hickory and red oak. I mostly use staves from logs now as I have a pretty good selection, but still have one shooter from a board laying around somewhere.

  5. #5
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    I took a few chair classes and got interested in riving/splitting wood.

    I found that the angle of the wedged object used to rive/split with may be significant. Smaller angles may work better for starting slpits. In Prashun’s example a hatchet, which often has less angle to the “wedge” is more like a froe, although the angle may be even less on the hatchet/axe. I now have a wide range of “wedges” with a varrying amount of angle. Many of the wedges I now use have handles, like a hatchet, axe or froe. The handle allows one to pry the split, helps remove the wedge from the work, keeps hands out of the split... The handle may also help to align the blade of the wedge with the grain.

    I have re handled a wide variety of splitting axes, hatchets, axes, mauls and old railroad spike hammers/splitters. The heads for these tools can be picked up on auction sites or at flea markets cheap. I also have a set of Gransfors wedges. These wedges have a very gradual tapper that eventually twists the entire wedge body, which works very well in certain circumstances. I keep them very sharp. A good supply of gluts, preferably made from dogwood are handy once a split gets opened to keep it running.

    I just spent a couple days removing an old railroad tie wall. Parts of the ties were almost “petrified”. There were long spikes with spiral sides used to hold the ties together. I did not want to leave the spikes in the ties as I was afraid the abundant deer, turkeys....in the area might get cut, skewered.... I found that splitting the spikes out of the wood was often easier than trying to pry the often rusted spikes out by the large spiked heads. Splitting also reduced the size of the pieces to something more manageable by a single person. The various sizes of handled wedges made the work go faster. In places that did not want to start splitting I just went to a narrower wedge to get the split started. My narrow hatchet/axe blade got lots of use.
    Last edited by Mike Holbrook; 10-30-2018 at 5:20 PM.

  6. #6
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    Finished desk

    I started from an article in FWW called "Making a Writing Desk".

    I turned the legs, though, and added a lower stretcher.

    Red oak doesn't have a lot of fans, but I'm growing to like it. QS or rift, I like the look.

    I used to take so much time making my dovetails look more perfect than they were by sanding and filling in the gaps with sawdust and finish. Lately, I've been leaving the imperfections visible. I can spot the Botox in other peoples' work, so who am I fooling.

    The 'inlay' is really a routed groove filled with dyed epoxy. Interesting to note how little dye penetrates into even open grained woods like red oak. I did not pre-seal around the line. I just dripped in the dyed epoxy and then planed the excess. Love it or leave it.
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    Last edited by Prashun Patel; 12-24-2018 at 4:08 PM.

  7. #7
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    Wood is wood, although it's probably easier to rive greenish wood
    When splitting fire wood, my experience has been of it being easier to split wood green than it is to split it when it is dry.

    jtk
    "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
    - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

  8. #8
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    My experience has been that it’s easier to control a green split than dry, but it’s nonetheless possible to split dry wood just fine.

  9. #9
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    Beautiful work! I’m certainly with you in
    that I’ve grown to enjoy QS/rift red oak.
    Bumbling forward into the unknown.

  10. #10
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    Bravo to you, Prashun, for your attitude about the dovetails! -Howard

  11. #11
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    Well done, Prashun, looks great...even the dovetails!

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Prashun Patel View Post
    Love it or leave it.
    I'll go with "Love it". Nicely done all around.
    Happy and Safe Turning, Don


    Woodturners make the world go ROUND!

  13. #13
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    A fine looking desk, Prashun
    One observation on riving wood. As your pictures show, the split always runs out to the smaller portion. Sometimes thats unavoidable, but if you can work with dimensions that are amenable to halving , then quartering I find it leads to less waste.
    As too green vs dry- I find dry is a bit more difficult, green is better and frozen green is best. Trouble is getting it all done before the wood thaws or dries out.

  14. #14
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    Beautiful work Prashun. I’ve done a lot of work in red and white oak. My wife loves it. I like the look of it no mater how it’s cut. I’m just tired of working with it. When you go from the oaks to cherry or walnut you feel like you went on a vacation. Everything is just a bit easier. Oak is good stuff and stands up to much abuse without much complaining.
    Jim

  15. #15
    I received 2 large red oak logs (8' each) last April. Diameter about 30". I used wedges and a small sledge hammer to rive most of one in May and through the summer. Some have dried in my basement with a humidifier and the rest in a solar kiln I built.

    They're ready to use now. I still have one log and a bit of another. Last week, I tried riving again and it's more difficult. Instead of splitting the thickness straight across the width, it tends to split narrower. The split is not as smooth. The variation before was under 1/2". Now, it can be as much as an inch.

    So I'm looking at a chainsaw mill to do the rest so I can have wider boards. If you want to rive, do it green!

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