Bar tops with bark on edges

[Jim_Rogers]

Yesterday a customer finally showed up. He has been calling me and talking to me about wanting a 2 1/2" thick bar top with bark along the edge.

I told him I had some. His idea of bark along the edge and my idea of bark along the edge was two different things.

Mine was that the edge was natural. He wanted full bark along the edge. As his buddy's bar which is 10 years old has.

I told him that there is no way for me to cut a log and maintain bark along the edge. It falls off the minute I touch it with the fork lift after cutting the 3" thick slabs.

I showed him what I had, and he did buy one. But it wasn't fully what he wanted.

Do any of you have a trick to keep the bark along the edge of a thick bar top?

I was talking about eastern white pine. But I'll take any suggestions about how to do it with any other type of wood.

Jim Rogers

[BBTom]

I have found that winter cut logs will do a better job of holding the bark.  If cut in the summer the cambium layer is wet and growing and separates easier when the log dries. 

I have found no foolproof method of maintaining the bark on the edge.  I am all ears if anyone knows how.

[Seaman]

From what I have learned/ heard

Cut trees in winter

Handle logs with slings

saw soon after cutting

even then it is iffy

[shelbycharger400]

cut down tree,  cut slab within less than a month.   pine sits for a few months, bark falls off,  oak + elm seems to stay on for a Lot longer. I rarely leave bark on,  i get rid of all bark and sawdust soon as i can, sometimes peel a log before cutting due to sand here. last  sept/oct i did a few in elm, bark is still on , but i cut that one down in feb and hauled it home

[Left Coast Chris]

I would not risk trying to dry slabs with bark on where we live.  It is like an advertisement for borers and powder post beetles to come and dine.   Even with Timbore treatment I have had problems and don't want to increase populations for the other wood stacks.  Drying outside in an isolated area could be an option but likely borer holes will result.

[Chuck White]

I cut some out of Hemlock a few years ago!

The logs were cut in the winter when the sap is down, I was up at that bar a few months ago and the bark was still in place.

I told the owners when I sawed it, that in time they may need to drive a few brads through the bark if it starts to loosen!

[Jim_Rogers]

Thanks for everyone's advice and comments.

Jim Rogers

[47sawdust]

If the bark is still on when the slab dries several coats of varnish will help hold it in place.

[two-legged-sawmill]

Hello, with no written guarantees.Most of the above helps, the one most possitive is cut the tree down quite some time before peeling time or sap season,handling with extra care. I chained sawed most the ones I did, the age before band mills. Varnish after they are dry really helps! Many pictures in the Galley  Dan sr

[drobertson]

varnish, and or seal, and be careful. tight growth rings help on what I have seen.  May be wrong, but sealing one side soon, then the second not long after.  Bowl turners I know use a super glue compound, not sure if this applies. but worth a try for sure.   

[jmouton]

           we just had a guy come bye today and wanted some 1 and 3/4 slabs with the bark on them  , we cut a few out of red oak  and  2 out of cherry  and the bark is  still on , we use nylon straps on almost everything and it helps and probably cuz they were frozen helped to ,  he was going to use a cnc cutting machine to make some  artwork on them ,  he wanted to know if the bark would stay on  and we said maybe , maybe not ,  but he could put some small finish nails into it if the bark started to fall off,


                                                                                                                           jim

[red oaks lumber]

i have about 3500 b.f. of natural edge bark on in the kiln as we speak.sizes range from 2" thick to 6" thick. the best is have fresh logs, cut soon after, get them in a kiln shortly after sawing.
what seems to work for us is, get the heat up to 125 deg as quick as possible .by doing this my feeling is the pitch under the bark sets quick and helps adhere the bark on the cambuim layer better. after drying if you use a pin nailer to help hold the bark on.
without a kiln,the bugs will eat the cambium layer and the bark will fall off.

[Brucer]

Last summer I had a customer who wanted a 3" x 18" x 10' Douglas-Fir slab with the bark still on one edge and the other edge squared up. This was to be a bench. D-Fir has a very thick, cork like bark. It stays on when the log is green, but comes off in big chunks when the log starts to dry. Nowadays it's especially hard to find logs with all the bark intact -- the mechanical harvesters strip away large patches of the bark.

I managed to saw a slab for the customer, but the bark was already starting to come away on one end. I put 3 of my polyester straps around the slab & tightened them just enough to hold the bark in place. The customer said he'd figure out how to deal with the loose bark.

About 4 months later I got this message from him:

Hi Bruce:
Well after I got the bench from you we put in the house upstairs for a couple of weeks 'till I found a company to kiln dry the slab. As you know the bark started separating from the log. So I took a putty knife and started to release the bark from the tree. After I did that I tacked it to some strips of wood and put it upstairs in the balcony and let it dry. We sent the bench out to get dried. It took two week's to dry and when we got it back the bark was about 75% dry with still a little flex to it. I glued the bark back on and nailed it in place.I filled the nail hole's with pieces of the bark ground up and glued into each nail hole.

I've seen the result and it looks pretty good.