Reply To: Apple log
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Hi Jon,
It’s certainly worth drying it if you’ve got space. How you do it depends on what you want to do with it once it’s dry. I’m no expert, but I recently came into a lot of plum wood which I’m going to be drying myself, so here’s my input!
Firstly, if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it now, paint the ends of the logs to stop them drying out too quickly. The ends can start to check only a couple of hours (sometimes less) after the tree has been felled.
Fruit trees are great for carving and turning but aren’t used much for joinery because you can’t get very wide boards from them. If you’re going to be using it for carving or turning and want to dry the wood first, cut the logs to a decent length (1.5ft or so, depending on what you think you’re going to make), paint the ends, stack them off the ground under covers, and leave them to dry for a couple of years. If you want to try getting some boards and you don’t have a band saw, take the logs to a local mill ASAP and get them sawn, then stack and sticker the boards, again off the ground and under cover. If you’re carving spoons or somesuch, you can work the wood while it’s green – just split the log with an axe.
I’m going to try getting some boards from the plum logs I have. There are often some gorgeous colours in plum wood so if I get any pretty boards I’ll use them for drawer fronts or small boxes. I’m making a jig for my band saw so that I can hold the log securely and saw 3/4″ or 1″ boards from it. Then I’ll just leave the boards to dry and see what sort of state they end up in after a year or so.
I hope something here helps!
George.