How do you cure wood for fine woodcrafts?

Answer 1

Curing woodTo cure wood one must remove the moisture from the wood; if you're going to make something with wood, the moisture content of that wood should be below 6 to 9%. (There are cheap moisture meters out there. The pin meters are the cheapest.) There are many ways to dry wood. Here are a few.

Find a cool, dry place, stack the wood with spacers between each board, and let it set for a couple of years, or build a box to house the wood. (Be sure to put spacers between your wood for air to circulate, usually 1" square pieces the width of your boards.) Apply some sort of "safe" heat source: warm air to circulate. In summertime, this can be done with a frame and black plastic and a fan to circulate the air. Much less time is needed to bring the moisture level down. For wood turners, once you rough-out your piece you can soak the roughed-out piece in denatured alcohol for 3 to 5 hours, pull the piece out, and cover the "outside" surface only with a grocery bag paper, using tape to secure the paper. If it is a bowl, set it on the lip or upside down on spacers to allow air to circulate for a week or two -- much faster than air drying. Once dry, turn to final shape.

The bottom line on wood drying, the moisture must be removed slowly in a controlled way to keep the wood from cracking, splitting, or checking. Remember, you must be careful, or you will ruin your prized piece of wood.

More ...I assumed you were trying to dry wood, my mistake. I make walking sticks and canes. I spend a lot of time (and I mean a lot) out in the woods searching for unique sticks, so when you work on them you don't want them to split, crack, or check. What works best for me is a place that's cool and dry in which to store all sticks, I label them with tags when they were cut, allow them to rest and cure for a year or longer in which time I can begin to create, I have taken a vine that you can touch both ends together when cut, but when cured it is sturdy enough for a walking stick. It also pays to plan ahead when making sticks & canes. I have 500 to 600 sticks curing at this time, in bundles with date of cut waiting for me to work on them. I hope this is what you meant buy curing.

The same way, the key is to lower the moisture content of said wood to below 9%, get yourself a moisture meter and check your wood and only start your project when your wood moisture content is below 9%, higher then this your wood can crack or split after you did all work and ruin your fine project.

Answer 2

Strip the bark and then let it dry out completely. It should take about 18 months to dry naturally. If you have some other way of drying it (ei. big heating lamps, etc.) the time can be shortened but I don't know by how much. Industrial kilns can cure wood in a matter of days.

idealy the log will be pre cut to rough sizes of the wood types needed for the furniture. This is then stores in a dry room for slow drying. It sould be kept FLAT as this will hinder some of the normal twist that occurs.

Cutting when "green" helps prevent distortion when machining to finish sizes.

Answer 3

SLOWLY, or it will crack, warp, and/or check. While checking isn't usually a problem for structural wood, It's not usually the look people are after for a mantel. Cut the tree, leave the bark on. Dry the wood slowly by moving it over the course of weeks into a climate controlled area. If you're in a humid area, it'll take longer to dry. Maintain temperature, and decrease median humidity level over time, and then raise temp slowly. review woodworking websites & references for step-by-step instructions, but that's the gist.