custard":1taapegv said:Consequently the accepted drying practise for best quality Sycamore is something called "end rearing", you lean it up against a wall, with the bottom kept up off the ground on a brick or a piece of slate.
swb58":290tbmfq said:All of it can be used, just depends on what your aiming to make and the size will dictate what you can make.
First job though is to cut it up in a manner that will keep splitting to a minimum as it dries especially on the big stuff, if you leave it as is the ends will soon be a mass of splits from the outside towards the centre. I hope that my picture appears somewhere here, it's a disc about 10" diameter that I cut off the end of a trunk, I ran the chainsaw down to the centre and left it as an experiment. The chainsaw kerf was parallel at the time so you can see how much it has moved during drying. You don't want to cut it that way with a view to turning a bowl.
I'd cut it into lengths (the same length as the diameter plus a bit) and then split/saw them down the centre to make two rough bowl blanks. Seal the ends if you like and put them somewhere that they're not going to dry too quickly.
You're probably itching to make something straight away, if so roughly turn and leave to dry, it's going to move a lot.
HTH.
Sycamore doesn't spalt as in the way beech and elm does. It goes a horrible grey colour and has grey flecks through out the board.phil.p":2c6v22rs said:Coat the ends quickly, it doesn't much matter with what - old paint, varnish, any wax, pva.
If you have loads, you could leave some somewhere to spalt - sycamore without crotches or any unusual growth can be very plain.
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