Is there any hope for this wood cookie?

[Ken Flesher]

I had some tree work done a year ago, one was a very large white oak that had to come down. I had them cut me a cookie at the base, about 3" thick, it's about 24" diameter, mostly as an experiment. I made a "tub" in the basement out of scrap 2x4's and several sheets of plastic, and soaked it as best I could for a week in Pentacryl, flipping it over several times. Then I wrapped the cut faces with cardboard to slow the drying, and put it in the dampest corner of my basement, and kinda forgot about it. I unwrapped it yesterday, a year later, and this is what I found:

PXL_20240216_181517966.jpg

My moisture meter still pegs at the center. I'm disappointed at the large crack, as I called the company to get their advice on how to keep this from happening before I started this process, but I guess I just didn't get the stuff to penetrate enough. I'm not happy that I wasted $90 for a gallon of the stuff.

Is it worth saving? I was planning to build a simple router sled planing jig and shave it down, but the massive crack (about 1.5" at the bark) has me thinking it's just gonna fall apart. Or should I put a bowtie across it and fill it with epoxy? Never worked with epoxy before.

Thanks for your advice...

[Andrew Hughes]

It’s unrealistic to expect it not the crack.
If you have another one consider taking a piece out and fitting into the crack. The wood has to crack when water leaves the cells they shrink. There is 10s of thousands more cells to loose water and shrink from the center out. The cells run vertically
Cookies always crack. I’ve heard some chemical or sorcery that replaces the water and prevents the cells from shrinking but never tried it.
Good Luck

[Randy Heinemann]

There are two possibilities for "saving" the cookie. One is to rout bowties or some other shape to tie the two sides of the largest opening together and maybe one or two smaller bowties for the smaller cracks. The intent is to create a design that pleases you, so the bowties should probably be of a different color wood, like walnut. The other method would be to determine which you want to be the top, tape over the cracks and the open edges with tape (tape that is used with house wrap is good), and pour epoxy to fill the cracks. The best way I think is to tape the top and pour epoxy from the bottom. It might take a few pours to get the fills to be perfect. Not all cracks need to be filled; just the ones that might contribute to further cracking. There are a lot of videos on YouTube about it. I used System Three epoxy and their support people were extremely helpful in terms of what type of epoxy to use and even tinting it if you wish.

You may need to experiment on some scrap if you haven't ever used epoxy for this purpose or if you haven't ever used the bowtie concept.

Cookies will always crack or there might even be voids where knots are. I'm not sure what you wanted to do with it, but they can be attractive end tables with a variety of legs to suit your tastes. However, it is, to some degree, about your tastes. If that type of table doesn't appeal to you then maybe you could find a buyer or some woodworker to donate it to.

[Jonathan Jung]

See the link below to a coffee table I recently did. A customer brought a similar cookie to yours out of WO, except it was also cupped terribly, about 3/4". So I intentionally cracked it in 3 pieces along natural fault lines, mounted it to a piece of ply to flatten and sand, then built the base and used bow ties to secure it together. Not everyone's cup of tea, but far classier than filling the cracks with plastic, IMO.

https://www.jonathanjungdesign.com/products/p/the-slice

[Ron Selzer]

See the link below to a coffee table I recently did. A customer brought a similar cookie to yours out of WO, except it was also cupped terribly, about 3/4". So I intentionally cracked it in 3 pieces along natural fault lines, mounted it to a piece of ply to flatten and sand, then built the base and used bow ties to secure it together. Not everyone's cup of tea, but far classier than filling the cracks with plastic, IMO.

https://www.jonathanjungdesign.com/products/p/the-slice

Nice work, good way to make it usable
Ron

[Andrew Hughes]

I looked at Jonathan’s link and agree with Ron.
That’s the best looking cookie table I’ve seen.
The photographer was as good as Jonathan’s craftsmanship.