Been looking for a How Too on cutting staves,from cutting the tree,to sealing them,spraying them for bugs and so on.Our trees have been budding out for the last two weeks.I have access to hickory,hackberry,persimmon,and
mesquite.
Ernie
Jet cut em and split em lengthwise into three inch pieces. Seal the ends with shellac as soon as you can. Spray them with a bug control spray and store them somewhere dry with air moving until they are dry. Generally one year per inch of thickness.
Do i need to take the bark off after i split them?
Ernie
TTT
Ernie -
Kinda depends on who you talk to on that one. With whitewoods I have done (hackberry, ash, elm, hickory) the bark peels off like a bananna peel if you cut in the spring and remove bark right away. I remove bark and seal as soon as I can.
With osage and mulberry, I like to remove the bark and sapwood as I have time and seal with shellac or something similar.
Never used persimmmon or mequite.
You will find differing opinons.
Thank Mitch,
I'm new to this,only made some board bows!Fixin to broaden my horizon's!lol!
Ernie
I would wait until the bark will slip on the Hackberry and hickory and peel it off. and seal with shellac. it will save you alot of work later.
don't know about persimmon or mesquite.
Persimmon has real thin bark and it's like pealing a Carrot you have to be real carefull not to go to far, I've only pealed one and jut pealed the silvery outside bark off till I got to the green layer under it then sealed it. After about 6 months I sanded most of the green off. Hackberry I'd sure get the bark off fast and seal it. I use a small hammer and just tap on the bark to loosen it . I mark me a strait line and get the skill saw out and cut about a 1/2"deep grove from one end to the other then get the wedges out and split from the middle out. In a few weeks I'm gonna cut a bunch of Mesquite.... Never worked any yet so I'll prolly do it the same way but I'll draw knife the bark off.