I guess I’ll post this over at Knots so the Knotheads can help me out too.
😉
I have a large apple tree to remove for the wood.
My wife came home the other day asking if I wanted to cut up any apple wood. Seems that in the big storm last week, this one blew down and the owner needs to get it cleaned up pronto. Normally, this would be a time and materials job but when I saw this tree, ( I ‘ll try to remember to add a photo soon) I told him I would be glad to clean it up for the wood. It must have been nearly fourty feet tall and had a pair of trunks with a diameter near 20″ each. there are some sections that should go six to ten feet straight.
I am making firewood out of the limbs and crooks but those trunks have some future projects hiding inside.
But wait! There’s More!
The home owner has recently inherited the house. His mother passed away a couple of weeks ago after a long battle with cancer. She was one of those people that everybody mises. A benefit to the community.
So I’d like to see some part of this become a memorial to her. She had a dozen bird feeders hanging from the limbs. I can imagine the number of hours that she spent under that tree and how many visitors came and went by it’s shade. It died so soon after her that it seemed like it was following after her.
Excellence is its own reward!
Replies
Piffan,
an apple tree that size deserves something special done with it.. Apple wood is usually very colorful with many differant colors and wild grain but often the inside is rotted when it gets to that size.
Apple wood is not very decay resistant and should be used for indoor projects.
if the tree is solid there is probably close to 800 bd.ft in it so we aren't talking about bird houses rather panel a room or something as nice.
I see it as the panels with white hard maple as the rails and styles.
Thanks,
Where you been keeping yourself?
I'll be a couple of evenings trimming out the limbs so he can get in and out the front dooryard first. Then I can get at the trunks and find out more about the inner wood.
I didn't really plan on birdhouses. That was just a comment on the environment it came from.
I can get all the little chips and limbs I want from spring pruning for smokehouse stuff..
Excellence is its own reward!
apple trees that large are very rare, there won't be many in the future since all the stuff grown nowdays is dwarf varieties.. Evan standard trees from old orchards seldom ever attain that size since that is long after it produces a decent size crop..
I've been looking to add a few trees to my own orchard but it's so hard to get trees that are standard size anymore that I've almost given up hope..
If it were me I'd save all the boards I could and carefully air dry them (Under shade with the ends sealed) in the near future that should be very desirable wood..
I've got to get the digital camera from my wife.
I was cutting again this evening and have all the small limbs and twig off. With the thing laying at about a ten degree angle still attached to the roots, I was standing on one of the trunks twelve or fifteen feet along it and four feet off the ground and there was still an awsome lot of tree out in front of me and I was cutting off a limb sticking up that was bigger than a lot of those modern dwarfs will ever be.
I will be counting the rings when I unhook it from the stump. I was visiting with the owner about the house. It is an early Greek reival style cape which was common here about 1820-1830. There are a couple more palin Capes that date back to 1790. He is pretty sure the house was built in the early 1800's
I suspect the tree was planted the same year they moved in.
I saw in awe!.
Excellence is its own reward!
Do a google on ' heritage variety apple trees - and you will find a lots and lots of resources.
Try using it for smoking.
Not the "get high" kind but the smoke the fish or beef kind.
If at first you don't succeed...try again! After that quit! No sense being a dam fool about it! W.C.Fields
MMMMM... apple smoked ham...
*sigh* Apple wood smoked gouda and cheddar, apple wood smoked turkey...This jobless recovery has done more to promote the consumption of exquisite chocolate than the finest chocolatier. Cost be damned.
Hi Piffin,
As usual, I admire your community-mindedness.
Seems to me I've seen some excellent turnings made of applewood. Bowls and the like. I can't remember how stable apple is, so the bowls might have been ornamental rather than functional.
I'm quite sure I've seen apple used as a contrasting wood in some swank jewelry boxes.
Whatever objects you choose to make out of it, perhaps you could make one extra and donate it to an auction to benefit cancer research. I think that would be a very meaningful use of the wood and your craftsmanship.
--Olsh
"It must have been nearly fourty feet tall and had a pair of trunks with a diameter near 20" each."
The double trunk thing throws up a red flag for me. Trees that don't grow straight up can be "reaction wood" when cut. There's a good article on the stuff here:
http://www.woodzone.com/articles/reaction_wood.htm
It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error. [Robert H. Jackson]
Hello piffin, I am more of a knothead than a breaktimer, but lurk here some. Most of the time I have seen apple wood used in small thngs like jewelery boxes, and maybe small panels in raised panel doors. Usually apple wood is small sizes and not straight. It is also not very strong and tends to spalt. It might be best for turning. I am not a turner, but I beleive they like to turn it while it is still green, unlike regular wood working where they want it dry. If you cut it for turning make sure to seal it up with something like anchorseal to stop it from drying out. Do the same on the ends of boards that you want ot use for regular woodworking so it doesn't dry too quickly and split the ends. Sticker the boards to that it can dry.
I am sure if you offered it on knots or other woodworking fourms you would get some takers. Like someone else said, it will not hold up for long outside, and will start to rot quickly, hince that is why it spalts easily.
Good luck, you can make some really nice looking things from apple.
Mike may be right about applewood working best as small pieces, but I saw a
beautiful mantle/hearth/built-in bookshelves in an Oakland, CA house circa 1925. 70 years later it looked great. Maybe 15 feet across and 9 feet high. Some pieces were definitely 5 or 6 feet long but those were quite thick. The rest may have been style/rail/panel construction, I don't recall. Mostly I was struck by the grain patterns.
Piffin: You could turn an urn for her ashes. But that's got lot of family issues involved. I liked the turned bowls to charity idea. Maybe also jewelery boxes donated to the cancer society fundraising auction in her name.
David Thomas Overlooking Cook Inlet in Kenai, Alaska
Keep these idears coming fellahs.
I think one reason most apple is used fopr small pieces is that therre are not a lot of large apple trees harvested for wood, one reason I plan to save whatever is salvagable in it.
I do have an eye for certain crooks and figures too but I doubt apple will make much of a boat..
Excellence is its own reward!
I doubt apple will make much of a boat.
But it would make a nice boat model (as does Lime). Boat is a evokative representation of trave, of change, and also of craft and continuence (you were talking about ways to honor). For that matter, it would make a right spiffy craft-style storage boat shelf unit.
You said stump, wich got me thinking, a whorl table slabbed out of the stump donated to an appropriate agency as an auction or prize item for fundraising. Put a brass plaque with "in memory of" or "in honor of", then float a tempered glass top over that.
And keey an eye on some of the limbs, those with good character can be turned or carved to make lamp bases.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Believe it or not, I have set aside a couple of limbs that have lamp written all over them.
One trunk was full of green linbs and had over an inch of sapwood in a twenty inch diameter, but a few scars from old lost limbs left it half gone down the center but the other half is board stock.
The second trunk was barkless and nearly dead though it had a couple of living twigs growing out of it. But this one was cured on the vine and dried hard with no rot.
I made most into about four foot lengths and crotchwood with a couple of burly scars plus a couple of other unique pieces.
I posted a few photos over in Knots
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-knots/messages?msg=14339.11.
Excellence is its own reward!
I tried to salvage some sawlogs out of an old apple orchard that was in the way of a housing development. Some big diameter stuff was there. I quartered the logs with a chainsaw and tried to airdry the wood in a shed attic. The stuff twisted and checked so bad that I got very few boards from it. My recommendation would be to get it sawn quickly and kiln dried. My favorite use for applewood is for drawer pulls, the kind you see on Krenov pieces.
I am making firewood out of the limbs and crooks
The ship builder in me hates to see a crook used for firewood. In wooden shipbuilding, you cut "knees" from the naturally bent grain in a crook. A knee is a "L" or "V" shaped piece of lumber that helps tie two different planes together. The bent grain offers strength in a smaller section.
Apple is very good for smoking fish, particularily trout. It's nice for 'a la plancha' smoking too (cut a 1x wide & long enough for the fillet, soak it in water for 2-3 hours; oil & season the fillet, and place it on the plank, then set it close to te coals--this is very good for skin-on fish like salmon). The tendency of apple to split works to your advantage, as you can split out stumps & butts for "chunk" hardwood to flavor your regular charcoal (soak in water for more smoke, or add dry to add heat or a subtle taste).
Well, if you're thinking furniture, there's nothing more motherly to me than a rocking chair. I'd guess she (like my mom with 4 sons) spent hours gently rocking her babies. The rail on the back could be carved with an apple tree or even "When the bough breaks..."
a couple of things I have done with apple - 'hall tree' and 'hat rack' - -
about 20 years ago, we lost the last original apple tree from g-g-grandpa's original planting - the tree was mostly unsound, and as I was scratching my head, trying to figure out some way to preserve part of it, I flashed on two pieces of upright growth from near the top - - attached to a base (a coulter from a disc - the pull behind farming tool) they make an interesting hall tree - one holds coats/hats, the other is in the bedroom where I use it for my clothes -
another piece I cut ended up attached to a plaque and holds some of DW's items - robe and such -
here's a peek - don't want to hear any cracks about the wall paper - oh, hell, go ahead - sumday I'll do something about it...
David
Nice wallpaper!
Is that an Empire cherry chest there next to the hat rack?
Doug
Empire cherry chest
indeed it is - original red paint, clean, complete, and unworn - - lots of stuff of similar style/vintage around, most of them are crips I have rescued, a few are as good as this one - - the last several years I've been building pieces rather than doing the auction/shop/rescue route - - love those wide board, midwestern hardwoods! - -
David
Just a conisure of antiques, started out buying a lot of Empire, was afordable.
Like you I have my share(two storage units full) of the stuff around, prefer tiger maple though. Also have resorted to makeing rather than attending all the auctions, took up to much time. Ahh, the wide boards.
Doug
Piffin, an ice storm took down an apple tree in my mil's backyard. Not nearly as big as yours, but about 35' tall. I'm turning Christmas ornaments and bowls for every one in her family...but I like the idea of the auction and donating the proceeds to an organization(s) she liked. EliphIno!
Did you say hat rack?
I'll have a few slices like this for same. Will need to cure and treat carefully to keep it from flaking with the grain though..
Excellence is its own reward!
sorry if I seem dense, but what/how are you proposing to use the piece in the picture? - - looks like classic old apple, fur sure - - too wet for the stove....
Slice several pieces of that hooked shape and mount them to a backer board on the wall. Each hook is a hanger for hat or coat, unless the grain and colour is so beautiful that nobody can bear to cover it up with clothes..
Excellence is its own reward!