chestnut good for carving?!

[forrestdweller]

yesterday I came across some freshly cut chestnut trees which some ***** just cut down (after ringbarking several trees) and then dumped along the path as garbage.... would it be worth to salvage a few pieces for spoons and other small carving projects or is the timber not good for that purpose (== food safe)?!

( I know it gets used sometimes for building and carpentry but that's not what I have in mind )


thanks!

 

[Wayne]

Chestnut is used a lot in green wood working for hurdles and cleft fencing it splits easily which is good if that's what you want it to do.

high in tannin and spits when burnt

if it's what you have got use it.

 

[ceryni]

El Ray uses it in one of his earlier programs to carve a chopping board so wouldn't worry about food safe personally

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[Wild wandering woodsman]

El Ray uses it in one of his earlier programs to carve a chopping board so wouldn't worry about food safe personally

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Ray uses sweet chestnut in that episode 😉 always been led to believe since childhood that horse chestnuts are poisonous, is it just the chestnuts or is there the same with the wood?

 

[Robson Valley]

Figure out which "chestnut" you have in your hand.
Strip the bark, paint the cut ends with anything waterproof (paint, glue, etc) to slow down drying and less risk of cracking.
Big logs, split lengthwise as well.

Castanea sp. are ring porous with very large vessels/pores. I suggest that food/meat juices in those will rot.
While the wood is "food-safe", service conditions may be very risky.

Aesculus sp, the horse chestnut, may have inedible seeds but my text notes that the wood is used for carvings.

 

[forrestdweller]

thanks for the replies so far!
the trees in question are definitely the trees which produce the edible fruits-- I presume its castanea mollissima. I've never seen a horse chestnut here in Korea but if I understood correctly it was sometimes used to make tabletops during my time in Japan in a carpentry workshop.
I've had to do with both trees since my childhood so I'm confident I can ID them---- it just never occurred to me to use them or carving until now.....


"" high tannin content"" would suggest food safe but "" ring-pourous with large vessels/pores"" suggests the other way around..... I guess I better stick to cherry (and walnut) for spoons and use it only for non-food-related items ......

 

[Robson Valley]

OK. Castanea dentata is the species in eastern North America. C. mollissima is what you have.
Most of the NA species has been wiped out by the chestnut blight fungus.
Efforts to breed for disease tolerance have been unsuccessful.

Consider this, don't know if it applies:
Many NA species used for wood carvings turn from cheese to bone when they dry.
Might be a plan to jump on this and get some carving done, at least make some chips,
so you can assess the effects of drying.

Here in the PacNW, Alder (Alnus sp.) is used for mask carvings. Some carvers actually keep their wood in a bucket of water
or at least sealed in a plastic bag until they are done.
I got more than a dozen alder log pieces and let them dry.
Now they are so hard that I use them as disposable mallets for my wood-splitting froe.
Not very bash-worthy.

 

[forrestdweller]

sounds like a good piece of advice-- I guess next time I'm coming past the timber I'll chuck a few larger pieces into the nearby dam to keep them fresh and carve a "testspoon" as soon as I'm done with my current batch of spoons.... . (2days ago a baker asked me if I could make him some wooden "" bread"" for his shop so now I'm searching for raw material; I prefer to recycle timber rather then cutting down trees-- hence my question)