I spoke with the nearest kiln, about drying the walnut leg slabs. The guy said I don't want to kiln dry root ball material, or it will split all kinds of ways. He said that kind of wood needs to air dry slowly.

I would have thought the root wood would be more stable, be less resistant to splitting, compared to straight grained or normal lumber.

I'll make the leg units almost complete, attach temporary trestles (stained pine?), rather than use the finished walnut trestles. I'll use the table, as is, for several years (until the legs dry), then complete the project. It should still look decent, half done, this way.

I have one slab hand planed to almost flat.... that was tough work. I still need to do some chainsaw trimming on the other slab, before any hand planing on it.

The table top boards have air dried for almost 2 years, so I'm confident I can finish these. I've done lots of hand planing on them, but will likely have the local woodworks pro shop do a finish-planing on them. They charge $3 per minute for planing. Later, I may get an estimate for wide belt sanding of the leg units, also.

Sonny

On 5/9/2014 1:47 PM, Sonny wrote:
I spoke with the nearest kiln, about drying the walnut leg slabs. The guy said I don't want to kiln dry root ball material, or it will split all kinds of ways. He said that kind of wood needs to air dry slowly.

I would have thought the root wood would be more stable, be less resistant to splitting, compared to straight grained or normal lumber.


I'm not an expert, but it seems logical. Thick sections of anything has
to be done slowly, be it wood or a pot roast. You don't want the root
balls to be like a steak seared on a hot grill.

On 5/9/2014 2:43 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 5/9/2014 1:47 PM, Sonny wrote:
I spoke with the nearest kiln, about drying the walnut leg slabs.
The guy said I don't want to kiln dry root ball material, or it will
split all kinds of ways. He said that kind of wood needs to air dry
slowly.

I would have thought the root wood would be more stable, be less
resistant to splitting, compared to straight grained or normal lumber.


I'm not an expert, but it seems logical. Thick sections of anything has
to be done slowly, be it wood or a pot roast. You don't want the root
balls to be like a steak seared on a hot grill.


And root balls have more twisting and stresses in them, like burls.


--
Jeff