Replies

1. 
   user-52763 | May 02, 2006 01:42am | #1

   Jim,

      For a few years storing green wood under water seemed to me like the way to go for keeping the wood from drying out.  But there are a number of drawbacks to this method of storage.  The first one is that the wood smells pretty awful after a few weeks under water. I work a lot on  a shaving horse and a lap full of smelly shavings gets old pretty fast.  You can't store much wood that way either.  Another problem was keeping the mosquitoes out.  Oil seemed to help with that and you can get those BT discs that are supposed to work pretty well.  Changing the water frequently enough to keep the smell down means a lot of mosquito bait used. 

         While I don't recommend this in general, there is an advantage to soaking the wood for a while.  As I mentioned in a recent reply, my experience with soaking wood for a couple of weeks before drying had a surprising benefit.  The wood I took out of the water actually dried faster (by a lot!) than unsoaked wood.  It also had no cracking problems.  I dont' have a good explanation as to why this is, but it happened consistently enough to believe it was predictable. I have also heard this from other chairmakers. 

       Soaking wood will not prevent its decay but it will slow it down.  How long you can keep wood under water will depend on when it was harvested (winter being good spring being the worst) as well as what species it is.  Heart wood will also hold up longer against the elements than sap wood.  If you need to keep the logs for more than a couple of months or so, you should consider other alternative. 

        What I would recommend is to try to get all the wood worked up into the rough dimensions you will need.  Rather than trying to finish any chairs from this wood initially, I would work the parts into dimensions and shapes close to what you will use and let the parts dry out as you do.  Since the rungs need to be the driest I would work them up first.  They are also the easiest and make good practice work.  Allow for at least 10%shrinkage for the blanks plus a little more for finish shaving.  If you are making a ladderback you can prepare your slat blanks by splitting out rough blanks thick enough for three or four blanks. Then join and plane the blank ready for resawing. We allow about .4" per blank for slats that will finish out at .250".  Let this blank soak for a couple of weeks to help prevent cracking before drying it.  I prefer to dry the blanks before sawing the slats out.  This way I get a lot less distortion due to warpage.  If you need to dry them more quickly, then just saw them out green and sticker them,(with weight on top to hold them down). 

    For your bent parts, Let then soak as long as you need to, but after shaping let them dry to about 15% before you bend them.  Then they can dry out as much as they will. 

       There are several advantages of greenwood working over working wood dry,  but only if you are working with hand tools.  The wood is easier to cut and to bend. It is also generally cheaper than buying kiln dried wood.  The advantage of the green wood joinery is also an interesting plus.  The movement of the shrinking wood can be used to make very good joints even if the fitting is imperfect at assembly time.  But if you can drill an accurate hole and make a round tenon to fit properly, you can make an even stronger joint by using the principles of greenwood chairmaking on drier wood.  For more on this see John Alexander's recent article in Fine Wood Working.  The most important part of a good round joint in chairmaking is the dryness of the tenon.  As long as the tenons are under 6%, and you use hide glue properly, then you can get the strongest  round joint possible.  Locking mechanisms common in greenwood working are a good back up to help hold chairs together if they loosen slightly.  But a tight joint won't need that.  I'll bet on a good glue joint lasting longer than an unglued joint in chairs.  And I think the glue bond will work better in drier wood.  If the swelling of the rung and the glue are not enough to keep the chair together, then you have a problem of accuracy. 

     So don't make your shop stink just keep the wood wetter than necessary.  Try to plan and pace your work so that the odor and mosquitoes don't dampen your enthusiasm. 

      Keep it fun!

    

    

   Brian