Merry Christmas Holly
- Regular price
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$65.00 - Regular price
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- Sale price
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$65.00
Storm Felled | Solar Powered | End-Grain Strength
Quality
Engraving in end grain produces better results than carving into the face of a board.
Oak is very dense, which allows even intricate details to remain strong.
End-grain engravings have crisp, clean cuts that resist chipping.
Unique Character
Knots, cracks, burl, blemishes, and wood grain. Every piece is different.
Minor blemishes that don't cover critical details are embraced.
Each piece requires judgment - I balance character with clarity.
Some Details
The cookies are slowly air-dried on shelving in the back of our barn for about a year.
I manually flatten both sides before engraving to ensure a perfectly flat canvas that captures all the details of the model.
Scraps
We heat our home all winter with tree and woodshop scraps.
We grill with charcoal made from woodshop scraps.
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More Details
Why It's Rare
Log cookies aren't sold at lumberyards.
Only sawmill owners can make them.
Cutting logs vertically (and safely) on a sawmill requires a specialized setup.
Drying and storing cookies requires a specialized setup.
The Rarity Pyramid:
-Owning land is becoming more rare.
-Few land owners have a sawmill.
-If they do, it probably isn't their core business.
-Most sawmill businesses just sell lumber and are not woodworkers.
-Most woodworkers don't have any CNC machines.
Solar powered CNC-equipped woodshop focused exclusively on end-grain cookie engravings from storm-felled trees?
-Just me.
How Old Are the Trees?
Typically, our cookies come from oak trees around 90 years old.
About 50 years is the minimum for a tree to be large enough.
The oldest so far was a 135-year-old red oak.
It's Cracked!
Wood shrinks when it dries.
Since the outer rings are larger, they shrink more than the inner rings.
This is why a drying crack usually forms shaped like a pie-sliver.
The crack will not continue to grow because the wood is dry and no longer shrinking.
Sterilized
All my wood is heat-treated in an electric kiln.
I exceed established heat-treatment standards for killing insects and eggs.
Cookie VS Board
Judge for Yourself
The only difference between the top and bottom is the grain direction...But why does it make such a difference?
Imagine wood grain as rings of straws running up the trunk of a tree.
- Cookie - I trim the ends of the straws. "End Grain". It remains a bundle of tightly packed straws with deep roots that support each other.
- Board - The bundle of straws is laying on its side. The engraving process cuts the top layer of straws into a bunch of little segments that chip away easily between the growth rings.
The results speak for themselves.
Tree Facts:
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Pine Prohibition
America's first tree laws weren't environmental. The King claimed all White Pines over 24" for ship masts.
Over half the mature trees in many forests were marked off-limits with the 'King's Broad Arrow'.
This became one of the grievances leading to the American Revolution after 80+ years of control over these resources. -
Branches Don't Grow Like That
A low branch doesn't get higher off the ground as the trunk grows.
Branches only grow longer from the tips, and that includes the trunk. -
Trees Don't Heal
Trees cannot heal their wounds.
Damaged cells remain damaged forever.
They isolate the damaged area with chemical and physical walls and just keep growing. -
It's Getting Bigger
Every year, each acre of forest grows by about 0.55 cords.
This means collectively, our 200 forested acres grows about 110 cords EVERY YEAR.
Each big tree that blows over is only about 1 cord. -
Functionally Extinct
1 in 4 trees in Appalachia used to be an American Chestnut.
These giants produced nutritious, sweet nuts (acorns are bitter) and rot-resistant lumber.Over a 40 year period, an imported fungus killed 4 billion trees.
This cornerstone species is now functionally extinct—one of the greatest ecological disasters in American history.