How To Make Chargers?

[32vld]

Wife can you make me some chargers? What is a charger, I said.

Turns out a tree round is cut about 1/2" thick yielding a round place
setting to be used as a place mat on the dining room table for
the holidays.

I had some green oak rounds and sliced off 12 of them for my wife.
At the time I did not have a band saw so I used a wood chisel to 
work my way around against the grain not cutting down with the
grain.

My wife used them and all her friends were impressed.

However with time the rounds developed splits in them from the
outer edge into the round sometimes 2 separate splits form.
Looks like someone cut a slice out of a pie.

Anyone know how to make the chargers so they do not split?

[terrifictimbersllc]

Use plywood.  :D

Hoadley-Understanding wood

[POSTON WIDEHEAD]

I'd get a new wife before I cut cookies with a chisel.  :D

[barbender]

😂😂😂😂😂

[Southside]

Have any elm or gum you can work with?  Spiral grain will hold better than straight grain wood.  Seriously - how long did it take to do with a chisel??  

[Ianab]

Choice of wood?

You will have more luck with woods that are either hard to split, or softer and with less shrinkage than oak. 

Red Cedar is both soft, and shrinks less than hardwoods, so you can often get "cookies" of that to dry intact, and they looks cool with the heartwood / sapwood contrast. 

Standing dead (but not quite started to rot) can also sometimes stay together. 

Another approach is to cut the cookies on an angle, so you get an oval shape. This lets the piece deform a little as it dries, and hopefully not split. 

Or "Chemistry is you friend", and you can soak wood in PEG (polyethylene glycol). This soaks into the wood, replacing the water, and stays there. Now the wood doesn't dry out and shrink, so again the cookies stays intact.  

Terrifictimber's link explains the scientific reason for "cookies" usually pulling apart, because wood shrinks differently in different directions. This difference is the missing "piece of pie".

[32vld]

I found out that you can soak the wood in alcohol instead of PEG.

Semi retired so I have time to chisel + the better the wife = more time willing to chisel

And the chargers were used for when my wife hosted a baby shower
for our first grandchild (boy) and I was not the semi proud owner
of a Harbor Freight band saw back then.

My wife likes the end grain look. I may try to cut the white oak
on a 45 d angle next time, then after wood is dry I can cut the
ovals into circles. Maybe try the alcohol, or see if she would accept
face grain instead of end grain.

Buying 12" wide ray fleck maple or oak or even gluing up narrower
ray fleck boards, then cut them into circles is beyond my budget.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Thicker cookies are less likely to split. I cut some about 3" thick walnut and coated both sides good with Anchorseal and they held up well. Also I had some "Donuts" with hollow centers and they lasted lots better. I'd guess if you drilled a hole in the middle you would have the same result. 

[Southside]

Cookies and donuts. Now I am hungry. Thanks WV!! 

[swampbuggy]

Try cutting them at a slight angle. They won't be perfectly round but its a charger! With the wood fibers not being vertical all the way through the cut it helps.

[Don_Papenburg]

A hole in the middle is the best way that I know of .   If you do not want a hole  use a forstner bit and drill the bottom till the center pin just starts to poke out the top. The hole lets the outer wood shrink freely , if the center is full of wood as it shrinks it also has to split.

[Al_Smith]

I'd get a new wife before I cut cookies with a chisel.  :D

Let me tell you from experience,it costs plenty penny  to rewife . ;D

[WDH]

Red maple seems to split less or not as bad.  Oak is one of the worst when it come to splitting. 

[gspren]

Last winter/early spring I cut about 20 1" cookies out of 8-9" cedar 10 were spread out in the sun to dry and all split, 10 were spread out on a screen in the barn out of sun or rain and only 2 split as of today. I've never heard of them called chargers but if you are selling them that would sound more expensive, a charger has to cost more than a cookie.