The Forestry Forum

I took a tree down for my son out of his front yard in parts of it died this summer so he wanted it down before parts landed on the house.  So there was about 7 ft of trunk roughly 14 inches around. We cut a couple firewood sized chunks off of the top end with the idea to make cookies and saw the rest of the little log into boards (why not....nuts dont fall far from trees and dad has a sawmill :)). The tree was planted by the previous owner shortly after it was built. So while he was home for Thanksgiving  we sawed the little log  up and made a few cookies.  Right now they are soaking in denatured alcohol in a big trash bag.  I remember the threads regarding drying cookies  was polyethylene glycol solution an option too to displace the water?

PEG (polyethylene glycol) was used to exchange with the water in the cell walls, and keeping them from shrinking when the wood dried. Very difficult to get that exchange to take place. Wood couldn't be partially dried before soaking for a long period of time in the PEG solution (usually 50% with water by weight if I recall correctly) and getting 1000 molecular weight PEG from its semi-solid state mixed with water was also a problem. Heat was needed. 
 
https://owic.oregonstate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs/peg.pdf

the bigger the diameter, and the increasing number of knots, the harder it is to dry without catastrophic displacement of fiber (crack).  the alcohol worked well for me on inch thick 10-to-12-inch diameter walnut cookies.  what is the species?  oak in near impossible.  I think softer wood is easier.  I have some 24-inch diameter 2-inch-thick cottonwood that are not split.  there is prob. a formula for an ideal thickness for a particular species at varying diameters.  I do not know the formula.  I started to try to look at it by cutting a range of progressive thicknesses in ash about 12 inches in diameter.  did not really follow it well but was looking for the perfect geometry.

after soaking, I put them into a box and staggered them to slow the drying.  I opened the box each night and swapped sides for each cookie.


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some crazy cedar


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a peds ED nurse and achild life specialist, I helped with stuff for her wedding.


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A ERC bench.  made for a charity (no pun intended).  I worry it has imploded on itself.


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Here is the 2 foot CW


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Walnut 2-foot x 1 inch cookie with a friend's European mount.


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A few elm cookies for my cousins Wedding


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cuttin ERC cookies


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a spalted soft maple cookie charcuterie for my buddy's wine brand.


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cutting on a tangent can stabilize some due to more fiber length and side to side adherence.


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cookies are fun, and high in fiber. :)

 
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tomahawk target, 4-foot elm, 4 inches thick.  eat your Wheaties.  I leave it on the sidewalk to get sprinkled so it does not dry out.  this one has made it a few years.


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Menards is the cheapest i found for denatured alcohol.  5 gallons was 30 bucks 6 years ago at Menards.  I used a 30-gallon grease can as it was just bigger than the walnut cookies.  most of those were just dried slow.