Splintie –
In the thread “Keeping cherry bark intact” you mentioned cottonwood and clock/table work in the same sentence, almost. That leads me to believe that cottonwood is in fact useable as a cabinet wood?
The reason I ask is that I have a large (as in *LARGE*) cottonwood that has to come out since it threatens the house. It’s a nice really tall specimen with pretty straight bark leading me to believe that the wood inside should be pretty straight grained, plus the crown is a considerable distance up a single trunk – no crotches to speak of. It’s in a really bad spot with respect to accessability – getting any size piece of green wood that big around would be a tremendous effort – unless – the wood is worthy of harvesting for use in the shop.
Hate to see a tree go to waste.
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Take a look at this thread. http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages/?msg=7502.1
Thanks for the brain thump Unc'. I do recall having seen a thread discussing cottonwood.
Dunno if this thing is worth the effort to salvage it, though. It's down in a gully growing in a rather swampy area and *bound* to be saturated.
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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Cottonwood works no different than poplar. In fact a lot of poplar in lumberyards is in fact cottonwoold depending on the area of the country you live in. It makes excellent drawer sides and backs. As stated before, it is rather soft, but it makes a great drawer componant. Many antique pieces of furniture, wardrobes, etc had a poplar back.Wine is God's way of capturing the sun.
I should have taken a picture of this big dude yesterday after it got put on the ground. What a *THUMP* it made!! Buried itself about 6" in the soft earth on the other side of our creek.
Believe me, it's gonna stay where it fell. It's probably 30" in diameter. I'll have to put a tape on it to see how tall it is/was.
At least we have a "bridge" over the creek now, for a coupla years anyway....
End of story on this beastie.
RIP
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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Sorry i didn't see this earlier, Dennis. We made burl clocks and tables so most of our material was end-grain "cookies" from 1-4' across, although "round" was an unusual shape to get---most of it was oddball stuff (bark, rocks, etc. in it) which sold better. We didn't use any of it dimensioned, so i can't say how it would dry for you, or glue up in joinery. It was lightweight, stable when dry, easy to work except it tended to fur up like butternut does...nothing a quarter-inch of epoxy couldn't tame. (...till doing penance...)
There's quite a bit of stumpage left sticking up out of the ground. I might try slicing off a few 'cookies' and see what happens. The tree was remarkably dry for where it was growing - in a swamp almost. I recall one other cottonwood I saw taken down in sections and the water like 'sprayed' out of the cut from the chain saw.
I suspect cut in section like this I'll have several good sized pie shaped openings around the perimeter by the time its dry! (grin)
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.....
Dennis in Bellevue WA
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After we dried the slabs and then flattened them with a router on a swinging-arm, track-thingy, we would mix up resin and fiberglass, stick it in the crack from the backside to bridge it about a third the depth of the slab, paint it dark where it showed slightly from the front. With a mix of dark brown and black paints, the resin ended up looking like bark, just visually disappeared.
Stump eh? Use the "rock" chains!
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