Hiya fellas, I finally had some time to get back into the shop the past two weekends. Last weekend I cut some large branches off a cherry tree and kept and couple for bow wood.
Never worked with cherry before, but i noticed the wood seem unusually wet? Long story short, I cut a peace to make a walking stick for my pop. I had it clamps to straighten it; I took a look at it yesterday and noticed several good size splits forming?
I was wondering were these caused from not sealing it with glue or did it have something to do with the high moisture content of this wood? Trying to gain some insight since I have some staves and wouldn't want this to happen to them.
Early summer wood is super saturated. When you peel the bark off or cut it that high moisture content rushes to escape causing splits and cracks One way to prevent that is leaving the brak on to control moisture escape and the other is to peel the bark off and seal the back and ends to also slow it down. Some split no matter what you do. You compensate by cutting longer pieces.
I have one walking stick that I made and it too is cherry and it too split in two places. I filled the splits with glue.
Thanks for the info fellas. I went ahead and sealed the staves with glue.