A doorway angel in maple
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Very nice job. It looks like a sleeping angel.
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From a little experience with recently fallen big oak trees. I cut up into big slabs about 2-3 inches thick just so I could handle them, 12 pieces 2 foot long swatted my F-250 super duty while they were still intact just off the ground. I sized them down with a big chainsaw, squared some of it up with my table saw, then ran a few pieces through my planner. The grain was really cool, but really still wet inside. Me being sometimes impatient, while they were dead flat did a beautiful little V carve scripture on a piece. My wife painted in the letters by hand, she does a great job on it. The grain was so cool in it, and it was very cold here then. After finishing it I brought it inside our home where it is warm. The very next day it bowed like a rainbow when it started drying out. That was not my intentions. It was straight, it was flat, and it rolled like I bent it around a 50-gallon drum.
I took it back and gave it the people that gave me the wood that swatted my truck down. They really liked it bowed like that too. Like I did it on purpose
, they have the only bowed piece like that in the world. The rest of it is awaiting drying out. Wood does really weird things when it is still full of moisture, and/ or sap. I could have filled up the back of my truck with the sawdust I chopped all that wood up in my driveway over knee deep, with biggest chainsaw, the wife, likes to be my boss was thrilled with the mess made. I get my maple from Woodcraft. I for the most part still needs a little love to get it squared up and planed slightly. You can get exotic wood from them cheaper than you can get pine at Homedepot or Lowes, but you got to get the longer, bigger pieces that no one else wants to mess with to get them right to do my carving, which is scripture 99%.
Hope this helps save your back, lots of works and time in green wood.
Ray
Using the wood from your own property is a great idea. As stated above the wood must be dry. Cut down the trees you would like to use. Stack them and let air dry for 18-24 months. There is a handheld meter to check moisture. Generally around 10-15% is acceptable. Then they should be ready to mill into slabs. Watch some youtube videos for more detailed info.
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...... because you repeatedly make very nice carvings
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You can hire it out or do it yourself. It is fairly straightforward but be careful felling the tree(s). Once you have it cut down and limbed up you can have it sawed. Check in your area for people with mobile saw mills or you can get an Alaska mill for fairly small amount of money (it will need a fairly large chainsaw). You will want to have a place to dry the wood, preferably dry with good ventilation. Figure a year of drying per inch of thickness. Lots of you tube videos on this sort of thing.
I had a tree (Madrone Oak) that fell down during a storm. The main trunk was really large - 30" or so. I hired a tree guy to cut it into longs (and chip the rest). For Oak, Maple, Walnut, ... I would have had them cut into slabs right away but Madrone needs a lot of curing as it is a squirrely wood and warps a lot as it dries. Stored them for 4 years and then had a guy with a mobile sawmill come and cut them into 8 to 10 ft slabs for me. I've got about 30 curing. The sawmill guy cost $700 so that works out to about $24 a slab. A good slab will run $200 and up so it was a good deal for me. Hope to make live edge tables and carved objects with it.
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