Cherry Tree - wait until dry

Back in March I spotted this lovely looking piece of Cherry on the wood chip pile at the allotment. I grabbed this piece and a few others to mess about with in the workshop. I was curious about what I could make with them.

I had just started making a small lamp base out of some off-cuts of walnut glued together, but not quite big enough to hold the lamp I had in mind. I thought this might be a good replacement so cut a decent chunk from one of the logs and started to prepare it. This was a reasonably manual job since my circular saw was not big enough to cut through the log so relied on cutting as straight as possible using a hand saw.

The first job was to remove the bark and start to explore the shape that would work for a base of the lamp.

After chipping away some of the bulk with a chisel I fixed the disk sander to the vice and started to sand through the grades to start shaping.

Next up was measuring the light fitting I planned to use and drilling holes to mount the bulb holder / run cables.

Next I was starting to oil the wood to pull out the lovely colours. I was on my 3rd coat when I started to notice a bit of splitting around the top. As I went back to apply the fourth coat I noticed a large split.

Oh well. I guess I need to leave the logs to dry for a couple of years before I can use them. Back to the walnut base.