River Birch Crotch

[ozarkgem]

I sawed this up just for fun. Sealed the ends and stacked them with weight. Anyone have any experience with this wood?  Looks good green ;)

  

 

[bucknwfl]

I have made bowls and spoons from river birth even cookies.  It is very pretty when splayed.  But that's all I got

Thank
Buck

[Bandmill Bandit]

 

 

I love birch. It is great to work with and finishes up real nice.

[rjwoelk]

I made a  birch bed frame 6x6 legs mortise and tenon joint for ourselves and one for my daughter.4x6 legs. They were cut green assembled and dryed on their own. If one gets lots of heart wood in them, and with tung oil they do come out pretty nice.

[ozarkgem]

I think the Birch up North is a little different. It may act different when drying . Not sure. Hope its not too bad as it looks nice and saws easy.

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

I have cut a bunch of the southern variety. The crothches sold as fast as I could get them on C.L. Especially a spalted one I ran across. Nice stuff, Brian

[tmbrcruiser]

I saw a birch log a few days ago, nice lumber with some dark flecking. Did notice the need to keep turning the log to relieve stress.

[ozarkgem]

I saw a birch log a few days ago, nice lumber with some dark flecking. Did notice the need to keep turning the log to relieve stress.

They seem to have a lot of stress. That is why I was wondering if anyone had slabbed one before.

[Bandmill Bandit]

They seem to have a lot of stress. That is why I was wondering if anyone had slabbed one before.

Swamp Birch has stress but not that bad. Swamp birch tends to grow in clumps around here and is not the same tree as river birch though. River birch is pretty stable I find as is White Birch and is more common out here.

[xlogger]

They seem to have a lot of stress. That is why I was wondering if anyone had slabbed one before.
[/quote]
I also pickup a large river birch yesterday and plan on slabing it 9/4. Anyone got an answer for our question? He also has a large Elm, just a little larger than my mill will cut but I can trim it up some to saw it. Its been sitting drying with some cracks for several months now. Wonder how it might turn out?

[WDH]

You rarely see a straight river birch tree.  They always seem to grow leaning out over a stream, creek, etc.  This results in tension wood in the log which can cause problems in getting the boards/slabs to dry flat.  Still, it is pretty wood, especially that crotch wood. 

[WV Sawmiller]

You rarely see a straight river birch tree.  They always seem to grow leaning out over a stream, creek, etc.  This results in tension wood in the log which can cause problems in getting the boards/slabs to dry flat.  Still, it is pretty wood, especially that crotch wood. 

Danny,

   Those birch trees leaning over the river are the ones you tie your bushhooks (Limblines) to when fishing for big catfish.

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

I had three crotches. sawed them all 6/4 and sold all but one piece. the piece I kept has been in my shop for a couple of years now and has not cracked. There is no heart in it, so that may be why. It seemed to dry nicely and hopefully I will get around to building the table I kept it for one of these days! Brian

[Don P]

Kind of OT but I've been playing with forks and might have another market possibility, who knows.

I've done several porches with posts, braces and bolsters that I've prefabbed. This gives me plenty of splice and connection room for the carry beam above the bolster. In this case it was built up of dimensional lumber, if span and load allow I've used solid sawn there as well... the prefabbed post is where I'm going.


Those things are a fair amount of work fitting braces, etc. Things dry and loosen a bit.

So I'm cutting up a neat cherry crotch and it dawns on me that this is already a superior braced post, the grain is flowing right through the braces and they are firmly connected to the post... what have I been thinking, this is the way to prefab a set of bolstered posts for a cabin. 2 tennons from branches into the bolster mortises and it isn't going anywhere.


Way way aside;
This was forked black birch poles, everybody there was forked so the kids lashings were just holding the poles together but the load was on the forks.

[WDH]

Neat post idea.  Are you going to remove the bark?

[Don P]

Yes, it is now assembled, drawknifed smooth and standing upside down against a wall in the shop. I tried to teach drivers ed and needed to make welding room in the shop... but that's a whole nuther story :D.  I've accumulated a few more of different species, hickory and maple seem to provide good shaped forks too. It changed the way I look at bucking a log in that size range.

That pic was about a year ago, I started making cherry wainscot at work yesterday out of the 4/4 that is in the back of the truck in that pic.

[xlogger]

Going finally to getting around to cutting my river birch log this week, should I let  it dry slow or put it under fans?

[Den-Den]

Going finally to getting around to cutting my river birch log this week, should I let  it dry slow or put it under fans?

I have only cut and dried one river birch, cut it up fresh, stacked it with stickers and covered with sheet metal.  It dried clean with no stain and very little warp.  If yours has been laying around for a while, it may be spalted.

[Don P]

I would go slow, just ahead of the blue and mold on the surface to let the moisture in that swollen core migrate out before the surface shrinks enough to split over the fat wet core inside.

[WDH]

I would run fans on it.  Backed off about 6 feet.