Freeze Dried?

Gee that's interesting. Maple syrup is far more concentrated (I'm not sure of the actual ratio but I think it takes 30-40 gal of sap to make

You are quite right. I freeze syrup all the time. However it is a different thing to freeze 12" x 12" x 6" piece of log. Wood is a very poor conductor as opposed to water. so you will have to over come the insulating qualities of wood to freeze the log. I'm not saying it can't be done but it is going to take a long time to freeze all of the sap in wood. (my two cents)

Well all this might be true, but the highest antifreeze rate is not found at the highest concentration level !!

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

I see we have an English problem. Moisture expands the structure, loss comes after.

No point in going further. You're not interested, or incapable.

Bark's even a better insulator than wood. That's what the folks that study it say. Tree concentrates solutes by going dry(er) come winter. Makes it tough to freeze the only living part. Even tougher to freeze the interior. If you're simple and contentious like ebd, you gloss over all that ionic stuff.

Of course, the tree doesn't waste valuable sugar on the heartwood. Phenols, phenyls, tannins, other things keep that from freezing easily. Not that it can't happen. Does, but it's in the big numbers below zero. Trunk sort of explodes, as if struck by lightning when it reaches its elastic limit. Saw it in Alaska while doing winter survival at Fairchild.

Great point - hadn't thought of that.

Mark Russell wrote: freezer downstairs.

I'm not sure how long a block that size it might take in the fridge freezer (and even in the chest freezer). Outside in my unheated barn/shop, where it sits for days below freezing, I'm pretty sure it would freeze solid. A roughed out blank will freeze rather quickly, even in the refrigerator freezer. An inch of wood, particularly wet wood, doesn't provide much insulation.

I don't remember anything about high school chem. On the other hand I do remember a lot about college chem. As a mater of fact I am currently taking a course in fluid dynamics. Its impossible to determine the freezing point of the sap in a log with knowing the chemical compounds present and their properties. That said I think it is impossible to say whether or not the sap would actually freeze at say 10 degrees F. I could try a simple experiment of putting pure maple syrup in the freezer and see what happens. This should have a lower freezing point than the sap of a tree based on you simplified approach. Of course I'm not sure why you say that bound water would not freeze. Are you under the impression that it is under great pressure or something? Also enlighten as to why it is impossible for a cell wall to break. I have not had a course in the microbiotics of cellulose structure.Tony Manella ndd1"at"prolog.net (remove "at")

Hi Tony, I barely remember college, nevermind chem 101. It sure is nice to see your posts, hope this means they will be early & often now. Haven't been thru the Valley on the way to Maine in a while. Have they finally finished the highways?

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

I'm going to have to throw in an anecdotal agreement. Whether it's a nice thing to do to the wood or not, I left a big pile of willow in my backyard all winter and it froze solid for at least two or three months. Since the weather has improved, I've got it sawn into blanks and set to dry in the shed, but I've turned a bunch of it with nice results.

Oddly enough, I hadn't thought of it, but in the case of the willow mentioned above, it's been less prone to warping and cracking after it froze and rethawed. I had attributed it to improving technique, but I'm not doing anything all that different. Could be on to something, could be nothing, but living in Wisconsin, I'll just keep storing stuff in unheated buildings and if it works, great!

Hard to get willow to crack at all, in my experience. Whole family of cottonwood/willow/poplars are bulletproof in drying.

I got a few cracks right away, but not many- so it's likely that's the case. Good news for me, anyhow. Now if only it smelled a little better....

Sadly, even if you get it wet later, like when setting the fuzz prior to final sanding, it'll smell like willow again.

Great ornament wood, with the shimmer and low weight, though.