Warning to all who read this: You’re probably already thinking “What the heck is this guy doing?? Veneer from a Juniper bush?? Is he nuts??”
Well, being nuts might be debatable, but stick with me for a minute…
I have friends building a new house in Austin, TX. The guy (Ken) said he thinks he has red cedar on his lot and wants to cut some down and line his closets. I saw the trees, and took a 3′ x 3″ dia log from one he had just cut down to check. Having done some research, the closest thing I can figure is that these trees are closest to Rocky Mountain Juniper, which in turn is a variation (wrong word) of Eastern Red Cedar). R.M. Juniper isn’t actually native to the Austin area, but it’s close cousins are.
The grain is amazingly fine and intricate, and the wood is very dense. Being a cedar cousin, I’ll be careful to use a respirator.
ANYWAY, I want to saw this log into thin strips (1/8 veneer basically) and use them side by side on a panel, which will then go on to a box or maybe small cabinet on legs or who knows what.
SO, how long should I let these dry out before glueing to a substrate?
Thanks in advance,
Kevin
Replies
Weigh them once a week. When the weight stabilizes, they're done.
Kevin,
No, you're not crazy. I recently read about using Juniper in some magazine; I think it was Wood. Regardless, they too remarked on the great beauty found in these small pieces.
Let them dry until desired moisture content is achieved. (Gosh, I should write tech manuals!) I would think they'll need a month or more. A half day in a warm oven would also suffice. Might be difficult to prevent splitting and curling on such small pieces. Good luck.
Jeff
Kevin, Dunc and Jeff both suggest reasonable approaches for seasoning the thin wood strips...If you cut them to a workable length, you could also zap them a few times in a microwave. Then, while they're still hot, weight them down so they can't curl as they cool off. You should be able to dry 1/8" stock in a couple of hours.
The really good news is; the junipers are all very stable woods. Eastern redcedar (which is probably the species you have) is one of our most stable native softwoods. Its average volumetric shrinkage, green to ovendry, is only 7.8% and it has a T/R ratio (tangential shrinkage divided by radial shrinkage) of only 1.52. So, it has about the same tendency to distort as genuine mahogany, which is one of the most stable of all commercial timbers.
...And Kevin, don't sweat about this sanity thing. You're not nuts...or at least I hope not...The symptoms sound familiar.
Jon
I respect your knowledge about wood, but I don't agree about the stability of Juniper.
I live in the center of the worlds largest Juniper forest, Central Oregon. A few have tried to make commercial lumber out of the wood. One even had a large tax payer supported effort VIA the forest service and BLM.
A local resturant had all the tables and chairs built out of junper wood. Pretty, but of course very soft. The guy that built them was in the resturant, picking up some tables etc. to repair. I had a chance to chat with him about how it was to work.
Well I got an earfull. It seems that it can "turn" loose without warning, split wide open even after months, years of seemingly stability. He showed me a coffee table that over a year old, it had a bad split.
He also had some stories to tell about it nearly exploding when it broke. Loud pop was typical, per him.
He was getting a bit tired of having to make repaires, replacements.
The trees tend to twist. The ones large enought for lumber tend to have hidden stress. Plus some sand blown in, rocks placed by pack rats etc.
The sawmill did not make it. Neither did the earlier ones over the last 30-35 + years.
An old timer said that a few trees located in the Crooked River Canyoun near Smith Rock State Park were tall and straight and made good lumber, but he was not talking about furniture material, just ranch lumber. I presume they had more moisture, less sun and wind.
I understand their are many speicies of Juniper. Perhaps you are thinking of a different specie that I am, but you indicated they all were stable.
Curt
Curt, I'm not surprised to hear about a checking problem with juniper. While the junipers experience very little shrinkage, they are also very brittle woods. When used as a thin veneer mounted to a solid backing (substrate), the wood's brittleness shouldn't be an unmanageable problem...at least not a structural problem, but it sure can be in other applications.
The shrinkage figures I quoted in my earlier post were for eastern redcedar; Juniperus virginiana. Some of your western junipers are occasionally milled into lumber, but eastern red is our only native juniper that is commercially important enough to have FPL published shrinkage stats. The other so-called "cedars", such as western red, incense, northern white, Port-Orford, etc. belong to the same family as the junipers (the cypress family; Cupressaceae), but they represent different genera that are more like arborvitae than they are like the junipers.
The other problem you mention (spiral grain) is also typical of the junipers (as well as some of the other "cedars" in the cypress family) and this anatomical feature does lead to some limitations. Uneven stresses caused by grain direction (grain runoff), combined with the wood's brittleness, affects it's reliability in structural applications. In fact, the junipers tend to be so brittle, it's difficult to avoid splits when nailing them, unless you use well matched pilotholes...So, no, I'm not touting juniper's flawless virtues...just that it's volumetric shrinkage is relatively low and consistent (tangentially vs radially) compared to most other woods...which helps in the drying process.
Edited 10/12/2002 8:53:58 PM ET by Jon Arno
Jon Arno
Thanks for your comments. I knew I would learn something about Junipers from you.
Our local Juniper has some interesting odor and is being used for some feature panels, usually a board and batt style in some of the upscale homes in our resort developments. Mostly as feature panelling. It seems ideally suited to that. The old timers used it much the same way when they had to use it.
The use of log features, poles seems to beg for some other woods that are not commonly known by those with lots of $ to purchase/buiild the big and bigger 2nd homes. The local Juniper seems to have found a bit of a commercial market.
The poor guys that try to mill it, dry it, may have found a market willing to pay enough to make it profitable. We sure have to much of it.
The local firewood cutters can tell hair raising stories about the local grit, sand and volcanic based dust along with a few well placed rocks, glass, metal, by the Pack rats (animals, not human) that all seem to work against sharp blades.
Has a real nice odor when burned. Most burn it green to slow the fire down.
Curt
Curt...just don't let your distaste for juniper sour your attitude on other members of the Cypress ("cedar") family. You folks out there in the Pacific Northwest have access to two of the best: Port-Orford cedar and Alaska-cedar (AKA yellow cedar.) I wish they were more available here in the Midwest...especially yellow cedar. It has excellent tonal qualities for making the sound boards on musical instruments and it's so fine textured that it shapes beautifully. It's been awhile since I've had the opportunity to use it, but I recall how its mellow, spicey scent made it a real treat to work with. We don't have anything like it on this side of the continent.
Jon
No distate or problem for the local Juniper at all. I just wish I could get my hands on some of the lumber. It has nice color and figure (some say odor) and I believe useable in applications that allow for its "character".
My father was a logger and sawmill operator/owner. I loved it when he would stop cutting the fir trees and run a bunch of cedar. He would bring home a truck load of the cedar sawdust for us to play in, well actually for garden mulch, but when your a kid we really knew it was far more useful for kid activities.
My father lost his barn full of cedar and other selected hard woods collected over 20 years to a wind storm and a neighbor who "salvaged" barn wood. My guess it was over 3000 BF of hardwood alone, stored in the attic. The salvage my had in mind, was the exterior boards. The neighbor called to thank him, invited him to come by and see what he was able to do with it. Only then did my father realize the salvage included all of the wide, long clear hardwood, cedar, etc. that had so carefully been stacked, stickered and air drying for so long. Made real nice corralls, fences.
I have a small hoard of salvaged clear red cedar in my shop, looking for the right project.
I like just about any kind of wood.
Curt
Kevin, Curt's comments on the western junipers coaxed me to take a look at some range maps...And, if the wood you picked up in central Texas was a local, native species, there are three possibilities: eastern redcedar (Juniperus virginiana); Ashe juniper (J. ashei); or cherrystone juniper (J. monosperma.) The latter two seldom grow to be more than large shrubs, but either would certainly have the capacity to produce the short, 3" diameter logs you mention.
It's very difficult to separate samples of any of the junipers based on the wood alone (their cellular anatomy is virtually identical)...but if you have one of these two shrubby Texas natives, their woods do differ somewhat in terms of both color and density. Cherrystone tends to produce a light reddish tan wood sometimes with faint yellowish or greenish tints and it is typically slightly denser than Ashe juniper. Ashe juniper is sometimes used as an ornamental, where it would normally enjoy a little better growing conditions, while cherrystone (also sometimes called one-seed juniper) is more plentiful in the wild and ranges futher west into the more arid regions of Texas...So, growing conditions probably account for most of the difference in their woods. Genetically, they are very closely related species. None of this has much bearing on your project...but it just seemed like some interesting trivia worth sharing.
Edited 10/13/2002 11:22:57 AM ET by Jon Arno
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