What do I do with these?

fiatben · Post by **fiatben** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:03 pm

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Sycamore, up to 36" diameter and up to 6' long. Dead tree, standing for about 2 years, cut down about a month ago.

bobgroh · Post by **bobgroh** » Sat Oct 09, 2010 11:46 pm

Well, I'm just getting back into using the lathe portion of my 510s with a nice new Nova chuck and your limbs look like they would make nice blanks for bowl turning, etc. Properties seem to be generally good although reported to be a bit difficult to cut. So what you can do with it depends on how much work you can put into it as far as cutting it up. There are a couple of good books (one I'm thinking of is "Turning Bowls" by Richard Raffan) which go into some detail on cutting up logs and trees for use on a lathe - that would be a good place to start (search Amazon.com for 'Richard Raffan'). It being older wood it has a fair amount of visible checking on the end grain but that can probably be cut off. Great stuff - if you were close to me, I would come over and help you (for a few pieces of wood!).

If you decide to break it down for lathe working, you would need to seal the ends (best bet is one of the commercial sealers). Sales channels: Ebay has a lot of wood for lathe turning and Craigslist also is a possibility.

Good luck!

mgdesigns · Post by **mgdesigns** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 1:00 am

I just turn my second successful bowl, and it is from a sycamore limb. It was still pretty green and the checking ran the thru the entire piece. I started with a small limb (8" diameter x 8" long), sawed in half length wise on a bandsaw, and ended up with a small dish, 5" diameter x 1.5" high. It is still trying to check after applying liberal coats of blonde flake shellac/denatured alcohol to try to seal it. It'll probably be firewood before winter. I have seen nice hollowforms made from it by if it's green inside it'll shrink in the radial directions more than longitudinals. My little bowl was round at 10 AM, by 5 PM it's 3/8" shorter in width.

dasgud · Post by **dasgud** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 5:31 am

I wish I could cut some slabs off of that pile. would make a really nice table.

horologist · Post by **horologist** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 10:42 am

Or if you don't want to do that much turning...
Consider have some of it quarter sawn. This gives the maximum stability and an interesting grain pattern that will not appear if the logs are plain sawn. (Excepting the boards at the very center of the log) Here are a few pieces that I have for oval box making.
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8iowa · Post by **8iowa** » Sun Oct 10, 2010 2:49 pm

Take them to a sawmill. Have them sawn into boards or in the case of the largest diameter log, cut on the diagonal to make striking oval shaped pieces for table tops. Extra wide boards are very difficult to find now-a-days.

Limbs generally are not useable for wiidworking.