Shopsmith Forums

While I was out last weekend a beaver left his work piece along the trail, I think he/she left it for me. So I brought it home and want to find something interesting to make out of it. I'd like to leave it as natural as I can but still have a useful item when I'm done.

BTW from end to end is 12" almost exactly. It is 2" across and as you can see the ends are beaver chewed and the bark has been eaten off.

So anyone have any ideas?
Ed

My experience with pieces of wood like that is that they will split badly as they dry, and then are difficult to use for any decent project. I have some pieces of walnut and cherry in my workshop that I cut down last summer, and as they dry, they are splitting, so once the weather warms up, I'm giving them to my neighbor to burn in his fire pit this summer.

Have you given any thought to rabies or other wild animal diseases? There has to be a ton of dried beaver salvia on that wood. Not a germaphobia but I do respect the boundaries between nature and limited exposure to it that man now lives in.

It would make a nice stake in case of a vampire invasion
Paul

Attach it horizontally too a nice base and drill 3 or 4 holes along the length for candles.

I don't know... Dam...?

Send it to China to help feed all those poor staving little beavers over there. Those spoiled American beavers left a lot of perfectly good bark uneaten.

That's what my mother would have done, anyway.

If it is anything like the ones in our pond if you pick it up your hands stink for a week. I have one long piece hanging in my wood shed that has a crook on one end like a cane. It should be dryed out now and then I will cut it to length and maybe varnish it for use as a cane. For some reason the sticks that the beavers chew on don't seem to split, maybe all the spit on the wood treats it somehow