Going to cut down a Maple tree. How do I save sections for turning?

[Wild Turkey]

Never turned green wood before and I've been watching videos and it looks interesting.

I've got a pair of Maple trees that need to come down. They are both between 12" and 16" dia (IIRC).

Trunks aren't straight and there will be lots of knots which could make for interesting turnings.

But how do I prepare them? Cut to length, then coat with Latex paint? How long do I need to store them before turning?

Anything else I need to know?

links? threads?

[BaileyNo5]

The commonly accepted way to seal the ends is with a commercial end sealer like AnchorSeal. Having said that, I have never used it. I have used latex paint and sometimes even old carpenters glue, thinned a little with water. If the weather is really dry I will use that plastic furniture moving wrap and wrap the ends also (don't do this for long, you could get mold).

If you want to make bowls, I would cut them lengthwise pretty quickly, this will help relieve the stresses and along with the end sealer, prevent checking. A chainsaw or a large bandsaw would do the trick.

You can rough turn them right away, probably the sooner the better. Green turning is much easier and not dusty, which is nice. However, depending on how wet the wood is, you might get a shower.

[MichaelMouse]

Leave it in full-length logs, Bag the ends with white (reflective) plastic trash bags, keep it off the ground and out of the sun. Then harvest/turn pairs of blanks as quickly as you can. I don't push, and I rough six-eight a Saturday comfortably, taking time out for Roy and a photo hike after 1530. With a push, you can certainly do a dozen even after a late breakfast, but it's supposed to be fun, no? What you will want to leave the bark on, do soonest.

Do not store chunks, turn as you work your way along the log and store the blanks. With branches you'll want to remember that they originate at the heart, and get punky at the surface. On a forest-grown tree, you won't find much intriguing crotch figure, but on open grown with branches spreading, you will. Cut for the piece you want, not into arbitrary lengths. Roll the log twice if it stays all summer in KY, and you will probably have some even spalting.

[Arlin Eastman]

You save all the very big stuff at my house and then you do not have to worry about it.

Arlin

[MKepke]

Based on my limited experience:

The longer you wait to turn green cut wood, the more you'll lose to cracking and eventually bugs and rot. Like Michael said, rot (aka spalting) can be a design feature if you can get it to happen in a decorative way.

Commercial green wood sealer is much superior to latex paint at slowing the rate of cracking. Latex paint gives me maybe 2 weeks or a bit more. Commercial sealers give several/many weeks, but not forever- no doubt this is influencec by your local conditions: humidity, direct sunlight, etc.

Split length-wise and remove the pith.

Figure out if you want bowl blanks, hollow form blanks and or something else and plan your cuts accordingly. Article here

I like to use a compass and pencil to mark a bowl diameter on the rough blank. It guides my next chainsaw cuts and gives me a starting center for mounting the blank.

Chainsaw (rent, borrow, whatever) off as much waste as possible before rough turning. Hollow forms you often have more of a billet shape and remove the corners with rip cuts on a bandsaw.

Remove the bark shortly before turning unless its going to be a design feature (it tends to come loose and slap or fly off during turning).

The experienced guys with good equipment are going to be much faster at roughing than you are. I can get one 14-16" blank roughed out in about 2.5 hrs

I've gone back to drying my roughed bowls in paper bags with their own shavings. I tried drying some on my concrete shop floor as someone here recommended, but the cracking was swift.

-Mark

[Ruler2112]

I've used many of the sealers - latex paint (didn't do much), oil paint (OK), thinned glue (PITA & limited efficacy), anchorseal (OK, but flippin expensive!), etc. The best & least expensive IMO is to go to your local goodwill store and buy a slow cooker for $3 and put old candles in it. After candles get down to a certain length at my church they toss them, so I have a virtually unlimited supply; you can get them from garage sales very cheap if you don't have a source. Once it's got wax in it, either dip the end of the log in or use a free-after-rebate menards paint brush to slather it on the ends. Let it cool and it'll solidify in the pot, ready for when you want to seal more logs.

The wood is sealed better than any of the above methods IMO & it costs next to nothing.

[MKepke]

I use Klingspor's Green Wood Sealer. It's 2/3 the price of Anchorseal in the gallon size and works well.

YMMV

-Mark