# 90 deg tree



## Jackfre (Dec 23, 2009)

I'm getting a 20" dia black walnut that has grown in a 90* pattern. It has approx a 10' radius. I'm not sure how to handle this tree. Given the compression load on this wood it will _____ after being cut down. Please fill in the blank. i'll paint the end and get it off the ground. Anything that I can do to keep this together. Not sure what I'm going to do with it, but would like to treat it right to see what it might give. Suggestions gratefully rec'd:thumbsup:


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

I added a comment and my answer in blue italics:



Jackfre said:


> Given the compression [_and tension_] load on this wood it will _release all that stress_ after being cut down.


The good news is, once the moisture is removed, by kiln or by air drying, & it reaches EMC there will be no more major movement. If the tree is a anything like I envision it, it should have some killer looking stuff in that elbow. 

A picture would be most helpful. 




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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Is this a radius 90deg or a sharp one?
Sounds interesting.
If it's grown to that configuration, I can't imagine any major tensions.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

aardvark said:


> Is this a radius 90deg or a sharp one?
> Sounds interesting.
> If it's grown to that configuration, I can't imagine any major tensions.



You can't have turns in trees without having both compression & tension to some degree in the fibers. 

Tension wants to tear fibers apart. Compression wants to smash them together. Yellow=tension. Red=compression. Let's pretend the blocks aren't there and the tree is supporting itself.









You even have compression & tension in a straight horizontal beam even after it's in service and dry. 












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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

I get all that. But that is under load.
Once the weight/stresses are off, the movement should be pretty much done and permanent.
Once cut, and laying on the ground, it's no longer under compression/tension. No load.
When I unstring my archery bow, stresses are no longer there but it retains an arc.
A growing tree will retain it's shape to a massive degree because the growth is also done in that configuration, unlike the archery bow,


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Aha, okay I misunderstood you then. My bad.


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## bikeshooter (Nov 5, 2010)

aardvark said:


> I get all that. But that is under load.
> Once the weight/stresses are off, the movement should be pretty much done and permanent.
> Once cut, and laying on the ground, it's no longer under compression/tension. No load.
> When I unstring my archery bow, stresses are no longer there but it retains an arc.
> A growing tree will retain it's shape to a massive degree because the growth is also done in that configuration, unlike the archery bow,


Please note I have no clue what I'm talking about. 
I heard somewhere along the line that wood has "memory" to some extent. And that is takes a while for it to relax - maybe from the compression / tension mentioned here. This info may have come from the you tube ww that lets wood age (relax) some 15 years before turning it into gunstocks.

TT thanks for the yellow/red tree illustration - very informative :thumbsup:


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Should be somewhat immediate. Once pressure is off, and a tad of time with it it's sitting, the internal structure will hold in place. If there is any spring back, it should be minimal unless it's green lumber and has no age to it.
99% of spring back on old wood will be immediate.


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## ETWW (Mar 27, 2011)

Rip one of those reaction wood boards (grown under tension and compression) on the TS and you will see that it still retains the stresses, even after being dried. That's the reason limb wood, no matter how large the limb, is not milled into lumber. Those tension/compression stresses remain in the wood. Everytime it's sawn some more of that tesion is released and the wood moves...sometimes violently.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Now that I wouldn't expect.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

ETWW said:


> Rip one of those reaction wood boards (grown under tension and compression) on the TS and you will see that it still retains the stresses, even after being dried. That's the reason limb wood, no matter how large the limb, is not milled into lumber. Those tension/compression stresses remain in the wood. Everytime it's sawn some more of that tesion is released and the wood moves...sometimes violently.


Exactly right ETWW. Well described.

Bikeshooter, another thing about wood movement in general, wood never stops moving completely unless the environment, mainly moisture but temperature to a smaller extent, remains perfectly stable. 

Also as wood dries, it's going to shrink even where no stress is. But where stress is present, the movement won't stop until it reaches EMC, and even then as ETWW points out, remove a little wood and a little stress will release; remove a lot of wood and a lot of stress will release. Wherever stress is present, that means the wood will shrink at a different rate as it dries. And usually in different directions especially in burl, crotch sections, or wherever grain runs kookoo. 

Species that have interlocking grain especially will move a lot. 








It's not hard to guess how a 2 x 12 from this tree would move as it dried. 










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## truckjohn (Oct 31, 2011)

Ha.. Tex beat me to it...

Well... It's what happens...

Every once in a while - you run into a board that goes crazy when you cut it... That's why they call it "Reaction wood"...

I couldn't imagine trying to make something stable out of a tree with that much twist in it...


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## H. A. S. (Sep 23, 2010)

TT, those pics remind me of some of the big oaks we had cut down a few years back. The grain was everywhere! Even after resawing, several times, they would go every which way but loose.:blink:


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Correct me if wrong. but if the log is relatively dry prior to cutting, the stability should be increased drastically .


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## bikeshooter (Nov 5, 2010)

aardvark said:


> Correct me if wrong. but if the log is relatively dry prior to cutting, the stability should be increased drastically .


Now that _sounds_ logical. Hopefully another expert will respond.


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## Tennessee Tim (Dec 15, 2010)

NO, Every cut made changes dimesion and releases stresses:thumbdown::huh:.

Have a Blessed Thanksgiving in Jesus,
Tim

Had a good example last night and have forgotten it to type.


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Ok.
Thanks,


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Aardvark,

Wipe your slate clean and start from scratch in how you think about wood, and how it dries. I have to 'get back to basics' myself quite often. 

Instead of thinking about lumber as a board with various grain patterns etc. start thinking about lumber as millions of tiny fibers of wood, composed of trillions of super teeny-tiny wood cells. Because that's exactly what wood is. All those cells are combined to each other and form a chain that wraps around or intertwines with other chains of cells until enough of them are together and form an actual visible fiber of wood. 

Let's say it takes a thousand chains of the cell clusters to make one sliver of a wood fiber just large enough to see. Like a hair. If you look at wood fibers in a chunk of firewood that's been split in a log splitter, that log didn't get a clean cut, it was ripped apart; more specifically thousands upon thousands of individual wood fibers were ripped apart. When you look at the fibers individually in the sunlight, even in one that appears to be a straight grain piece of wood, you can see the fibers don't run perfectly straight. They run all over the place or at least they angle off here and there a little. 

It's almost always impractical for many reasons to dry wood in log form, but let's say we have a log which is defect-free and dried evenly through & through to 7%. Let's put it on the mill and boule cut it. As we start to take off boards, really what we're doing is sawing through millions of wood fibers that are intertwined imperfectly (in that they don't run perfectly straight next to each other; else how could they bond to make fibers?), so dry or not, as they are ripped apart the stresses they were under, and the stresses they were placing on the other neigh boring fibers have been removed. That portion of the stress is now gone, so for every action there's an opposite and equal reaction. 


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

yup.
I see it.


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## SweetBJ (Dec 3, 2011)

Late to the party but I can give an "arborist's answer" to the original question: yes it will spring a good bit, but won't come anywhere close to straightening out. If you're cutting anything off from above the bend and have a ladder leaning on it, make sure to have plenty of extra ladder above where it's leaning on the tree. 

One thing I've noticed as well is that trees in this shape often will split vertically on the "horizontal" part of the trunk either in response to windshear or when they are dropped. so you might want to remove any upper branches that are perpendicular to the lean so that you can try to land it with a belly-flop-like thud rather than allow it to hit the ground with higher branches first. Hope that makes at least a modicum of sense.


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## Jackfre (Dec 23, 2009)

*Turns out*

that log didn't come my way. Strange. While I've owned this place for a few years we have lived here for only 5 months now. Our 180' property line had a wire fence covered in blackberries wound around the fence and the 18 or so blk walnuts. Most of the trees were weeds, but there were some good sized logs in there too. Neighbor said he wanted to remove the trees which we thought were all on his side. Told him I'd work with him clearing the berries and dropping the walnuts. He got all the logs. I dragged/stacked them with my little Kubota BX (was surprised what a good job it did, given its size). We burned the tops and debris on my side and I spent better part of a day tending the burn. I had a backhoe come in to run about 400' of trench for water and underground power lines. Before starting my work, I had him dig up the BW stumps. There were a couple 3x4' stumps/burls in there. Neighbor is calling the burl guy to see if there is anything of value, and there is some good wood in there. Took about 3 hrs for a good operator and very capable machine to do it, then onto my digging. I bought and paid for the replacement fencing and put it up. Once the property line was cleared the trees were right down the middle his/mine. He got all the wood, but we had agreed that they were on his side initially and I'm not set up to handle a lot of logs at this time (no shop/garage yet). We worked together, got a lot done and it was a good time. The only thing I expressed an interest in out of the project was that one bent log. 

I am somewhat incredulous about the whole thing. I have to laugh because otherwise I'd go where I try hard to avoid. My neighbor is a good guy, but apparently somewhat dense. As I am short firewood and he has an abundance, he did offer that I could feed off his pile. I will say that the house will freeze up before I take a split off his pile. People are funny!:yes:


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## Chaincarver Steve (Jul 30, 2011)

This has already been said but I'll give my experience right quick. I was ripping some cedar and one segment had a lot of funky knots with swirling grain. It looked like it would probably be ok, though the overall board did have a slight twist to it. Actually, I had two boards like this I had to deal with. Well, as I was ripping it on the table saw, the outfeed end was arcing, bowing and wanting to pinch the hell out of my riving knife (*see note at bottom*).

Even though I planed and jointed the boards for flat, square dimensions, there is the undeniable fact that the boards stored a LOT of tension. So don't be fooled by flatness or squareness. The grain is going to do what the tension tells it to as soon as the wood that was holding back all that tension is cut away.

























* NOTE: THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF WHY IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ALWAYS USE YOUR SPLITTER/RIVING KNIFE. WITHOUT THE RIVING KNIFE, THESE BOARDS WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY DANGEROUS TO CUT AND I WOULD HAVE LIKELY BEEN HARMED IN THE PROCESS. The wood clamped onto the riving knife so hard it got stuck and I could not move the wood at all until wedges were driven into kerf to hold it open. If that would have clamped onto the back end of the spinning blade, well, kickback would have been the guaranteed result. And I would NOT have wanted to be the one pushing that board.


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