Storing Wood

[Si600]

We're going to be pruning our sweet cherry tree quite hard this year, and I'm going to end up with some reasonable lumps of branch, 200mm in diameter or thereabouts.

They're not going to be big enough for bass building but should be ok for small trinket boxes or something.

My question is should I plank them first, and how thick or should I store them as rounds to season them?

[Reggaebass]

Hi si, I used to buy all my hardwood for my joinery shop from a company called Latham timber, and all their timber is cut with the bandsaw from lumber to oversized planks and then stored flat to season and then ready for machining , thicker the better really, like this 

[Dom in Dorset]

I'd leave it whole or split the fatter bits. At 200mm it will still season fairly quickly. You can dip the ends in hot wax or even PVA to help prevent splitting as it dries.

[Reggaebass]

6 minutes ago, Dom in Dorset said:

At 200mm it will still season fairly quickly.

You might know something I don’t but 200mm will not season quickly, I had 40mm barn cladding planks in my shop for 9 months and when it came to machining it was still damp in the middle, I was quite surprised  🙂

[Dom in Dorset]

29 minutes ago, Reggaebass said:

You might know something I don’t but 200mm will not season quickly, I had 40mm barn cladding planks in my shop for 9 months and when it came to machining it was still damp in the middle, I was quite surprised  🙂

Wow that must have been waterlogged! I did say "fairly quickly" 😏 
In a former life making woodwind instruments I occasionally used similar bits of tree , for me "fairly quickly" meant two years after felling I would cut and rough turn it, six months to a year after that I'd do the final turning. 

[Reggaebass]

4 minutes ago, Dom in Dorset said:

Wow that must have been waterlogged!

Yeah you’re right Dom , it was fairly wet when I bought it the planks had been stored in an open sided barn , it seemed like it was never gonna dry 🙂

[Jabba_the_gut]

I heard the rule of thumb forgot drying was 1 year per inch thickness. @Si600have a look at the film 'Felled' that is on Amazon - you'll probably enjoy it!!

[Malcolm Davies]

Yep that's right  1 year per 1" you  should never try and  dry out in  a large  lump then try and deep cut it  ,it will move  all over the place 

[durhamboy]

1 inch per year, per inch of thickness is a good rule of thumb, but don't be disappointed if it takes longer depending on your climate and where you store it. 

I used to store quite a bit of unseasoned wood when living in rural Tasmania. For my purposes, guitars and furniture, I always cut rough boards and racked them with spacers between each board, at about 18 inch intervals and a spacer close to each end. I seal all ends with wax, though wood glue works just as well. Racking with spacers might seem like a lot of work, but it allows all the boards to dry reasonably evenly and boards can stay racked like that for years until needed.