How To Plumb anyone?

E

Ernest DuBois

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Mar 2, 2013
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Ha, maybe not the Plumb you were 'specting. Out here in the arid West we do suffer from a limited selection of hardwoods. It can pose certain difficulties when coming to handeling your tool. The settlers at a point knew and understood this and imported some of the necessaries, bringing Ash saplings in particular along with them to help in getting extablishd. I don't think it ever caught on by the way since by the time these saplings were sufficiently mature a good part of the supply lines were set and they - a few determined individualists aside - could turn to more or less more commercial means, and why not, since probably they were pressed for time with all that settler work to be done,and so the Ashes planted became functional as landscape elements lining streets and providing shade and so on and so on. The Ash being also good for these and so they remain to these days, here and there, where they wouldn't otherwise naturally be seen.

What's it got do do with Plumb then? It's this limitation mentioned. Here , I am looking to handle my tool, my sappie to be precise, and in need of something that will give sufficient strength - unlike the Cottonwoods the Juniper along with various conifer species from around here. The first alternative which came to my mind was a kind of Oak, Gambel oak,that is native and available and fulfills some of the basic requirements, but further I know little of the characteristics of the wood. We will see....More on this wood - a piece I cut yesterday - later. Maybe in the way of those settlers though time is also pressing for me and a proper seasoned piece of wood requires more of it than I've got just now so I went just here out back into a grove of plumbs where a few years back the mother bear and her cubs went ravaging killing most the trees growing there but providing me with something that may help to get my sappie back to working, And giving a relief from a strain on my back. A sappie, really it's necessary in work like that.
 
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In my experience, the plum wood I've seen is hard, brittle, has very twisted grain, and is prone to cracking. But, your stuff may be different.
 
A17 said:
In my experience, the plum wood I've seen is hard, brittle, has very twisted grain, and is prone to cracking. But, your stuff may be different.
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You couldn't be righter Seventeen, 'specially on the twisting. It is a fortunate thing that the tree has grown in the middle of the grove with a long ( enough )and straight section of stem before branching out. The hart is a bit off center due to the slopping ground so there is reaction wood which could well lead to an unwanted bow. While the look from surface is quite straight, once the bark gets removed any twist should reveal itself. For now the end grains are coated to slow moisture evaporation, (what's there anyway since it was standing dead for a few years slowly drying,) to quickly and causing cracks plus being stored up in a dry shaded place out of the wind. 'Course there's not enough mass for splitting which could refieve internal tensions and reduce deformations and means the inclusion of the pith. It's true that trees in the Prunus species seem awfully brittle, it's surely so with cherry as I know it from almost falling out of a tree when I was a kid after a branch broke. Well, I never thought this would be the ideal wood but it's what I've got and am hoping its strength will compensate, time'll tell if it's a problem and then I'll be even smarter for the experience, plus, it's why I simultaneously prepair an alternative in oak as a stand-by.
 
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The plum wood I’ve used in small pieces has checked to beat h*ll, it was all reaction wood. I pruned a bicep-sized limb off a tree, and bucked it into foot long chunks, checked so deep as to make it firewood.

The next batch, I cut a saw kerf into the center of each billet. By the time it dried out, the kerf was about 3/8” wide but minimal checking otherwise. I imagine splitting it would have accomplished the same, but I wanted to leave the option of glueing in a wedge and lathe turning the round (which I never did).

Also, the fresh cut heartwood showed a pretty purple color that eventually faded to a chestnut brown.

Parker
 
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catspa said:
The plum wood I’ve used in small pieces has checked to beat h*ll, it was all reaction wood. I pruned a bicep-sized limb off a tree, and bucked it into foot long chunks, checked so deep as to make it firewood.

The next batch, I cut a saw kerf into the center of each billet. By the time it dried out, the kerf was about 3/8” wide but minimal checking otherwise. I imagine splitting it would have accomplished the same, but I wanted to leave the option of glueing in a wedge and lathe turning the round (which I never did).

Also, the fresh cut heartwood showed a pretty purple color that eventually faded to a chestnut brown.

Parker
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The logic is that because this is a stem that has been dead on the stump a few years and so gradually drying out the tensions wanting to tear the wood apart have managed to dissipate somewhat. As a further precaution the ends are sealed off with thinned wood glue. When I wanted to do a proper job, and in normal circumstances, I'd water the piece by submerging it for a year and then proceed with further seasoning, ( oh, what an effort this wood demands of us ). It must be said this is not a universal remedy and in some wood, (Holly for example, another prime handle wood) watering can even exacerbate the problem.
 
You know A17, I presumed that your reference to the hardness & brittleness of plumb wood was about its serviceability. After getting into it, that is, my initial forming with an axe - this axe, a subject of its own since it is my first experience with what you call, "Boys Axe" - I have to wonder if your meaning was working the wood. Wow! It's like chipping away at ice, (and I should know since I was clearing the outlet of my culvert today blocked up with a foot of ice and causing a washout from the snow's runoff). Not a real hopeful indication , but I do persist.

Photos are not in the picture it seems since my computer will no longer access that good hoster used by carbonsteeladict, suffice to say I am able to follow the form of this stem to achieve a good handle shape. Up until now in any case (keeping my fingers crossed AND knocking on wood).
 
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