Thanks! It’s been 3 months since the surgery, and the doc gave me the “all clear” in mid-November, after I spent 3 months with a 10 pound lifting restriction. Could only carry one gallon of milk at a time for three months.
This crabapple tree died, basically, of old age. It was about 18 inches diameter at chest height, which is HUGE for an apple. Had a similarly overgrown apricot, but I didn’t get to keep any of the wood from that, as it rotted rather than drying.
The slab I have left is plain-sawn or flat-sawn, about 3” thick at the center. The bark has been peeled, and the slab is over 12” wide, so I “nibble” pieces off the edge of it using our little chainsaw before taking them to the bandsaw for further dimensioning. Even after having been down for 10 years, the wood still moves after cutting, so yield isn’t great, but these two small pieces were offcuts after making an apple-handled cane (they came from under the handle on the left of this picture).
Yeah. Our sunshine (even in mid-December) is strong enough to speed curing of tung oil too, but when we found out that the kid had been born last week (still don’t know the gender), I just figured I’ll take my time and have the rattles ready for Christmas, so no hurry needed. My biggest concern was getting the pores in the ash filled with oil and sawdust, so there wouldn’t bit any bits that would splinter later, and that done, so now it’s just curing this week, then I’ll buff them out on the buffing wheels, and maybe apply a little carnauba wax and hand them off.
