Thanks to Tom Conroy for writing out most of it.
    nice

  Yeah the answer is wholesale. Its been that way for thousands of years.
Cut a lot of sticks.  Don't put your hopes in one stick. One stick alone 
almost never dries well.   50 sticks? Well misery loves company.
  Wood in a stack or a pile can control humidity changes/shocks much 
better. It kind of does it automatically. Its why people always stacked 
wood.

   I keep an old steel can filled with scrap wax. When I cut a bunch of 
sticks I put the can on a campstove outside and melt the wax. Dip the 
new cut stick ends for a few seconds each.
   Take them to the woodshed (or wherever its covered and out of the 
weather but not really indoors dry) and stack them or stand them in the 
corner either one.
     Make it easy to add new ones to the back or bottom or left to right.
  You want them to slowly work their way to the front.  Like canned 
goods on the shelf.
   If you do some every year, you always have some dry ones when you 
need a stick.

     I like to get several different species because you need different 
properties or looks in sticks. Pack a saw. I usually just keep one in my 
truck. Bowsaw or pruning saw, whatever.
    Time of year would be good to control. But getting sticks when and 
where you can is more important. Best time to get sticks is when they 
are available.

  Some of them are just hard to dry well. Just the way it is.
  But get lots and you'll get some winners anyway.
  Get lots of kinds. Remember just because its "supposed" to be this or 
that kind of wood?  Wood does not always follow -book- hardness or 
toughness.
   It has designs of its own.  I have seen douglas fir that you could 
not break a
1/2" stick over your knee.

   So........
    One time I sent Jim Thompson dogwood. He was short on chisel handle 
wood.
  It had been drying for years and was some of my most primo stash. He 
got it and says,
   "yeah, what is this stuff? Not particularly impressive looking, I 
just don't know."
    .............................. three days later .....................
    "Holy Crap what is this stuff? I never turned anything so creamy 
beautiful perfect in my whole life. I could eat this stuff from a 
waffled cone!@ whoa "
           heeheheheh

      yours Scott





-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.n
et/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcr
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