Dead Standing Timber

Just depends on how dry it actually is. Until you cut into it there's not really any way to know. I suspect that if it's dry enough that you don't need to treat it, that it's already checked. If it's still solid, I'd treat it like green wood. Be a shame to put a bunch of sweat into it now then lose it down the road.

What kind of wood is it?

...Kevin

Terry I would treat it as green timber. Even if dry, it will have stresses that need to rest out before finish turning.

It's neither wet and green nor dry and seasoned. Standing deadwood is often somewhat brittle, and may have lots of checking going on as well. As with most free wood, turn some and pay attention to what happens.

Kevin, It's mostly Oak with some Osage Orange mixed in.

-Terry >THumphr wrote:

Hi Terry It depends a lot on how long the trees have been standing dead, and also the size of the logs and of course the local climate, as in dry or wet, lot of sun or rain, and fence row wood is mostly right in the open, no shelter from anything. Some wood if the climate is right will be spalting and some just will not, but all will start splitting and those splits can go deep enough to render the wood almost useless for turning but the smallest stuff or just some spindles. Friend of mine brought me some Osage that had been cut back as they where leaners at the edge of a bush, one or two years before, and as he was cleaning up the trail there he cut those bottom ends off and brought them to my place, they where only oh, 8 inches or so thick, and yes they had some splits in them, now Osage is pretty rare around here and I do want to make some small turnings from it, wish he had cut them down before they all splitt though. Anyway get that wood home and have a look in what shape it is, and if still useable seal the wood etc, just like green wood, that's what I would do. And start roughen out those bowls, before the wood all splits to heck.

Have fun and take care and please let us know how you made out with it. Leo Van Der Loo

Pay attention in more ways than one. Standing dead has been exposed to some severe environmental stresses that can ruin your day. Chief among them are checks which opened up when there was dry enough weather on sunny days and have subsequently closed, sometimes invisibly, with the higher relative humidity of the present.

I'd take a _wet_ rag to the endgrain and watch for wicking, which even a closed crack will do, and then keep my eyes and ears peeled even after that for warning clicks or hollow tap sounds. Depending on the beauty and rarity of the piece you're working, you can glue and turn or practice and burn the splitters.

Turn one to a finish thickness of about 3/8 and set it in the condition you would for drying. Within a week it should tell you all you need to know about the general condition of the rest of the stock.

What's the differerence between a tree that's standing dead in the woods and a tree lying dead off the ground in your back yard? I dunno, but maybe my friend, it's "blowing in the wind". :)

Not the same thing as standing dead trees, but I found that N.I.Pine blown down in a hurricane has defects that a properly felled tree doesn't. What's your experience with blow downs? Probably varies with the timber.

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

I've got some dead standing timber tat I'm going to be cutting out of my fence row. Does this need to be treated as green wet wood or can I turn as is?

-Terry

If it's down and in contact with the ground, the moisture will go down by gravity and be maintained by proximity to the ground. Can make a difference in how you want to prepare your blanks, as you can get one that's loaded to one side, with all that can mean in out-of-balance conditions. I've been caught a few times, and even knowing this, sometimes cut the piece for size/figure advantage and turn slowly through the problem. I've even used it to my advantage by laying pieces on the ground and rotating periodically to gain more even spalting by putting the bottom up, where drying will halt the spalt and gravity and the ground start the opposite side going.

Standing dead gets its main influence from capillary draw, secondary from southern exposure which tends to loosen the bark on that side and promote radial checks.

Lots of good advice from others and I can add some more from a recent experience. The local township was forced to trim/remove some dead and partially dead Norway Maples. So I scavenged several manageable logs up to about 14' dia and threw them in the back of my SUV. On the drive home I was horrified to see big black carpenter ants crawling all over the roof lining when i looked in the rear view. Once i got home I had to fumigate and all the logs, which were from several different trees, had large nests in them. Managed to get enough wood for goblets from the logs but the wood certainly wasn't free! I finish turned down to less than 1/8" bowl thickness and applied wipe on poly. Had very minimal movement and no cracking as there was no pith in the half logs.