Hi Matt, I have cutting American Elm and Red Elm into cookies for years. You can skip all of the waiting, sealing, and messing around by cutting down standing dead Elm. Many of these Elm trees died 20 to 30 years ago, so they have been drying slowly. Find Elms that are in a woods and haven't been exposed to the sun too much. Another reason Elm works so well is the wood grain. If you have ever tried to Split a Elm tree with a Maul, Im sure you have been discouraged by how difficult it is. They hold together well. I have sold over 20 thousand Elm cookies in the past ten years. Its the ONLY species that tends NOT to crack as a cookie. Check it out next time you find one standing dead in the woods. Slice it, then simply apply some water based Poly as a sealer. IT WILL HOLD!
You do a very nice job explaining things in your videos. Moisture in wood is found in two places - intracellular and extracellular. You can get the moisture out of the intracellular spaces, but can't effectively put it back in. You can get it back into the extracellular spaces. What the pentacryl is doing, I think, is replacing the intracellular moisture. However, it won't replace moisture that's no longer there - you can convert the dollars in your bank account into euros, but if there's no dollars, no euros. If the cookie has already started to dry out, pentacryl will be less effective. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) will have a similar effect. Anchor seal merely slows drying, which reduces drying stresses, so less cracking. If the amount of shrinkage in a species of wood is too different - tangential vs. radial - you're going to get crack no matter what. By keeping the cells plump (filling them with pentacryl), you're reducing the *relative* shrinkage, so less chance for cracking. Finally, the pentacryl in your cookies may be confounding your moisture meter. By absorbing the pentacryl, you've changed the physical properties of the wood, and the meter isn't really calibrated for that.
Good point about the moisture meter. If I had thought of it, I would have weighed them but they're all stacked again. At least by feel, they all felt about the same: stupid heavy.
You have this backwards, if I am understanding your terminology correctly. "You can get the moisture out of the intracellular spaces, but can't effectively put it back in. You can get it back into the extracellular spaces." - Carl G According to "Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley, 'free' water (extracellular-outside the cells) is water that will leave the wood and have no effect on shrinkage. 'Bound' water (intracellular- inside the cells) when lost will begin the shrinkage process of the wood. It CAN be reintroduced via the environment, which explains why wood moves with seasonal humidity changes; it is affecting the intracellular water content.
Fifty years ago I read an article in Popular Science magazine where they tried soaking green boards in PEG (Poly Ethylene Glycol). This product was in solid form, being of high molecular weight, and dissolved in water. The soak lasted many weeks and the final product was very stable without splits and cracks. Also this gave the wood an infusion of plastic that lent itself to a very nice colorless semi matte finish. Poly ethylene glycol is a major component of car antifreeze, experimenting with it would'nt be too expensive.
Great to meet you last saturday Matt - this was the video I was telling you about that I used to explain splitting and checking to my students. They found it very informative!
Videos like this are so interesting to me and I really appreciate the 11 month effort put into setting up for this. Thank you! I myself have so far simply allowed the "cookies" to dry the way they wanted to (cracking and all) and then decided what to do.
I have a couple of thoughts about drying cookies. One dry under compression using a band of steel around the edge exerting Force. The other cut the cookie into pie wedges allowing the parts to dry afterwards the parts are glued back together. And the last take a small kiddie pool put one or two cookies and submerged underwater allowing cookie to spend six to nine months underwater allowing the cookie to get acclimated to it new conditions.
I have a 14inch cookie 2inch thick madrone that I'm gonna experiment with. I sealed one end with tightbond II and am gonna wrap it with a pack of office rubber bands.
Good Job Matt ! Not all Specie aresuitable for Croosgrain or even bias cut slabs. Walnut, Butternut, Basswood and sometimes Cherry are easier to dry and more stable. Dead Winter cut logs with the sap all the way down helps too and regardless of the sealer, the best drying method is slow dry them in a kiln at an extremely slow pace. Lastly... there is a little thing called luck. Peace, Walter
I tried the pentacryl years ago on bowl blanks and didn't have much luck with it, and really didn't like how it changed the finish ! Too bad you don't have a microwave oven big enough to put them in, it works ! Thanks for sharing and take care. 👍
Matt, so grateful on your sharing this very thorough process. By the end of this video you've provided, I was absolutely clear on what to do with small AND large pieces. Love that you incorporated the almost year later of the wood drying in the same video. Extremely well done. Impressed with your skills not only in the wood management, but also in your presentation and skill in visual teaching. Thank you Aline Alexander Donnelly
man - you rock - your videos are the best - like how you share your knowledge and cut . this southern boy i use to watch would talk for hours . omg thank you for not being slow .
Matt for a guy pretty much doing this solo, you are a hero. Recently met April and awesome to see you plans going to action in only a 5 day build! I am a engineer and I don't say it often but very impressed with your build plans, etc. Next time in Texas, please check us out. Love to show you around and even have you out on a seriously big tree salvage job. We do the largest in Texas and some of the largest in the US. Fyi, when using anchor seal...my advice, advise folks to do 3x coats over a few hours. Submerging is ideal but not realistic.
Love that you did the research on the radial and tangential planes. BUT you missed a few things. There are wood species that shrink both radial and tangentially almost at the same rate. AND there are solutions to this....but the info can be found online or contact us.
This is fascinating! I had a tree fall during a storm. I had a company come out and cut it up into logs and slices. Yes, a chain saw. They are irregular but they are mine! I plan on making plant stands with rollers on them for heavy plants. Thank you for the education!
Great explanation of the cracking. Your content is so fun to watch. I look at tree service trucks in a different way now. Glad someone is putting some of those giant trees to use.
Hey Matt. I have some fresh 4 ft x 4 ft cookies that were cut today. I'm looking to eventually make epoxy tables out of the them. I can't figure out if I use pentacryl, anchorseal, or nothing. I'm using this video to decide, did you by chance make a follow-up video or do you have any suggestions? The pentacryl is so expensive for how large my projects are.
Thanks for sharing. Thought I was in for a big wait and was pleased and surprised that you had a year go by in the vid! Very interesting Thanks for the share.
I saw wood turners using drying silica to help increase the drying speed. The silica helps to dry the entire pice evenly. The entire pice of wood needs to be covered with the silica try it out if you can.
Great video. I have 3 oak cookies about 40" in diameter. I coated one in pentacryl, one in wood juice and one in several coates of polyurethane. After sitting over a year the one with the least amount of cracks in the polyurethane cookie followed closely by the pentacryl cookie and the worst by far is the wood juice cookie. I haven't checked moisture in a long time. My only complaint thus far with pentacryl is that it really darkened up the oak cookie but that may just be on the surface since I haven't attempted to plain/finish the cookie(s) yet.
Can pentracyl be used if I'm trying to use the wood for a cutting board? If not, what is best to use for wood that is intended for use as a cutting board?
@@samanthamason7 I have not done it however I was told by someone who does, that soaking the cookie in PEG 1000 is the way to go and that it is food safe.
@@mcremona Hi Matthew! Regarding this cookie cutting video from 2018... I'm wondering if you ever tried this trick for eliminating the cookie cracking that was told to me by an old timer. I haven't tried it myself, so I don't know, but it does sound plausible even though it also sounds too good to be true! The trick is to relieve the tangential tension in the outer rings by creating space for radial shrinkage by simply using a hole saw or large diameter bit to remove a small coin surrounding the pith center. Then paint the outer regions only with anchor seal to slow their drying slightly relative to the center rings. Use a heater or directed air flow to preferentially dry the inner pith side of the rings faster than the outside. As the hole closes up it is said to relieve the stress so the outer rings can contract gracefully. Then when it's ready for finishing, one can re-circularize the center coin hole with a hole saw and plug it with a dowel or other circle cut piece. Sounds too good to be true, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on it. I swear I am going to get around to trying it one of these days on huge multi-crotch piece of native American chestnut that I came by accidentally. Not sure how I am going to cut it though, as it is so big. But it is a rare one-of-a-kind piece I'd hate to screw up by my own ham-handedness and inexperience! ....By the way, I love your channel. You are the best and most interesting guy to watch!!
I like that those skinny little arms are picking up such large cumbersome weight. It shows you that with a sense of fulcrum and weight distribution you don’t have to have macho arms.
I feel like some of the motivation for this video came from Chris’ talk on wood movement at fine woodworking live this year :) I’ve done some cookie work for my brother’s wedding (centerpieces) and learned the hard way on the band saw. I ended up with using the chainsaw and creating a router sled to flatten them all afterwards. I didn’t use pentacryl though so thank you for doing some research on it for us all.
Hello Mett. Excellent work. You have a lot of patience. I have no reason to build a dryer in the kit for my saw. if you dry the wood in a vacuum chamber at minus one atmosphere and maintain a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. So your cookies will be ready in two weeks with the least cracks or without them at all. And this is already thermo wood. chao.
David Gagnon I made mine with free refrigerator boxes, duct tape, used vacuum pump from a hospital hyperbaric chamber rebuild, an altimeter, an old microwave, and three gallons of epoxy. It has worked great for three years now. (Not really)
hello David. see the comment from Matt. you could ask that. if briefly, so that at normal atmospheric pressure you have a boiling water in the kettle and become corrupted you need to raise its temperature to 100 degrees Celsius. and so the same thing happens in the wood, place it in a vacuum chamber and heat to 45 gr. and the water in your kettle will also be stored.
+Сергей G, writes _"in a vacuum chamber at minus one atmosphere"_ I hope you meant to say at 0 atmospheres, or did you discover a new model of physics?
Hello Fred. There may be inaccuracies due to different measurement systems. We have centimeters and millimeters in you inches. And still all this translates by Google. The vacuum manometer (vacuometer) at normal atmospheric pressure shows 0. After evacuating the air from the tank on the scale - 1 .For the drying of the tree, see here-https: //th-cam.com/channels/k6U3dn5NdOB7-p2C1zpNoQ.html
I watch your videos and the word tenacity pops in my head and so I look it up. Yep, it fits. There are more words and I will get to them as time goes on.
WONDERFUL! As always thank you so much for this informative video. I have only just begun processing my own wood and its good to see not only where I have already screwed up but where I can be sure I am going to do so in the future. :)
Quite a few years back I was researching how to keep cookies from cracking. Back then the information was incredibly sparse. Nowadays, the internet is FULL of seal this, use this chemical etc. But back then I found ONE article or maybe it was a video and it has disappeared since then. In that information was the idea to cut the log on an angle, maybe 15-45%, making it more an oval shape and the idea was to have the rings cut so they no longer had to shrink so much tangentially. So, I tried it. MOST of the cookies I cut before I found that info were pretty small and they all cracked terribly. Parts even fell off of them. After I used that info, the cracking was minimal. I was cutting red cedar/juniper. My cookies came out very well despite having no sealer on them. I still have a box of them with barely any cracks and no checking. I don't think they were real green though.
Your mill is a Beast ! Can't wait to see what you make from those cookie cuts ! Think your doing all possible to prevent chk.s /splits that is all the possible in a whole log cut across that will dry at different as all levels of growth are involved
Thanks for giving us a lot of information. That is a lot to take in for sure. I don’t mean to sound silly or anything but son you are very talented young man and have so much going for you. I enjoy your videos and try to learn something on every one of them. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Blessings to you and your family.
would it help to put anchor seal around the diameter of the cookie, but leave the core unsealed? Then the inside could dry faster, while the edges dry a little slower? My guess, is once you reach equilibrium, you will end up in the same spot regardless, but it is just a thought. Very cool long term experiment. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge gained!!!
I cut some ~12-20 by 3 inch rounds to make rustic log cutting boards… it was a digger pine tree… I dried them overnight on my wood stove top, flipping regularly. Next day they were down to about 15-20%’on my moisture meter, then I immediately submerged them in mineral oil for an overnight soak. Then I applied 3 coats of watch butcher block oil to each round on both sides. Been about 4 months now, no cracking no warping no blemishing… my theory is ya can’t dry em completely, if you want nice rounds that last, ya gotta dry em most of the way then fill it back up with “not water” then seal everything in…
I have a 14inch cookie 2inch thick madrone that I'm gonna experiment with. I sealed one end with tightbond II and am gonna wrap it with a pack of office rubber bands.
for the pentacryl, could you make a temp kiddie pool? lay down a 5x5 sheet of plywood, ring it with bricks to the outline of the cookie, line that with plastic, and you have a pool to submerge in. maybe debark them (to maximize usage of the pentacryl), use very shallow stickers, and do several cookies at once by adding more layers of bricks to the outline. sorta like marinading in a bag.
With at least one data point...if you coat them with a coat urethane after cutting and bring them into conditioned space to dry(rather than the shed) you will have a better outcome. The temp flux in the shed is too much.
I saw somewhere some small logs that were used decoratively, and to keep them from splitting, they had been "notched" longitudinally. i.e., a "manufactured," controlled, split was created to allow and absorb the shrinkage. I think likewise you might be able to make a radial cut from edge to center of your cookies and prevent some of the cracking. Obviously, if it's the round shape you're after, that's not a solution, but if it's going to get cut up for wood, it might maximize the usable quantity.
OK, It's a year later, are those cookies out of the oven yet? I have done one or two many years ago and we did not know of Pentacril or even Anchorseal. We cut a slice from the bark to the pith and this relieved some of the stress and a year later it looked like someone had removed a thin slice of the pie. We had extra cookies from the same log. I cut slices from the extra piece and used them to fill the crack. If you were really careful you could line up the grain and it was not very visible. Come to think of it, we did not have Epoxy either. I'm glad somebody invented that stuff, I was about to do it myself.
Hey Matt, Great video! I'm no logger, but I am retired from heavy construction, and I could not help but think of a job we did that we had the problems your having with cracking. Maybe my idea has already been tried, and maybe no one thought of it yet. The 'Pentacryl' product you explained is intended to replace the moisture lost when cutting to prevent cracking. and you said the products information said to 'submerge it in the product, but it's expense made that not cost effective to have a swimming pool of it lying around. (well, maybe to the PENTACRYL Company it would be cost effective..LOL) So Matt have you ever heard of 'Glovebagging' under vacuum'? just think of one of those 'food saver' machines that vacuum seals or marinates food. but on a scale you need. Get some 6 mil poly, duct tape and spray glue (3M spray 77) and a shop vac . it would take much less product and vacuum infuse it into your cookie. That's pretty much my thought. You are obviously smart enough to figure out how to make an airtight bag around your cookie, and attach a vacuum to the corner after applying the Pentacryl, and seal. I don't know if this was a help, and I'm not much of a typist. Good luck, and I really enjoy watching your video's. Especially when you throw the water on the slab...Beautiful! Peace..Tommy in Minnesota
Hi, I recently acquired 3 logs of wood, i was intending to use them two of them as stools/plant stand; and one is a uneven shaped cookie I intend to use it as a decorative platter. I live in India and currently its summer, a good 37 deg celsius outside, I have put them to dry for the past two days, as their bark was shredding. Can u please answer few of my doubts: Should I keep them outside, in a place where there is a good 6 hr direct sun, as they were wet and heavy from the cyclone (the trees were uprooted)? Do u think i will be able to keep the bark on it, or will it shed off on its own. If at all I bring them inside should I treat them with something to slow down the process. Also, will the cracks in these logs & cookie disintegrate them to the level of breaking? As far as I know, the cracks in woods are detrimental for lumbers (timbers) . Please answer.
I'm still new on milling my own logs, but since I started using Pentacryl, my wood hasn't checked or curled. Just a light coating on the ends is all I did with a foam brush. Used on Walnut so far
Thanks for the info. A friend just cut a walnut tree down and cut a slab. I told him to paint both sides to slow down the drying, but I'm wondering if that was a mistake. I also thought it would be interesting to see if you lined up your cookies the way they came off the log and see if the cracks correspond.
Questions; 1-Why can't you submerge the cookies in a bath of boiled linseed oil held at 60ºC, until all the water evaporates, and is replaced by the oil? Then sand and use. No need for a finish either. Should be a lot cheaper and safer when off-gassing. 2- What do you do with all the sawdust? Can you use a hydraulic press and a cylindrical steel mold and press them into fire logs? Your videos well edited, are very interesting. I enjoy every one of them.
good teaching Matt. I have made some cookies from logs. I dont use anything. I just store them in a dry place and hope for the best. Some split and some dont. I find it doesn't matter if its soft wood or hard wood.
Do you notice a difference when you use woods with finer annual rings? The latewood (darker) part of the ring is denser, and the early wood part is less dense with more open cell space (water filled). I am fairly certain that a cookie from a rapidly grown tree with wide annual rings is significantly more prone to cracking.
Have you ever thought about maybe drilling like a 2" hole right where the pith is, and then putting a 2" plug to replace the pith? You could use similar wood, or contrasting wood. Just a thought. Cheers from Tokyo
It's been one year... hint hint! Really curious to hear what's happened with these. I have two 30" cherry sections to cut into cookies soon. By the way, your videos have been very helpful with my new hobby. Thank you!
For your Pentacryl immersion problem, glue/seal a foil or rubber border around your cookie, such that you can cover the cookie with 1/8 to 1/4 inch of Pentacryl. Since it wicks through, immersing just one side should be sufficient.
I wonder if some cutting on the backside would add some relief or control the cracking. Maybe an experiment with a series of radial shallow cuts of various depths. I could also imagine creating weaker wood with cuts that encourage the cracking at in specific directions/patterns. Maybe cut a piece thicker than normal and CNC a pattern or design as relief and see if the cracks react to the differently. I wonder too if a compression band around the diameter like a wagon wheel would deny the horizontal expansion and force the moisture out the faces.
Two more notes: - I forgot to mention that if drying wood in a humid area, or wood that has a high moisture content to start with, you can spray the surface with Lysol or another fungicide to prevent mold growth. If mold does grow, it is typically only on the surface and can be sanded off once the wood is dry. - Regarding the cracking you saw in the center of the wood, those are natural defects sometimes called "star checks", or "wind shake" and typically occur in trees that have endured stress from high winds or extreme frost while growing. They can also be caused when large trees are felled.
Have you ever heard of PEG sold by Rockler? It seems that it does an incredible job of completely preserving wood that is at around 30% mc after cutting. For the larger cookies you cut, it would be multiple weeks soaking in the solution, but everything I have read points to it doing an even better job than the pentacryl. Thank you so much for doing this video- its great to be able to see how these products work on both large and small cookies. Love your videos, keep them coming! Cheers
Great video Matt. After watching this, I am really wondering if for some wood types and cookie sizes it simply isn't (theoretically) possible to dry without cracking. Maybe you just need to embrace the crack...
Hey Matt, you might want to bring your sawmill to Kansas kinna soon. About 60 very old trees are coming down. Hackberry, American Elm and Sycamore maybe Maple. Salina, KS.
Crap, I thought this was a baking video. Good information Matt, that was a particularly good explanation of the way wood dries and why uneven stresses develop. Now I'm hungry, I'm off to buy some cookies.
I know the end result wouldn't be a vertical cookie, but I read somewhere that cutting the cookie at a slightly skewed angle might help reduce some of the checking. Think it would be worth trying in the next round of tests?
You should try sandblasting those cookies instead of using the belt or orbital sander. If you do a coarse one first it almost scoops out the grain between the rings a little bit and you get a really cool effect.
Try simple PVA. Also check in your store for the price of the cheapest vinyl paint. If the paint is cheaper than PVA, then use that. I've had very similar results to you with paint, for a very small outlay. Good video by the way!
plastic swimming pools with a second as a lid work well. A high sugar solution(cheap) soaked in or polyethylene glycol (PEG) 5000 works well but expensive ( you keep adding either one until it doesn't absorb any more.) The solution becomes less concentrated as the material passes into the cells. Soak for many weeks then dry slowly away from heat, old adage 1in. per year to dry. Anchor seal has the fun of leaving a wax content for finishing thrills. both the sugar and PEG do not discolor the wood and still allow for finishing.
Fascinating! What is the end product of timber cookies? Very large trays, table tops...? I do appreciate how you explain everything so thoroughly too. Thanx.
@@mcremona I read through all your video titles since this one was posted... None said "cookie". Is the finale bundled in with one of the generic updates?
Hi Matt,
I have cutting American Elm and Red Elm into cookies for years. You can skip all of the waiting, sealing, and messing around by cutting down standing dead Elm. Many of these Elm trees died 20 to 30 years ago, so they have been drying slowly. Find Elms that are in a woods and haven't been exposed to the sun too much. Another reason Elm works so well is the wood grain. If you have ever tried to Split a Elm tree with a Maul, Im sure you have been discouraged by how difficult it is. They hold together well.
I have sold over 20 thousand Elm cookies in the past ten years. Its the ONLY species that tends NOT to crack as a cookie. Check it out next time you find one standing dead in the woods. Slice it, then simply apply some water based Poly as a sealer. IT WILL HOLD!
I appreciate the long term of this test. Kudos on going the distance with your planning!
Very well done Matt and thanks for not having us wait a year to see how the cookies dried.
You do a very nice job explaining things in your videos.
Moisture in wood is found in two places - intracellular and extracellular. You can get the moisture out of the intracellular spaces, but can't effectively put it back in. You can get it back into the extracellular spaces.
What the pentacryl is doing, I think, is replacing the intracellular moisture. However, it won't replace moisture that's no longer there - you can convert the dollars in your bank account into euros, but if there's no dollars, no euros. If the cookie has already started to dry out, pentacryl will be less effective. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) will have a similar effect.
Anchor seal merely slows drying, which reduces drying stresses, so less cracking.
If the amount of shrinkage in a species of wood is too different - tangential vs. radial - you're going to get crack no matter what. By keeping the cells plump (filling them with pentacryl), you're reducing the *relative* shrinkage, so less chance for cracking.
Finally, the pentacryl in your cookies may be confounding your moisture meter. By absorbing the pentacryl, you've changed the physical properties of the wood, and the meter isn't really calibrated for that.
Good point about the moisture meter. If I had thought of it, I would have weighed them but they're all stacked again. At least by feel, they all felt about the same: stupid heavy.
You replaced at least some of the water in the wood with the pentacryl, so the weight isn't going to change much.
You have this backwards, if I am understanding your terminology correctly.
"You can get the moisture out of the intracellular spaces, but can't effectively put it back in. You can get it back into the extracellular spaces." - Carl G
According to "Understanding Wood" by R. Bruce Hoadley, 'free' water (extracellular-outside the cells) is water that will leave the wood and have no effect on shrinkage. 'Bound' water (intracellular- inside the cells) when lost will begin the shrinkage process of the wood. It CAN be reintroduced via the environment, which explains why wood moves with seasonal humidity changes; it is affecting the intracellular water content.
Fifty years ago I read an article in Popular Science magazine where they tried soaking green boards in PEG (Poly Ethylene Glycol). This product was in solid form, being of high molecular weight, and dissolved in water. The soak lasted many weeks and the final product was very stable without splits and cracks. Also this gave the wood an infusion of plastic that lent itself to a very nice colorless semi matte finish. Poly ethylene glycol is a major component of car antifreeze, experimenting with it would'nt be too expensive.
Great to meet you last saturday Matt - this was the video I was telling you about that I used to explain splitting and checking to my students. They found it very informative!
Great meeting you guy last week as well!
Videos like this are so interesting to me and I really appreciate the 11 month effort put into setting up for this. Thank you! I myself have so far simply allowed the "cookies" to dry the way they wanted to (cracking and all) and then decided what to do.
I'm with you on that. That's more my style. Thanks!!
I’m always amazed at your band saw mill.
I have a couple of thoughts about drying cookies. One dry under compression using a band of steel around the edge exerting Force. The other cut the cookie into pie wedges allowing the parts to dry afterwards the parts are glued back together. And the last take a small kiddie pool put one or two cookies and submerged underwater allowing cookie to spend six to nine months underwater allowing the cookie to get acclimated to it new conditions.
I have a 14inch cookie 2inch thick madrone that I'm gonna experiment with. I sealed one end with tightbond II and am gonna wrap it with a pack of office rubber bands.
I love watching you work. I wish my husband had a mill in our yard. There's nothing better than the smell of fresh cut wood and a man working hard.
Buy him one for Christmas LOL
Thanks for all the work involved to show us your testing results. Very informative.
I have a sudden thirst for milk.
🥛
How did the cookies turn out so many years later?
Thanks for doing these tests!
Good Job Matt ! Not all Specie aresuitable for Croosgrain or even bias cut slabs. Walnut, Butternut, Basswood and sometimes Cherry are easier to dry and more stable. Dead Winter cut logs with the sap all the way down helps too and regardless of the sealer, the best drying method is slow dry them in a kiln at an extremely slow pace. Lastly... there is a little thing called luck.
Peace, Walter
Thanks Matt. Very good presentation. The extra effort with the labels etc really are appreciated.
Thank you!
I tried the pentacryl years ago on bowl blanks and didn't have much luck with it, and really didn't like how it changed the finish !
Too bad you don't have a microwave oven big enough to put them in, it works !
Thanks for sharing and take care. 👍
Matt, so grateful on your sharing this very thorough process. By the end of this video you've provided, I was absolutely clear on what to do with small AND large pieces. Love that you incorporated the almost year later of the wood drying in the same video.
Extremely well done. Impressed with your skills not only in the wood management, but also in your presentation and skill in visual teaching.
Thank you
Aline Alexander Donnelly
man - you rock - your videos are the best - like how you share your knowledge and cut . this southern boy i use to watch would talk for hours . omg thank you for not being slow .
Matt for a guy pretty much doing this solo, you are a hero. Recently met April and awesome to see you plans going to action in only a 5 day build! I am a engineer and I don't say it often but very impressed with your build plans, etc. Next time in Texas, please check us out. Love to show you around and even have you out on a seriously big tree salvage job. We do the largest in Texas and some of the largest in the US. Fyi, when using anchor seal...my advice, advise folks to do 3x coats over a few hours. Submerging is ideal but not realistic.
Love that you did the research on the radial and tangential planes. BUT you missed a few things. There are wood species that shrink both radial and tangentially almost at the same rate. AND there are solutions to this....but the info can be found online or contact us.
This is fascinating! I had a tree fall during a storm. I had a company come out and cut it up into logs and slices. Yes, a chain saw. They are irregular but they are mine! I plan on making plant stands with rollers on them for heavy plants. Thank you for the education!
Great explanation of the cracking. Your content is so fun to watch. I look at tree service trucks in a different way now. Glad someone is putting some of those giant trees to use.
I felt like I was back in school with all of the information you were dropping. Thanks!
dropping those knowledge bombs!
Hey Matt. I have some fresh 4 ft x 4 ft cookies that were cut today. I'm looking to eventually make epoxy tables out of the them. I can't figure out if I use pentacryl, anchorseal, or nothing.
I'm using this video to decide, did you by chance make a follow-up video or do you have any suggestions? The pentacryl is so expensive for how large my projects are.
Matt Creeeeermona, you are the best. Thanks. Always a pleasure to watch your videos.
thanks!
Thanks for sharing. Thought I was in for a big wait and was pleased and surprised that you had a year go by in the vid! Very interesting Thanks for the share.
I saw wood turners using drying silica to help increase the drying speed. The silica helps to dry the entire pice evenly. The entire pice of wood needs to be covered with the silica try it out if you can.
Great video. I have 3 oak cookies about 40" in diameter. I coated one in pentacryl, one in wood juice and one in several coates of polyurethane. After sitting over a year the one with the least amount of cracks in the polyurethane cookie followed closely by the pentacryl cookie and the worst by far is the wood juice cookie. I haven't checked moisture in a long time. My only complaint thus far with pentacryl is that it really darkened up the oak cookie but that may just be on the surface since I haven't attempted to plain/finish the cookie(s) yet.
Can pentracyl be used if I'm trying to use the wood for a cutting board? If not, what is best to use for wood that is intended for use as a cutting board?
@@samanthamason7 I have not done it however I was told by someone who does, that soaking the cookie in PEG 1000 is the way to go and that it is food safe.
That was one nice freestyle cut with the chainsaw!
thanks!
@@mcremona Hi Matthew! Regarding this cookie cutting video from 2018... I'm wondering if you ever tried this trick for eliminating the cookie cracking that was told to me by an old timer. I haven't tried it myself, so I don't know, but it does sound plausible even though it also sounds too good to be true! The trick is to relieve the tangential tension in the outer rings by creating space for radial shrinkage by simply using a hole saw or large diameter bit to remove a small coin surrounding the pith center. Then paint the outer regions only with anchor seal to slow their drying slightly relative to the center rings. Use a heater or directed air flow to preferentially dry the inner pith side of the rings faster than the outside. As the hole closes up it is said to relieve the stress so the outer rings can contract gracefully. Then when it's ready for finishing, one can re-circularize the center coin hole with a hole saw and plug it with a dowel or other circle cut piece. Sounds too good to be true, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on it. I swear I am going to get around to trying it one of these days on huge multi-crotch piece of native American chestnut that I came by accidentally. Not sure how I am going to cut it though, as it is so big. But it is a rare one-of-a-kind piece I'd hate to screw up by my own ham-handedness and inexperience! ....By the way, I love your channel. You are the best and most interesting guy to watch!!
Thanks for doing these tests Matt! I am wondering if you have a follow-up video or results that you can share with us on how the cookies turned out?
If you really want to mess up a wood disc, watch my video from last summer: How to Make Expensive Firewood th-cam.com/video/3VH_eFIGt2w/w-d-xo.html
Easily my favorite video of yours
Matthew Cremona Thats not a good thing.
🤣
A very good and informative video. Especially because you did a first review in the same video. You explained the reason for the cracks very good.
Have you ever thought of a gantry crane over the saw?
Your back would thank you when you get older.
I like that those skinny little arms are picking up such large cumbersome weight. It shows you that with a sense of fulcrum and weight distribution you don’t have to have macho arms.
I feel like some of the motivation for this video came from Chris’ talk on wood movement at fine woodworking live this year :) I’ve done some cookie work for my brother’s wedding (centerpieces) and learned the hard way on the band saw. I ended up with using the chainsaw and creating a router sled to flatten them all afterwards. I didn’t use pentacryl though so thank you for doing some research on it for us all.
Hahahaha well that did motivate me to finally finish this video up :)
Frig brilliant, a lot of work and time spent on your behalf and I learnt so much in less then an hour!
excellent!
I was ready to wait 11 months...props to you Matt.
Great explanation of the tangential and radial planes causing cracking
This is the best video for cookie drying research. All the other videos are kind of vague.
I have used ratchets straps on logs and cookies to slow down the cracking and I have had good luck that way
Ken F I was thinking the same thing. You’d have to stay on top of them and adjust them as they dry.
Awesome video Matt! Teaching me some abc's and a dash of science!
Hello Mett. Excellent work. You have a lot of patience. I have no reason to build a dryer in the kit for my saw. if you dry the wood in a vacuum chamber at minus one atmosphere and maintain a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. So your cookies will be ready in two weeks with the least cracks or without them at all. And this is already thermo wood. chao.
So....just how much does a climate-controlled vacuum chamber cost these days?
David Gagnon I made mine with free refrigerator boxes, duct tape, used vacuum pump from a hospital hyperbaric chamber rebuild, an altimeter, an old microwave, and three gallons of epoxy. It has worked great for three years now.
(Not really)
hello David. see the comment from Matt. you could ask that. if briefly, so that at normal atmospheric pressure you have a boiling water in the kettle and become corrupted you need to raise its temperature to 100 degrees Celsius. and so the same thing happens in the wood, place it in a vacuum chamber and heat to 45 gr. and the water in your kettle will also be stored.
+Сергей G, writes _"in a vacuum chamber at minus one atmosphere"_
I hope you meant to say at 0 atmospheres, or did you discover a new model of physics?
Hello Fred. There may be inaccuracies due to different measurement systems. We have centimeters and millimeters in you inches. And still all this translates by Google. The vacuum manometer (vacuometer) at normal atmospheric pressure shows 0. After evacuating the air from the tank on the scale - 1 .For the drying of the tree, see here-https: //th-cam.com/channels/k6U3dn5NdOB7-p2C1zpNoQ.html
Thankyou for your sharing your wisdom & knowledge, your time also is greatly appreciated.
Enjoyed the Matt. It was very informative. Thanks for taking the time to produce the video. Y'all take care and God bless.
Thanks!
I watch your videos and the word tenacity pops in my head and so I look it up. Yep, it fits. There are more words and I will get to them as time goes on.
Matthew, every one of your videos is top notch.
Thank you!
WONDERFUL!
As always thank you so much for this informative video. I have only just begun processing my own wood and its good to see not only where I have already screwed up but where I can be sure I am going to do so in the future. :)
Quite a few years back I was researching how to keep cookies from cracking. Back then the information was incredibly sparse. Nowadays, the internet is FULL of seal this, use this chemical etc. But back then I found ONE article or maybe it was a video and it has disappeared since then. In that information was the idea to cut the log on an angle, maybe 15-45%, making it more an oval shape and the idea was to have the rings cut so they no longer had to shrink so much tangentially. So, I tried it. MOST of the cookies I cut before I found that info were pretty small and they all cracked terribly. Parts even fell off of them. After I used that info, the cracking was minimal. I was cutting red cedar/juniper. My cookies came out very well despite having no sealer on them. I still have a box of them with barely any cracks and no checking. I don't think they were real green though.
Your mill is a Beast ! Can't wait to see what you make from those cookie cuts ! Think your doing all possible to prevent chk.s /splits that is all the possible in a whole log cut across that will dry at different as all levels of growth are involved
"I just fill the cracks with epoxy and move on with my life." Brilliant. Words to live by!
Thanks for giving us a lot of information. That is a lot to take in for sure. I don’t mean to sound silly or anything but son you are very talented young man and have so much going for you. I enjoy your videos and try to learn something on every one of them. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise. Blessings to you and your family.
Thank you so much, Becky!
Dude, thank you for following up. So many times people start down a path like this and you never see the finish. Thanks eh.
would it help to put anchor seal around the diameter of the cookie, but leave the core unsealed? Then the inside could dry faster, while the edges dry a little slower? My guess, is once you reach equilibrium, you will end up in the same spot regardless, but it is just a thought. Very cool long term experiment. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge gained!!!
I cut some ~12-20 by 3 inch rounds to make rustic log cutting boards… it was a digger pine tree… I dried them overnight on my wood stove top, flipping regularly. Next day they were down to about 15-20%’on my moisture meter, then I immediately submerged them in mineral oil for an overnight soak. Then I applied 3 coats of watch butcher block oil to each round on both sides. Been about 4 months now, no cracking no warping no blemishing… my theory is ya can’t dry em completely, if you want nice rounds that last, ya gotta dry em most of the way then fill it back up with “not water” then seal everything in…
Appreciate your hardwork Matt !
Thumbs up for the 11 month follow up!!!!
You can also try to pull a strap around the cookies during the drying process.
I have a 14inch cookie 2inch thick madrone that I'm gonna experiment with. I sealed one end with tightbond II and am gonna wrap it with a pack of office rubber bands.
for the pentacryl, could you make a temp kiddie pool? lay down a 5x5 sheet of plywood, ring it with bricks to the outline of the cookie, line that with plastic, and you have a pool to submerge in. maybe debark them (to maximize usage of the pentacryl), use very shallow stickers, and do several cookies at once by adding more layers of bricks to the outline. sorta like marinading in a bag.
With at least one data point...if you coat them with a coat urethane after cutting and bring them into conditioned space to dry(rather than the shed) you will have a better outcome. The temp flux in the shed is too much.
I saw somewhere some small logs that were used decoratively, and to keep them from splitting, they had been "notched" longitudinally. i.e., a "manufactured," controlled, split was created to allow and absorb the shrinkage. I think likewise you might be able to make a radial cut from edge to center of your cookies and prevent some of the cracking. Obviously, if it's the round shape you're after, that's not a solution, but if it's going to get cut up for wood, it might maximize the usable quantity.
OK, It's a year later, are those cookies out of the oven yet? I have done one or two many years ago and we did not know of Pentacril or even Anchorseal. We cut a slice from the bark to the pith and this relieved some of the stress and a year later it looked like someone had removed a thin slice of the pie. We had extra cookies from the same log. I cut slices from the extra piece and used them to fill the crack. If you were really careful you could line up the grain and it was not very visible. Come to think of it, we did not have Epoxy either. I'm glad somebody invented that stuff, I was about to do it myself.
Hey Matt, Great video! I'm no logger, but I am retired from heavy construction, and I could not help but think of a job we did that we had the problems your having with cracking. Maybe my idea has already been tried, and maybe no one thought of it yet. The 'Pentacryl' product you explained is intended to replace the moisture lost when cutting to prevent cracking. and you said the products information said to 'submerge it in the product, but it's expense made that not cost effective to have a swimming pool of it lying around. (well, maybe to the PENTACRYL Company it would be cost effective..LOL) So Matt have you ever heard of 'Glovebagging' under vacuum'? just think of one of those 'food saver' machines that vacuum seals or marinates food. but on a scale you need. Get some 6 mil poly, duct tape and spray glue (3M spray 77) and a shop vac . it would take much less product and vacuum infuse it into your cookie. That's pretty much my thought. You are obviously smart enough to figure out how to make an airtight bag around your cookie, and attach a vacuum to the corner after applying the Pentacryl, and seal. I don't know if this was a help, and I'm not much of a typist. Good luck, and I really enjoy watching your video's. Especially when you throw the water on the slab...Beautiful! Peace..Tommy in Minnesota
Hi, I recently acquired 3 logs of wood, i was intending to use them two of them as stools/plant stand; and one is a uneven shaped cookie I intend to use it as a decorative platter. I live in India and currently its summer, a good 37 deg celsius outside, I have put them to dry for the past two days, as their bark was shredding. Can u please answer few of my doubts:
Should I keep them outside, in a place where there is a good 6 hr direct sun, as they were wet and heavy from the cyclone (the trees were uprooted)? Do u think i will be able to keep the bark on it, or will it shed off on its own. If at all I bring them inside should I treat them with something to slow down the process. Also, will the cracks in these logs & cookie disintegrate them to the level of breaking? As far as I know, the cracks in woods are detrimental for lumbers (timbers) . Please answer.
I'm still new on milling my own logs, but since I started using Pentacryl, my wood hasn't checked or curled. Just a light coating on the ends is all I did with a foam brush. Used on Walnut so far
Ty for the Great video. Very interesting science going on in a dead tree. I appreciate the knowledge that I gained by watching this video.
Thanks for the info. A friend just cut a walnut tree down and cut a slab. I told him to paint both sides to slow down the drying, but I'm wondering if that was a mistake. I also thought it would be interesting to see if you lined up your cookies the way they came off the log and see if the cracks correspond.
Questions;
1-Why can't you submerge the cookies in a bath of boiled linseed oil held at 60ºC, until all the water evaporates, and is replaced by the oil? Then sand and use. No need for a finish either. Should be a lot cheaper and safer when off-gassing.
2- What do you do with all the sawdust? Can you use a hydraulic press and a cylindrical steel mold and press them into fire logs?
Your videos well edited, are very interesting. I enjoy every one of them.
good teaching Matt. I have made some cookies from logs. I dont use anything. I just store them in a dry place and hope for the best. Some split and some dont. I find it doesn't matter if its soft wood or hard wood.
The biggest factor is luck :)
Do you notice a difference when you use woods with finer annual rings? The latewood (darker) part of the ring is denser, and the early wood part is less dense with more open cell space (water filled). I am fairly certain that a cookie from a rapidly grown tree with wide annual rings is significantly more prone to cracking.
Have you ever thought about maybe drilling like a 2" hole right where the pith is, and then putting a 2" plug to replace the pith?
You could use similar wood, or contrasting wood.
Just a thought.
Cheers from Tokyo
It's been one year... hint hint! Really curious to hear what's happened with these. I have two 30" cherry sections to cut into cookies soon. By the way, your videos have been very helpful with my new hobby. Thank you!
For your Pentacryl immersion problem, glue/seal a foil or rubber border around your cookie, such that you can cover the cookie with 1/8 to 1/4 inch of Pentacryl. Since it wicks through, immersing just one side should be sufficient.
I wonder if some cutting on the backside would add some relief or control the cracking. Maybe an experiment with a series of radial shallow cuts of various depths. I could also imagine creating weaker wood with cuts that encourage the cracking at in specific directions/patterns. Maybe cut a piece thicker than normal and CNC a pattern or design as relief and see if the cracks react to the differently. I wonder too if a compression band around the diameter like a wagon wheel would deny the horizontal expansion and force the moisture out the faces.
Two more notes:
- I forgot to mention that if drying wood in a humid area, or wood that has a high moisture content to start with, you can spray the surface with Lysol or another fungicide to prevent mold growth. If mold does grow, it is typically only on the surface and can be sanded off once the wood is dry.
- Regarding the cracking you saw in the center of the wood, those are natural defects sometimes called "star checks", or "wind shake" and typically occur in trees that have endured stress from high winds or extreme frost while growing. They can also be caused when large trees are felled.
Thanks Matt. Very informative.
Great video! Very informative and you did a great job explaining everything!! I'll be looking for more of your videos.
You got some great cutting board there, just round them up and put a brass ring around them
FYI you can use polyethylene glycol to do the same job as the pentacryl, it'll replace the water and solidify and keep the wood from shrinking.
Those cracks look great for rustic stuff
Have you ever heard of PEG sold by Rockler? It seems that it does an incredible job of completely preserving wood that is at around 30% mc after cutting. For the larger cookies you cut, it would be multiple weeks soaking in the solution, but everything I have read points to it doing an even better job than the pentacryl. Thank you so much for doing this video- its great to be able to see how these products work on both large and small cookies. Love your videos, keep them coming! Cheers
I've heard of it. Had more people asking about pentacryl a year ago so that's what I bought to test. I might cut more of these in the future. Thanks!
That makes sense haha! Also, I love that you end each of your videos laughing. Its excellent.
Great video Matt. After watching this, I am really wondering if for some wood types and cookie sizes it simply isn't (theoretically) possible to dry without cracking. Maybe you just need to embrace the crack...
OneVeryOrdinaryMan
You know I dated a girl that mentioned that once ! 😊
Great job Matt!
Hi Matt very explanatory and interesting video, would submerging them in linseed oil do the same as the penticril ?
I have the same question. I'm trying to make a cutting board.
In Germany blocks of wood are stored in vats of water for a decade or two there is little cracking. Those are used to build homes.
Hey Matt, you might want to bring your sawmill to Kansas kinna soon. About 60 very old trees are coming down. Hackberry, American Elm and Sycamore maybe Maple. Salina, KS.
Cool video; lots of good info. Also, "One year (or 11 months, anyway) in the making!!"
thanks!
Crap, I thought this was a baking video. Good information Matt, that was a particularly good explanation of the way wood dries and why uneven stresses develop. Now I'm hungry, I'm off to buy some cookies.
I know the end result wouldn't be a vertical cookie, but I read somewhere that cutting the cookie at a slightly skewed angle might help reduce some of the checking. Think it would be worth trying in the next round of tests?
Fantastic experiment and great tips! Much appreciated.
You should try sandblasting those cookies instead of using the belt or orbital sander. If you do a coarse one first it almost scoops out the grain between the rings a little bit and you get a really cool effect.
I really enjoy seeing the sawmill in operation, nice job!
....13
Thanks!
A bandsaw blunders video would be funny . If you have any of course. I sure have
Depends what you consider blunders 😄
great video, loved the part where you explained why cracking happens, thanks!!
Thanks!
Me too!
You are the wood god,,!!!
I found that explanation very helpful and interesting, too. Thanks Matt
I was a little disappointed it wasn't Matt baking cookies somehow using his bandsaw
Try simple PVA. Also check in your store for the price of the cheapest vinyl paint. If the paint is cheaper than PVA, then use that. I've had very similar results to you with paint, for a very small outlay. Good video by the way!
Them's some big cookies! Thanks for the tip. :)
There is a way to dry the wood slices so that no cracks are made, it is called lyophilisation drying.
plastic swimming pools with a second as a lid work well. A high sugar solution(cheap) soaked in or polyethylene glycol (PEG) 5000 works well but expensive ( you keep adding either one until it doesn't absorb any more.) The solution becomes less concentrated as the material passes into the cells. Soak for many weeks then dry slowly away from heat, old adage 1in. per year to dry.
Anchor seal has the fun of leaving a wax content for finishing thrills.
both the sugar and PEG do not discolor the wood and still allow for finishing.
Good video!! I appreciate that you use proper ppe when running a chainsaw.
What an awesome video with easy to understand information !! Thanks !!
thanks!
Fascinating! What is the end product of timber cookies? Very large trays, table tops...? I do appreciate how you explain everything so thoroughly too. Thanx.
Use a kids pool, to soak them, the plastic ones that are are 1' high, you could probably soak more than one to make it worth it. Just a thought.
Awesome test. Thank you for waiting a year to put out the full test. Is there alredy a followup ?
I'll do one this spring once it warms up a bit. That'll be 2 years
@@mcremona I read through all your video titles since this one was posted... None said "cookie". Is the finale bundled in with one of the generic updates?
I like your style man, carry on mate!