Now if you’re just like me, and I know you are, you have an ardent fervor for all things wooden; a deep, intense, and frankly suspicious love of oaken objects d’art, ligneous labrets, and lentiginous timber trinkets. And because you share my passion, you too have long been considering felling that tree out back and fashioning yourself a staff, throne, or at the very least, the Scandinavian flat-plane carved clogs you deserve. Herein lies the precious information you need to put in your mind if you want to forego all professional assistance; prepare yourself to accommodate my girth of knowledge.
Firstly you’ll want to make sure it is winter, not only in order to warrant growing a majestic Yuletide beard, but because the water content (and therefore weight) of that cumbersome lumber will be a great deal lower, making the transport and handling of it a vast degree more uncostly. Choose an old tall son-of-a-birch and chop his birch-ass down, keeping in mind that the gentleman would afterward plant a new sapling at the site of the murder, if not for moral atonement then for logical economics.
Following a brief milk break, you want to bust out your sawmill and get to work. In a process known as ‘conversion’, you’ll turn your massive logs into manageable boards; versatile and integral components of whatever amazing furniture you have envisaged. After the initial ‘breaking down’ you’ll accomplish with either a circular or band saw, you need only employ the precise cutting and planning normally referred to as ‘resawing’ in order to have fully fashioned the fundamentals. It’s happening. Your wooden baby is gestating.
Seasoning Wood
Because I’m going to assume you’re inclined to fly in the face of my stipulations on which season will best suit your pursuits, I’m compelled to educate you on the value of ‘seasoning’ – the technique via which all the excess moisture your Summer oaks retain can be gotten rid of. This is going to make seasoned wood of what’d heretofore be termed ‘green wood’. ‘Green wood’? It’s more like RUBBISH wood am I, right?
You have got to control that equilibration, or you’re going to end up the architect of your own demise. The inevitable unequal shrinkage you’ll bring about otherwise will lay waste to your final creation; deformation and warping do all kinds of irreparable damage after the fact. You don’t seem to be taking this very seriously, and as I’ve told you I’m super serious about wood.
I’ve changed my mind about you guys. I thought you were as fervid as I, that you wanted to craft the finest furniture imaginable, that you had the wherewithal and drive to commit these learnings to memory and absolutely avail yourselves. I tell you what; you’d all be better just shopping online for your bespoke refectory tables and your kiln-dried TV stands because you’re certainly not going to make them your cretin selves.
