Apple

I ran out of Anchorseal, so I resorted to lavishly applying some white latex paint to the ends of the logs. I plan to begin cutting some of them up soon into bowl blanks. I have too much wood to turn all of it now, so some will no doubt dry, and I'll most likely turn a few rough bowls green.

Max

Uh oh.

I have lots of stock to experiment with. Thanks for the advice.

Max

Your work is very nice, Tim. And the apple bowls have beautiful grain patterns. Too bad the stuff is so unstable. The rough bowl I turned yesterday is still moving dramatically. I may attempt to turn some to the finished level and let them warp, as has been suggested.

Max

I still have a huge bag of mesquite chips sent to me by my brother in California, but your suggestion is intriguing. The aroma from the logs (sitting temporarily in the driveway) is so pungent that we can smell it from the living room.

Max

I hate to disagree with everyone, but Apple wood seems to have developed an "urban legend" around a nasty behavior. I have never found that Apple takes any more caution than many other common turning woods, and there are a lot of other woods that will warp and crack more. Maybe I am just lucky.

My experience with Apple has been to let it do all of the movement and cracking BEFORE turning it on the lathe. I do this by cutting it into lathe ready round bowl blanks and coating them 100% all over with AnchorSeal or other wax. Get the AnchorSeal good and thick by applying additional coats before it has a chance to dry. Then set it in the corner of the shop until next year. Don't try to make the blanks too big or too thick. 10 and 12" diameter and 4" or less thickness would be the maximum, and stay away from the pith. You will lose a few of them, but the results are worth the wait. Dry Apple turns and sands easily.

Russ Fairfield Post Falls, Idaho

Max, Absolutely save your shavings and small pieces for your barbecue. Soak them in water for half an hour or so, wrap them up in aluminum foil, poke a couple of holes in the foil and place it directly on the coals. This is just awesome smoke for pork, and it tastes pretty good with any other meat, too.

Waste not want not!

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Not to dis the mesquite people, but there's simply nothing like the aroma and flavor of apple-smoked ribs, chops, shoulder, sausage, etc. Heck, if you try it and don't like it, you can always send the leftovers (wood or meat!) to me. I try to use bigger pieces, more like chips, than I do the shavings, because the chips and chunks last longer in the fire.

-- Chuck *#:^) chaz3913(AT)yahoo(DOT)com Anti-spam sig: please remove "NO SPAM" from e-mail address to reply. <

September 11, 2001 - Never Forget

Last Thanksgiving I slow-cooked a turkey on the old Weber kettle. Took about three hours, and rather than throw chips or a foil bag of chips on the coals, I put a waterlogged chunk of hickory on the grill adjacent to the bird. The result was superb. A bit of smokey flavor, but mostly just a rich hickory aroma and some flavor. I'm definitely going to try this with apple this year.

Max

After reading the other posts, I had somewhat decided to try this anyway. I've cut some 3" and 4" slabs for drying, but haven't cut them into rounds. I'm fresh out of Anchorseal, so I coated them heavily with latex paint--which probably won't help much--and stacked them in a corner of the basement wrapped in newspaper. If the latex will help long enough for me to get a 5 gal bucket of Anchorseal, I'll probably have a few chunks that survive the drying process. I'm always open to suggestions.

Max

Hello Russ

I think your right on that "urban legend", yes apple does warp, crack, etc., but in my experience like you say not more than a lot of other wood.

What seems to make a great deal of difference though is how or where it grows, in the commercial apple orchard tree where with heavy feeding shaping and heavy load of fruit make for more build (grown) in tension and stress, where as for a tree grown wild this is not the case and there is less stress release and warping, anyway apple is one off my favorite woods , it can have some beautiful grain and color, sometimes with spot burls and curly grain.

I usually rough turn and stuff it in a paper bag for a few weeks to a few months depending on the drying conditioning, apply CA on any spot that is cracking prone and keep a close eye on the drying progress the first couple of weeks and finish turn in 1 to 2 years

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Russ Fairfield wrote: