I'm thinking about sawing a few large walnut limbs into cookies. Maybe round, maybe oval if I can get them braced and clamped.
Also have a hollow 2' length bucked off the butt log I may try to cookie cut. Very bottom may just be too thin walled to survive but may yield a couple of interesting pieces. We will see.
When you cut cookies do you need to heavily anchorseal both sides or just one side to air dry them? Anybody have any experience with them? What is the thinnest you would recommend me cutting them? 4/4? 8/4?
Any experience and suggestions will be appreciated.
My experience is that the thinner that you cut them, the more likely they will warp. I would not go below about 1 1/8" thick.
Would the hollow log section make donuts instead of cookies? Without the pith and extra wood in the center the ring would be able to shrink without cracking . Don't know about warp but a lot of stickers should help there.
Quote from: WV Sawmiller on February 08, 2016, 08:24:04 PM
I'm thinking about sawing a few large walnut limbs into cookies. Maybe round, maybe oval if I can get them braced and clamped.
Also have a hollow 2' length bucked off the butt log I may try to cookie cut. Very bottom may just be too thin walled to survive but may yield a couple of interesting pieces. We will see.
When you cut cookies do you need to heavily anchorseal both sides or just one side to air dry them? Anybody have any experience with them? What is the thinnest you would recommend me cutting them? 4/4? 8/4?
Any experience and suggestions will be appreciated.
No experience but I would expect the Wood Dr. to chime in soon.
It seems that Anchorseal is used to prevent end check on boards and logs since the end grain dries faster than from the sides.
I would think that putting Anchorseal on a relatively short "log" would cause more problems. Think about it, now the wood is only drying from the side - the outside layer of your cookie, exactly what you DON'T want to happen. Has anyone experimented with putting Anchorseal on the outer rim of the cookie (end grain and sides) and letting the inner parts dry normally?
Here's a picture I took when I was running some experiments a few years ago in cookie cutting, coating and cookie survival. I sawed out a couple dozen at several different angles, and coated them with everything I could think of, including Anchorseal, motor oil, lacquer, whatever I had and let them sit for months. Hollow cookies perform good, ones sawn at an angle do better than flat. The ones I painted heavily with a penetrating sanding sealer filled the wood grain and didn't allow it to shrink as much. I've never heard of anyone else using sanding sealer but it worked for me. Some people use alcohol, some use commercial products such as pentacryl. Some open grained species will let the sanding sealer or grain filler to penetrate through the entire cookie and come out the other side using gravity. The idea is to displace the water in the pores,if the wood and replace it with something that doesn't shrink. Sometime it works, sometimes not. Some species are more forgiving than others when nothing is used, with cedar, poplar, basswood, and other lower density species seeming to work best. Walnut does OK, about middle of the pack.
Here's a poplar disk, fresh off the mill, and I used a circular saw an cut a single, narrow kerf from the rim to the center. As the disk dried, it opened up like a Pac Man, showing just how much these things want to shrink and move. I did not apply any coating to this cookie.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21488/image~71.jpg)
I made an effective sawing aid out of a crosstie, cutting a big vertical notch to hold logs at 32 inch long logs at 90° and also an angled notch to hold them at 60° Then I use the 2 plane to clamp them in the notch. There video on YouTube showing me sawing them.
Dont know if it would work with cookies but for drying lathe turnnings we put
them in a plastic bag with saw dust for drying without cracking.
I have sawed a slew of them for a fellow. On the bias, making ovals, these were his and had been down a spell, they did not crack or split and he did treat them with some kind of sealer, it seemed to be some expensive stuff, but cant remember the name of it I will find out the name and let you know.
Quote from: Don_Papenburg on February 08, 2016, 10:46:00 PM
Would the hollow log section make donuts instead of cookies? Without the pith and extra wood in the center the ring would be able to shrink without cracking . Don't know about warp but a lot of stickers should help there.
Don,
Good catch. I guess that would be the better definition. The butt section from top down goes from solid to probably less than an inch of wood on each side. I don't have real high hopes the donuts will hold together by the time it gets to the thinnest point but it is worth a shot.
Saw the cookies from dry logs and they are much less prone to crack. I have a stack of ERC and Walnut cookies that I loan out for weddings, etc. None are cracked.
Quote from: Magicman on February 09, 2016, 08:16:18 AM
Saw the cookies from dry logs and they are much less prone to crack. I have a stack of ERC and Walnut cookies that I loan out for weddings, etc. None are cracked.
MM,
Thanks. The tree has been down 3-1/2 years. Top and root ball kept it off the ground. While there is certainly some moisture left in it I have hopes the limbs are pretty dry. The limbs are 6-10 inches in diameter. I am going to try oval cuts as much as I can for them and cut the trunk section straight across.
A year or two ago while experimenting with cookies I cut a bunch of "donuts" from a hollow but log. I stuck them on craigslist and an artist bought them all. He covered them with paint and made prints on canvas. Interesting art. Anywho.... not a bad thing to have around. you never know what a customer will want. Brian
Taylor,
Yeah, never can tell what someone will want. I figure local florist and wedding coordinators might be interested in them. My wife does a few wedding photos for folks from time to time. Maybe she can help push them.
While I was at it I went ahead and fixed my spelling error in first thread. Surprised someone hadn't mentioned it before now. I guess folks on FF just too nice an didn't want to hurt my feelings.
I've never had a lot of success with Cookies.
They always seem to split on me. Yellow Pine
is the only species that has worked ok for me
and even that has had checking and splitting problems. :embarassed: