Ash Wednesday

[Kirk_Allen]

Sawed up this Ash yesterday but didnt get a chance to post the pics. I thought the book matched boards had plenty of character. 


Almost all of the boards had the patterns you see in the single board.



Alos took a nature walk through my Aunts woods today.  Found a great Cherry burl on a wind blown down tree.  It measured 20" from top to bottom and sticks out almost 12".   8) 8)
Thats a double for me.  I get the tree and the burl 8)

[tnlogger]

Kirk the ash looks good but i'll bet that cherry burl is going to be something else  8)

[asy]

Hey Kirk!

Whatcha gonna do with the burl!?!?

asy :D

[UNCLEBUCK]

I sawed ash last year and always had a few logs where the board ended up cracking , I think its called shake ? Only happened on ash . I like ash it seems prettier than a white oak board. Splits a bit more than a oak when nailing close to the edges. Nice pics Kirk you sawing maniac . I think asy wants that burl ! ;D

[Kirk_Allen]

I think I will hold onto the burl. I may turn a bowl or make lots of pens ;D  Not sure.  I wish I had more experience turning as it would be nice to turn a big bowl and give it to my Aunt in appreciation for all the free timber. 

I will drag out the log when I get my truck back and throw it up on the mill and see what we get. 

[Jason_WI]

Ash will get shake if grown on soil that is shallow and the bedrock is close. I will look for shake in ash logs when I buy them. Sometimes its hard to spot but after you saw the log into boards and most of them fall apart you get pretty pithed.

I have had ash boards explode in half as they had that much tension in them.

Jason

[Kirk_Allen]

Bedrock?  Aint got no stinkin bedrock in this part of the country.......................less its couple hundred feet down :D 8)

These logs came from Jims place and I have to say, of all the ash I have cut, I am amazed how many clear boards I have gotten. 

[Jason_WI]

That's because that DanG glacier 10k years ago scraped all our good stuff down your way. I want my soil back!! ;D ;D ;D

In some places on our farm rock ridges stick out and we farm around them. Some of our fields only have 4 inches of soil. Stuff grows if we get rain on a regular basis.

Jason

[Kirk_Allen]

Years ago the Geologist at the local college confirmed the "hill" north of our house about 1/2 mile was the last "glacier push" as they call it.  South of that ..................................FLAT!

[Timburr]

Kirk
You may be disappointed in that cherry burl. The last one I cut had rings parallel to the outside like an onion, but you have different breeds of cherry to us, so you might be O.K. Keep us posted on how it turns out.

Ash Wednesday is the day after Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) here. Do you folks celebrate Pancake Tuesday over there? ???

Tim

[ohsoloco]

I'm with Unclebuck, ash is a real pretty wood    I have quite a few of em up in the woods, but I still can't bring myself to cut anything that isn't dead yet  :D   Ash billets split up real nice too.

Tim, I've never heard of Pancake Tuesday....'round here we call it Fat Tuesday.  My gram used to make the best homemade donuts on Fat Tuesday  ;D

[UNCLEBUCK]

I was told that shake in ash trees came from years of being rocked in the wind causing the weak spot . Not sure . ??? 

[beenthere]

Speaking some about shake in this thread, and I am wondering if it is 'ring' shake (separation along the growth ring) or a heart check in the log (check at right angle to the growth rings) being talked about.

Or, is it the splitting in the end of the board at the pith center after sawing, which likely is due to the growth stresses in the ash tree?

Just getting me a bit mixed up at what is being referred to as shake here.  ???

UNCLEBUCK
There is reference to a 'wind check' in some species (redwood comes to mind) which usually is like a heart check in the tree (log), and lots of speculation as to what the cause of it is.

[Jason_WI]

UB

I believe shake can be cause by two different things. One is the wind and twisting action to cause annular ring seperation. The other is an anerobic bacteria that infects the tree. Usually trees with infection will smell bad when cutting. Trees grown on shallow soil seem to have shake and smell when cutting them especially ash and oak.

Jason

[Back40x2]

   Anyone who wants Cherry Burls let me know, I must have 25 or 30 on hand anywhere from softball size to basketball size. ;) ;) ;)

[UNCLEBUCK]

Well I guess I got heart check in the ash logs . I can see it on the bark before I drop the tree . Sometimes even without the tell tale sign on the bark I can still end up with a beautiful cant like 20x20 inch and start sawing boards off and then out of nowhere I see a hairline crack in the cant and a nice board ends up on the edger. The seperation is clean and the board is thrown into the slab pile . Never had that in oak . I try to salvage and finish sawing the cant but I dont like it one bit and I stand a little closer to my plexiglass bulletproof shield when I send it through the sawblade .  Good explanations about this . I had a home appraiser tell me "boy thats some beautiful cedar you have there " .  It was ash .   :D  Nice boards Kirk !

[TN_man]

Hey Kirk! My son and I cut down a cherry burl awhile back and he recently turned a bowl and candelstick out of it that looked great. The figure in it was awesome. One friend of ours said that she could just look at that all day and not get enough of it.
Good luck with yours.