# Cottonwood Slabs



## PhillipRCW (Dec 9, 2014)

I have about 10,000 lbs of cottonwood at the saw mill that I got my hands on. I have never worked with it though and need some advice on finishing it. There is a ton of different techniques I've seen, but none that I have seen said it was from personal use. Does anyone have a method they have used personally to finish a slab of cottonwood? I think I might try a pre-sanding sealer on it first and hope for the best when sending or planing it. I've also considered a cabinet scraper for some of the smaller pieces.


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## Sactomike (Nov 21, 2014)

We have a stash of Fremont cottonwood at Sutter's Fort. I found it difficult to work with hand tools, so I've only used it as a secondary or construction wood. A cabinet scraper would be your best bet for surfacing-at least the stash we have is stringy and doesn't play well with planes.

For finishing, I would try much the same techniques used for poplar.


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## PhillipRCW (Dec 9, 2014)

I got the first load of slabs home. It's almost as if there are two types of wood in it. The bark and grain all look alike, but quite a few are soft and stringy. The majority of it though are beautiful and was able to sand down with ease. I'm going to knock out as many of these as I can and turn them into little table. The softer type I may hold off until it dries more. Still hoping to find a good way to finish these and preserve the colors and spalting in it.


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