Curing and using freshly cut wood

[ray vile]

I recently had several beech trees cut down from my mountain house and I have a couple of fairly straight peices that I just want to cut down and make pen blanks from what do I have to do to make this stuff stable enough to work with. I know there is enough of wealth of information out here to give me a direction to start with.

[michael evans]

Hi ray how you doing? Best advice I can give you is cut the blanks into 3x3" blocks and that way should dry out quicker ,but you cannot beat a long time on the shelf to dry out timber with a nice airflow .

[Hugh Clare]

I've cut them down to blank size immediately. They'll dry in no time and let's face it, most of the blank is waste anyway. :)

[michael evans]

Hi hugh will the blanks not twist and bend cutting them to the right size immediately when they dry out ?I have experienced just that with some oak ,go steady mick.

[Hugh Clare]

Mick, I'm pretty sure they will. My point is that the majority of the time the twisted and bent blank will still be suitable to make a pen. I've made pens from antlers, which are far from straight.

[michael evans]

I take your point hugh ,how easy is antler to work with? Hard to get over here in the u.k.

[ray vile]

thanks for your input guy's and I think I will do a little of what you both suggested, I really want a pen from my mountain houses lumber but I also want a blank that I can make a candlestick holder from. What would happen if I put the rough sawn lumber in an oven to dry out. I would tell my wife about itt afterwards of course.

[Hugh Clare]

Mick, antler has to be turned very slowly. It is essentially hair, so you can imagine the smell if you let it get hot. Drilling is challenging, as well. I don't really care to work with it, but since I have a LOT of deer-hunting friends...

Ray, I would think you can't set the oven temp. low enough to prevent splitting.

[michael evans]

I can imagine the smell hugh ,antler sounds challenging .