Fall and winter—This is the dormant season. The bark is stuck on like glue and will not come off without a great deal of work. Even when it does come off, a great deal of damage is done to the wood underneath.
Plan accordingly for the type of logs you want for your furniture.
Where to Find the Best Trees
Unless you live in a house built by Dr. Seuss, your house is built with right angles; walls are straight and the same thickness at the top as they are at the bottom. Dimensional lumber is made to maintain a uniform size and thickness from stud to stud, joist to joist, rafter to rafter. This makes it much easier to build a house that is square and trim. Drywall fits correctly, trim fits correctly, etc.
The problem with logs is that none of them are the same size from top to bottom. Oh, some of them look like it, but despite their looks, the log is smaller on top than it is on the bottom. This makes getting our dimensions right during the build difficult. The top rail of a headboard needs to be slightly longer than the bottom rail, and other little things like that. So, the closer the logs are to milled lumber, or perfectly symmetrical columns, the easier it is for us to use in our projects.
The big question is “Where do we find the straightest logs in the forest?” That’s easy. Go to where the woods are the thickest. Foresters call it Early Successional Growth (ESG). In reality, we want the mid to later stages of ESG. Here’s why: A tree is trying to grab as much sunlight as possible so it can do its thing and grow. If you notice as you drive around the countryside, yard trees with no trees around them are very bushy with lots of branches, but generally no towering main trunks. There might only be one tree per acre. They don’t need to grow tall to find sunlight. To make matters worse, often the trunk is more pyramid shaped than column-shaped.
In a thick part of the woods, the trees are competing for the sunlight. Starting out after a farm field turns fallow, a forest is logged, or a forest fire rages through, there might be 20,000 saplings per acre. In their battle for the sunlight, the trees keep racing upward to beat the other trees for sunlight. In the process, the lower branches stop receiving sunlight and die. Eventually, they rot away or break off. This process often makes trees as straight and columnlike as we are ever going to find in nature. For the most part, those are the trees we want for our furniture.
A fallow field quickly reverts back to forest. I cut dozens of ash saplings from this stand, all straight as an arrow.
TREES TO AVOID
I feel I should caution you about trees you shouldn’t cut.
• Never cut trees that the property owner wants to keep. It’s money out of their pocket if you do.
• Never cut trees that may fall on valuable trees. Loggers are experts on dropping trees in directions away from valuable trees, but unless you’re experienced in the matter, don’t risk it. One wrong cut can cost the property owner thousands of dollars in destroyed timber.
• Beware trees that are holding up a “widow-maker.” The weight of a dead branch or even an entire tree pushing against the tree you want to cut can create a huge hazard. Often, there is no warning that a branch or dead tree is falling until it’s already too late.
• Beware a leaning tree. There are two distinct hazards of cutting a leaning tree:
• If the cut is made from the side it is leaning toward, the weight can cause the tree to lean more, pinching the saw blade. In many cases, another saw has to be used to complete the cut from the opposite side. The extra pressure and a twisting tree can damage a saw blade.
• If the cut is made from the side opposite the direction of lean, as the cut is made, the weight is often too much for the remaining fibers to hold. The tree splits, often without warning. This violently thrusts the loose section of the tree trunk back toward the cutter. This can have unbelievable springlike energy that can impale anyone in the way. Loggers call the remaining tree stump a “barber’s chair.”
• Beware a yard tree. Many yard trees have been the home for tree houses, swings, and who-knows-what. Yard trees are often riddled with buried nails and other bits of metal. All it takes is one nail to ruin a band saw or chain saw blade.
• Beware a fence line tree. Like a yard tree, they can have wire fencing and staples buried in them. But, usually, the tree is clear above the four-foot (1.2 m) line.
• Blistering, rotten, or otherwise damaged trees should be avoided. Sassafras trees rot and blister even as they grow. If you live in the humid areas of the U.S., be wary of any wood on the ground. I would quarantine any suspect wood in a sunny and dry area until it is proven clean. Rotten wood has no place in furniture. The last thing you want is to bring termites into your shop.
Selecting Trees
Starting out, select trees that are as straight as can be found. The straighter and more cylindrical a log is, the easier it is to work with. It will make designing and building furniture much easier. As you gain skill and experience, you can use less-perfect logs that will give your furniture wonderful character.
I often start off into the woods with a project in mind and I want to see if I can find the wood to support the idea. I usually carry bright surveyor’s ribbon to mark the trees I think I want. That makes it much easier to find the right trees when I return with a saw.
While selecting trees, we need to realize what size of logs we need for the project. Two-inch-diameter (50 mm) logs work great for bar stools. Four- to six-inch (100–150 mm) logs are about right for bedposts. Three-inch (75 mm) logs work well for crosspieces on a headboard. Small saplings of various sizes work well for braces and decorative members.
Bear in mind that humans like symmetrical things. We like to see things that match in color and size. A bar stool with varying sizes of legs is going to look awkward, and a set of them is going to be even worse. My point? Be sure to cut enough wood of matching size to do the project. In fact, cut extra wood. Why? Because it takes a long time for wood to dry, and running out of wood can delay a project for a year or more.
I made a mistake years ago. A lodge owner wanted me to make a set of bar stools, but he wanted to see one first before he committed to the deal. I went to work and made one heck of a bar stool, which included a forked hickory stick in the backrest. It was my way of showing off what I could do and a way to use up something I had been saving for that “special” project. Dang it if the lodge owner didn’t love the bar stool and wanted all of them to have forked sticks in the back! Do you know how hard it was to find three more forked hickory sticks of the same size for the backs? Do you know how hard it was to get the sticks dry and on the stools in the allotted time? I learned my lesson.
I can’t say this enough: Cut lots of extra wood. Some trees are very prone to rot that can’t be seen from outside; sassafras is notorious for this.
Avoid heavy branching. Trees that grow in the open are notorious for this. Each branch is a knot you have to deal with. If you insist upon using a tree with lots of branches, cut and peel it in the early summer so the bark will be easier to remove around the branches.
Another issue is bark or wood coloration. Again, sassafras can be a nightmare for color differences. Sassafras is a wood that looks best with the bark on but sanded to reveal the redwood-colored bark underneath the weathered bark. The color variation can be maddening, but somewhat predictable if attention is paid to how old the tree is. Young, fast-growing trees have a lighter, yellowish red bark without much in the way of vulgs. Older trees have a bold, beautiful red with moderate vulgs. Old trees have a deep, dark red with deep vulgs. In case you’re wondering, vulgs are the deep splits that are made in the bark as the tree grows.