Water Logged Wood

before the flood, was this cut up wood or still in the ground stumps for instance? if stumps, then I might suggest a lot of sand/grit/gravel, as a possible problem? I am assuming that its stumps or logs still attached as normally the stuff would float away. now if it washed in, and was 'chain sawed up, then you are up in the air-was it dry or not before the flood? you would not have any IMO way of knowing. if sawed, how many splits are in the ends of the individual pieces.. I got a pile of big walnut in my back yard, and its been drying for a year, having been cut down last January.. and its got a lot of 'end splits' in it

--Shiva--

It's waterlogged, so you'll have to dry it out. Turning it wet will do a number on the inside of your shop, but as long as you turn oversize and allow room for re-turning, or turn thin and say who cares which way it goes, have at it. It's the same as any wood above the Fiber Saturation Point.

I tried to prevent some green logs from splitting by submerging them in a rain water barrel for 4 months until I had time to turn them. They were totally waterlogged, zero flotation. I turned them wet and yes the spray was bad but it was easy turning. White oak, mulberry, black walnut all were rough turned and then waxed and set aside to dry. So far there is no difference to my usual green rough turned bowls. I guess time will tell. It was also no remedy to stop splitting, as all the logs were almost in 2 pieces when I took them out of the water. All you can do is try some and see what happens, then act accordingly.

I would treat it just like green wood. Cut to length, cut the heart out and seal the blanks on the ends. Rapid drying is not good. Turn to rough thickness and allow to dry slowly in paper bags. Then finish turn when it is totally dry.

Update:

I went out and dug through the pile of wood and found some wood I believe to be walnut (its kinda hard to tell). This wood appears to be some of the trees that was standing when the lake was flooded in the mid 60's. Occasionally, because the flood control lake is dropped 25 feet in the winter, erosion and other effects of nature brings down some of these long dead trees. According to what I understand, being submerged in the water the way they are prevents them from rotting. Anyways, I turned 2 bowls from this wood this afternoon. The wood felt very dry. I turned them thick and set them aside to dry, but honestly don't expect them to do much in the nature of cracking or warping. Just a thought, but if this is one of the trees that was flooded when the lake was created 40 some odd years ago, I don't expect it to move much. Might be wrong.

Seems like I saw a show about some fellows getting logs of the bottom of a river where an old log flume once existed. If memory serves me correctly, they claimed the wood was as stable as kiln dried wood. Time will tell.

JD

JD Discovery Channel 'Dirty Jobs" had a show about recovering old growth timber out of one of the great lakes, maybe you could search for that.

Hi JD, I'm surprised the Corps of Engineers could take time away from covering S. Fla. with asphalt. As it's not really pertinent to your query since cypress grows up in water, I'll add this early day "Deliverance" story anyway. :)

To prevent Union gunboats from going up the Appalachicola river and the crews bothering our women my redneck rebel forbears sunk whole cypress logs upright below the river surface. A century and a half later some enterprising fellow crackers pulled them out and milled them into beautiful cypress paneling.

ps, The D-Yankees got their revenge. The sand in the wood messed up our saw blades and dulled my gouges. You just can't win em all. :)

Turn to Safety, Arch Fortiter

There's a local company here (Ottawa, Canada) that "mines" submerged logs out of the bottom of the river. Some of the logs have been there for over a hundred years.

There's a cost to running large barges, sonar, and hauling the wood up and then doing whatever they do to it to make it ready for market. Other costs are involved with the operation too I'm sure.

But they have no problem selling it, making a profit and going back for more.