sweetgum slabs

[xlogger]

Has anyone had any luck with sweetgum slabs? I know where I can get a crotch log about 4 ft wide to slab if I think any would lay flat. (hoping to make the deal with Jake on getting a slabber by the end of Jan if shipping does not break me).
This guy also has some 3 ft wide red oak pieces that are anywhere between 2 to 4 ft high. I was thinking about trying one to make 2-3" small table tops. Think they would crack? The wood is cheap to free just my time with it.

[pineywoods]

Unless it's quartersawn, sweetgum gonna warp and twist due to the spiral grain. It may or may not split and crack. I gave some 2 inch thick slabs to a woodworker friend, we'll see how it works out. Spalting seems to help stabilize sweetgum..

[Magicman]

I like that; the more rotten Sweetgum is the better.   

[WDH]

Slab sweetgum?

Ricky, you are a brave man  :D. 

[Den Socling]

Let me show you a couple interesting pictures. These flitches were from a Mulberry yard tree. The first picture is of a nightmare.


 

I had never seen warp that bad. Second load same wood I added a bag on top of the kiln charge. When you pull vacuum, the bag expands and presses the wood flat.


 

Quite a difference!

[Joey Grimes]

I had similar experience in the past with warp and twisting with sweetgum but I recently cut some 2.25 thick live edge slabs and I've had good luck they are drying flat and no twist the only difference is these were mostly heartwood only about 1 inch of sapwood on a 20 inch log that may be the difference 

 

[YellowHammer]

Those are nice. 

[Den Socling]

They look good, Joey. About what is the moisture content?

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

Decades ago, sweetgum was almost always steamed before any drying occurred to supposedly help remove the stresses that caused the warp.  Such steaming also moderated the color differences...made the dark color more uniform.

[WDH]

I believe two things make sweetgum more manageable.  Larger diameter logs with mosty heartwood and older logs (as in age in years).  Since they both go hand in hand, they are probably the same thing.  Small, young sweetgum logs are delinquents. 

[Den Socling]

It would be a real shame to steam wood like Joey's. All of those different colors are beautiful.

[Ljohnsaw]

Let me show you a couple interesting pictures. These flitches were from a Mulberry yard tree. The first picture is of a nightmare.


 

I had never seen warp that bad. Second load same wood I added a bag on top of the kiln charge. When you pull vacuum, the bag expands and presses the wood flat.


 

Quite a difference!

Den, Help me out with your pictures.  I don't have a kiln and I know that yours is a totally different animal then the standard kiln.  In your second picture, it looks like plain plywood sheets being used as "stickers".  The first picture look like plywood again but with a series of large holes drilled through them.

Seems (to me) that the solid ply would slow down the drying (I know, you are vacuum/dehumidifying) quite a bit due to lack of air flow.  Also, in the first picture, what the heck is up with the near ends of the plywood?  Looks like some pipe fittings?

[Den Socling]

There is essentially no air in the chamber while the wood is drying. Aluminum plates go on top of each 1, 2 or 3 layers of wood. The extrusion is hollow and warm water is circulated through it.


 

You lay down the plates as you build the kiln charge.


 

You winch the load into the chamber and then hook up heating water hoses.


 

Then you close the door, push a couple buttons and walk away. Then in 5 or 10 days, depending on thickness and species, you winch the dry wood out and unload.

[thecfarm]

That's quite the drier!!!

[Ljohnsaw]

OK, now I understand the process and the product cost.  Pretty cool idea.

[Den Socling]

Yes, they are expensive to build but they can do things that many people would consider just plain unbelievable fantasy!

[Den Socling]

Peruse this one, John. Another one I'm very proud of and it again shows that our kilns can dry wood that can't be dried any other way. If you Google Amboyna burl, you find it advertised as "stabilized" and they never claim that it is dry.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,14752.0.html

[Magicman]

Thank you Den for the link to a very nice read.  Well done and beautiful work. 

[Den Socling]

Thank you Magicman. That means a lot to me from you. And it's hard to believe that was 11 years ago!

[scsmith42]

That was a great thread and read Den!  Thanks for sharing.

One of these days....

[Joey Grimes]

The slabs in the pic were around 25-30 % mc think I had a total of 14-16 most of them went in kiln this week about 3 showed some twist but nothing serious I'm in the process of building a tortion box so I can true the twisted slabs up in the plainer 

[Den Socling]

I say again that they are beautiful. I wish I could get some freshly cut but it does grow up here.

[Joey Grimes]

The slabs in pic are now about 25-30% mc out of about 15 slabs 3 have some twist but nothing severe 

[xlogger]

Joey, looks like you are air drying the slabs in a shed. Is that right? Do you have any air blowing on them or trying to dry them slow?

[WDH]

You can put them back on the mill and skim off a flat face, then run them through the planer with the flat face on the bed of the planer to remove that twist.  They will plane a little thinner. 

[Joey Grimes]

I ran fans on them the first day they were cut.

[Den Socling]

I was looking on the Internet for a company that made an inquiry. During the process I came across a company that was advertising White Oak Slabs. Look at the cracks in this junk!


 
I would consider that firewood.

[redbeard]

Slabs with defect seem to sell better, something intriguing about a craftsman fixing mother nature with a bow tie, Dutchman and colorful gravel and lots of epoxy. They even put lighting in those cracks. Use to think the same thing when I would see defect Den, 
But when folks were pulling stuff from my burn pile and not buying the grade quality, I had to rethink my marketing.

[Den Socling]

You're right. Last week one of our customers sent pictures of pecan slabs with cracks along the pith. I told him to add a bow tie and charge extra.

[YellowHammer]

I'm generalizing here, but I've noticed a pattern.  It's funny, but when most guys are buying slabs, they seem to want it perfect, no cracks or defects.

Women, on the other hand, seem to like the cracks and flaws in some slabs, and will pick them out for purchase over the perfect ones.  It's always intersting when a wife says to her husband that she would rather have the slab with the cracks, splits, knots and other defects, rather than the perfect one.  I sometimes wonder if the husband catches on that maybe that's what she saw in him.... :D

[WDH]

I see exactly the same thing. 

[LeeB]

Happy Birthday Danny.

[Den Socling]

Yes! Happy Birthday. Wish I was only 57!  :D Oh I got mixed up. You're right behind me, Danny. Lee's the baby at 57.

[Savannahdan]

Happy Birthday WDH.  This topic reminds me that I slabbed some sweetgum quite a while back and stacked them.  Just haven't had time to check them out.  Give me a few weeks and I'll see what's there and take some pics.  Wife and doc won't let me do anything for a while.

[caveman]

Happy birthday Danny. 

The customers are a little unpredictable about which slabs they will select.  Sometimes they will skip right past the ones that seem obvious and choose some real "characters".  I have not noticed the women selecting the slabs with flaws, uh em, character but there seems to be a correlation to the number of piercings and tattoos the customers have with the amount of "character" they want in their slabs.

The last several days, I have been adding clear epoxy to some bench sized slabs that need some rot stabilized.  It is time consuming but they look decent.  JMoore and I have discussed doing this to some of the characters that have not sold to add a little value to them or just sell the completed benches.

[YellowHammer]

Happy birthday Danny. 
I've got a few hickory logs and a big old dry beech I'll give you, for slabbin.   ;D

Caveman,
I have been thinking along the same lines, trying to make the uuugly slabs presentable, but haven't even tried it yet. 

What kind of epoxy are you using?  I was thinking I could do a very rough and spotty top coat to fill all the major holes, then run them though the planer to clean them up again.
I'm not sure if the epoxy will plane...what steps are you doing?

[scleigh]

I've had good luck lately building benches out of the ugly slabs, and logs, along with odd and end pieces. They seem to sale faster than the slab with defects and for more money.

[Den Socling]

Where does a slab like this stand? Good because it has an ugly bark pocket or bad because I didn't crack any wood around the pocket?  :D   :D   :D

 
As they say, it's a mixed up world!  :

[xlogger]

I few weeks ago I cut a cedar into slabs and it came out looking really bad. I lean it against the wall and was trying do decide on burning it or what. A few hours later someone came up and saw it and love it. Sold $80

[caveman]

What kind of epoxy are you using?  I was thinking I could do a very rough and spotty top coat to fill all the major holes, then run them though the planer to clean them up again.
I'm not sure if the epoxy will plane...what steps are you doing?

[/quote]
YH-  I have just been using some old two part table top epoxy Jmoore has had on the shelf for several years.  It has been taking several applications to fill the voids. It cracked when I applied it too thick.  It will plane although the last slab that I planed that had epoxy had some tear/chip out which was probably compounded by taking a heavy cut and my knives could use honing. 

We will probably try West Systems marine epoxy when we run out of the table top epoxy.  The other time consuming part of the table top epoxy that we have been using is having to use a heat gun to get the bubbles out for the first 20-30 minutes.  We have not been finishing the slabs with epoxy, just filling the voids.  The finish has consisted of three coats of shellac followed by a few coats of polyurethane.

[Savannahdan]

One of the things I have used for filling small voids is coffee grounds (dried out after use) and superglue.  I'll also use sawdust either from the same wood (oak, walnut, etc.) or a contrasting one, depending on the look I'm after.  Also, I keep my superglue in a spare refrigerator which keeps it quite a long time.

[Den Socling]

The epoxy sounds like a lot of work! & messy too.

[GeneWengert-WoodDoc]

West also sells wood flour that you add to epoxy to make the epoxy colored and also make the epoxy go further.  The flour is called an extender.  It also makes the epoxy thicker so it fills better and stays in place also.  Never apply epoxy too thin in any case, as it will not generate  enough heat during curing when too thin and so the strength will be really low.

[Wmivey]

I sawed some sweet gum slabs a couple of years ago and just left them outside under tin. A lady that has bought wood from me asked about them. I told her what they were and said she could have a couple because I didn't think they'd have much interest. She sent me some photos of what she made and I said, "you know, next time I'll have to charge you for those slabs". It was really nice. I sawed some 4/4 stuff and the top two rows of the stack twisted but the rest looks ok. It hasn't been in the kiln yet. We'll see how it does soon.

[flatrock58]

I have a lot of sweetgum I need to cut.  This is one of the first one I cut.  They have been laying around for a few months.



 

[WDH]

If you could quartersaw some with that spalt, now that will be fine.