Best way to cut up this piece of wood

[Raif Harik]

Hi I have this 'cookie' of red oak it is about 6" thick and 24" across. I'm not sure how to cut it up to get useable pieces out if it. I guess the best I can do are 6" bowl blanks. Should I just cut it up into cubes? I have a chainsaw but no bandsaw.
Thanks
Raif

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

It is usually just a matter of selecting the grain or colors you want ,The sapwood could do clear grain and the heart has that curve and maybe some curl in that. By the way do not cut squares but cut octagons, first cut 4 sines and then cut the corners.

 

[robo hippy]

My first thought was box blanks and end grain vessel blanks. A bit narrow for bowls, but you could get a lot of small bowls out of it.

robo hippy

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Just remember boxes need to be dry for best result. You can twice turn but that will take a while to complete.

 

[Raif Harik]

Wow! I thought I had no options and now I have too many! One think I see now is that my brain wasn't thinking about the 3D properly.
This has been super helpful for me. I have some other very interesting pieces of wood that I will need advice on. I will post on here eventually. I think it will either be annoying to people or super helpful. I would think this topic would be very helpful for people fairly new to a cutting blanks.
Thanks for the help!
Raif

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Raif there is one thing we have not mentioned . Unless you plan to turn this right away the end grain must be sealed. For this you can use thick coats of latex paint, parafin or candle wax, or Anchorseal (also several other similar brands.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

That looks like a waste of good turning wood since side grain bowls would have a finished diameter under 6" whereas if the piece had been cut at least 1 1/2 times the diameter you would have many more choices. The only other use I can see is end grain hollow forms preferably with small base and following the "golden ratio". The wood should not be dried before turning as it is typical of red oak to get what is called honey combing along with all the normal problems associated with drying large thicknesses.

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

great for a deep NE bowl like Jerry Kermode does so well.
Arrow points to where I think the pith is. - don’t want that in the bowl.
Here is a cut diagram green lines.
for Two shallow NE bowls and a deep one the will be a bock left for goblet, a sphere.
the NE bowls will have the grain running the wrong way and turners will wonder how you did it.

View attachment 32460

You might want to rethink that shallow natural edge bowl since the high wings would be across the 6" length and would require something other than turning to accomplish.

 

[hockenbery]

You might want to rethink that shallow natural edge bowl since the high wings would be across the 6" length and would require something other than turning to accomplish.

I had already deleted it thnks

 

[hockenbery]

As @Gerald Lawrence - this piece will start cracking soon
Had a dumb error in the previous diagram.
assuming the arrow point is at the pith.
You have wood for a nice deep NE bowl. You can get a 5x5x5 cube for a 3 corner bowl.
These are both hard to turn without experience. you have to judge.

Could just cut a bunch of 4x4 spindle blanks and turn a bunch of weed pots. They will likely crack some but that is ok for weed pots. A drilled hole and a narrow neck.

 

[Raif Harik]

seems like the wide NE bowls would work, One would want to sand the end grain edges but that shouldn't be too hard.

 

[Raif Harik]

As for how the piece was cut, even as is it's super heavy and when I got to the tree it was largely cut up. I asked them to cut me a big old 24" piece but they said it would be too heavy to get into my car. So I take what I can get.

 

[Raif Harik]

Dang @hockenberry! I liked your diagram! Can I have it back?

 

[hockenbery]

Dang @hockenberry! I liked your diagram! Can I have it back?

The shallow natural edge bowl was mistake. A brain f**t. You could turn a shallow square edge piece along the same cut lines however read Oak splits so readily that it would likely not last long I use.
I do revise the diagram
What works well fo all of us is to draw the outlines of things we want to turn on the outside of the log.
People cutting wood may be reluctant to rip a log for you. Both pieces of 14” long piece ripped in half through the pith of a symmetric log will weight the same as a 7” cookie.

 

[Raif Harik]

Hockenbery, that's a good point. I'm not a fan of oak in general, so I'm not too disappointed, but if it was pecan I would be so I'll use that trick next time.
I just turned that shallow square side NE bowl. Just go back in. In the end it was 3.5 wide and 1/2 in deep. It was fine work. Actually it was going to be kind of nice till I blew it to blazes. This is why I took the red oak. If I make something nice, that's nice, but largely I need practice destroying things. I don't want to learn those lessons on a piece of wood I really like.