Green wood, esp. black locust and burls

[Ohio]

Can the CW handle green wood? How about black locust? How about burls, from big leaf maple, cherry, or black locust?

Yes, I could just stick some green wood or a lice from a burl in the machine and see what happens but I have found, "I wonder what happens if I..." usually ends up costing me big dough.

Anyone have any insights? Has anyone done stuff like this successfully? Or have there been explosions? Or the breakage of things?

[bergerud]

Green wood - no. The flutes will plug up and there will be burning. Wood must be dry, otherwise, I think you can carve most any type of wood.

[normrichards]

Burls can have rocks or other impurity's and are especially tough, I turn many on my lathe but I have not tried one in the CW. I do often carve slabs with no issues. I often carve maple and cherry with no issues as well. In fact maple, cherry and oak and mahogany carve the best in my opinion.

[Ohio]

bergerud, ok, got it re: green wood. Thanks. I have dried cherry, maple, walnut, and some poplar in the shed ready to go now, so I can keep working that.

normrichards, yeah, embedded crap is always an issue with burls. I have some smallish flat burl pieces that may work better as platters or spatulas. Oh, yeah, and I was breaking down a maple log with several burls on it yesterday---my lil chainsaw is getting quite the workout. Anyway, I'm wondering if the CW can handle the burl wood provided it's as clean as can be. I think it probable could but I have nothing to back up this hunch. So any insight is appreciated.

(I'm leaning toward not putting burls into the CW simply because embeds cause tears and recriminations. Still, I like to ask.)

[RogerB]

I do know that knots are very hard on planer blades and do take nicks out of the blade. So I think the carving bit would not last long.

[CarverJerry]

Usually the difference between planer blades and our CW carving bit is the planer is hardened high speed steel and the carving bit is carbide. Big difference.
On the green wood tree slabs, as we know when they dry out they sometimes crack. I did some research and found if you soak the slabs in a 50-50 solution of water and dishsoap for a week it will help the slabs from cracking. But you have to let the wood dry out for a while after soaking them before you carve them. I've made several of these cross carvings in slabs and not one has cracked.

[SteveNelson46]

Working with green wood can be a challenge. I would say that it depends on the type of wood and how green or wet it is. It would also depend on the techniques used and the type of finished project. Turners (lathe) prefer green wood because it is usually much softer, easier on the tools and easier to turn. I think everyone has heard of "twice turned bowls". This means that the bowl is turned with green or wet wood and allowed to dry. It usually results in a distorted or oval shaped bowl after drying so it is remounted on the lathe and then turned round again.

In some cases this technique could be applied to cnc carving. It would require a rough out pass to hog out most of the wood and then later, after drying, a finish pass for cleanup. I think Suzanne here in the forum has a technique she has used and posted here awhile back. Of course there are other factors like cracking and warping that would have to be dealt with.

[Ohio]

Usually the difference between planer blades and our CW carving bit is the planer is hardened high speed steel and the carving bit is carbide. Big difference.
On the green wood tree slabs, as we know when they dry out they sometimes crack. I did some research and found if you soak the slabs in a 50-50 solution of water and dishsoap for a week it will help the slabs from cracking. But you have to let the wood dry out for a while after soaking them before you carve them. I've made several of these cross carvings in slabs and not one has cracked.

That looks like an end-grain carve with live edge. Is that right? How thick was the slab? How long did it take to dry?

Looking at the endgrain carve, I'm thinking I may be able to expand some of my designs for the endgrain cutting boards I make. I usually use a router for finishing up some details, but maybe I could expand what I do a little, so thanks for sharing that.

I know the dish soap trick, though I've never done it. I can resaw some of the greenwood I have and set it to soak in denatured alcohol to speed up drying out the wood. I know woodturners who use this trick---basically, get within 10% of a finished bowl, then soak it in denatured alcohol for a little while, let the alcohol evaporate and finish the turning.

[CarverJerry]

I did those a few years ago and can't really remember how long I let them dry out. But I'm sure it was quite a while. Sorry I can't be more helpful on your question. My slabs were around 1.5" thick and yes I kept the live edge or bark on it. The guy who cut my tree down was really good at slicing these off. If I remember right I only had to shim one of them to make it level (on top) when it was on my carrier board, which I had rails for the rollers to ride on. End grain is also correct. It carved just fine. Hope this helps.