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What to do with 3M~ of unprepared stock of cherry and juniper (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/woodworking@lemmy.ca
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I talked to a neighbor I met in the neighborhood workshop, he told me he had around 2000 mm x 150 mm, each dried logs of cherry and juniper. The juniper I figure I can carve into kitchen utensils, and the cherry can be used for tool handles.

The problem is I'm a complete beginner to woodworking. I have no clue how I should go about preparing the stock for this. I have a set of chisels, a Stanley No.5, Stanley No.4½, all of which I have the ability to sharpen. I have no hatchets, froes, or logging chisels.

He said he was gonna throw this out soon, and hardwood is hard to come by where I live.

EDIT: To clarify, I share the workshop with this neighbor, and a few other neighbors. The wood has been stored in this location for several years, and I would keep storing it here. Thank you for all of your replies!

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[–] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

First of all, get your hands on it and get it home. You'll have time to figure out the rest once you do that.

Get it home, test the moisture as soon as you get it there. Continue to test it every day until it's about the same 3-5 days in a row.

It might be dried, but it still needs to acclimate to where you'll be working with it.

If it's timber, you'll need to shave the bark off it, at a minimum. This is best done with a hatchet, but anything you can use to get it off without damaging too much of the wood underneath is fine.

If you want tool handles, go ahead and chuck it on the lathe and go to town. If you don't have a lathe, it's going to be very difficult, but not impossible, to get it round.

If you want S4S (squared on all four sides) boards, you'll need a table saw (or maybe a band saw would do), planer, and jointer to get them within 1/16" of your final desired dimensions, then sneak up on final measurements with your planers.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    If you want S4S (squared on all four sides) boards, you’ll need a table saw (or maybe a band saw would do)

    Bandsaw would be the normal choice, if I'm not mistaken (obviously it has to have enough resaw depth). 150mm is roughly 6", which I think would just barely fit through a 14" Delta or one of its many Asian-made clones. (I've been shopping for a bandsaw lately . . .)

    Most table saws would need a pass on each side and possibly some handsaw work to split the remaining middle bit afterwards. Doing the entire operation with a handsaw and/or hatchet is possible but requires more skill and patience than I would have.

    If you don’t have a lathe, it’s going to be very difficult, but not impossible, to get it round.

    Tool handles don't have to be perfectly round, though. You can just carve the corners off a block until you get something kind of octagonal. I have a couple I made that are rounded rectangles—not perfectly symmetrical, maybe, but comfortable enough to hold.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 4 weeks ago

    The shared workshop is where I do my woodworking, this is also where the wood is stored. It has been stored there for several years. As this is a shared workspace, I can only bring handtools. The handlemaking will be mostly practice as I'm not very skilled with using my tools yet.

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