A product called Pentacryl is what I used on my cookies. Its available online. I made 25 - 1" thick 12" dua. I put them in a plastic store and let them soak about 24 hrs. rotating them in the solution. The wood was river birch and not one of them split or checked.

As a retired firefighter, i have seen many fires started when people toss rags or paper towels, used to wipe linseed, oil in the trash. Almost any plant based oil will self heat to the point of combustion when the right condition is present. Make sure that you dispose of them properly. Best to burn them in your fire pit or place them in a steel bucket filled with water or a tight fitting lid. Then lay them out flat singly to dry in the sun, then burn them. Be safe don't store them inside a building or near combustibles. Love watching your videos. Keep them coming.

Good morning Morgan's. I'm sure Mike has a big smile this morning now that Daylight Savings Time is here. Enjoy the extra daylight Mike.

Good morning Mike and Melissa, making cookies with your wife with the extra time you have and in great weather too ! Don’t get no better !👍👍 Liked the way you set up your cookie cutting, worked out great ! Thanks for sharing with us. Fred

Hello Morgan’s, I’m not a drying expert, but I have many years in the sawmill industry. I suspect that the cracking and checking are a result of uneven drying and the grain pattern in the piece of material. One thing I would suggest is to employ a drying practice of ‘conditioning’ the heat with moisture. There are times when drying lumber that you must introduce steam into the kiln to condition the charge. So, you are basically applying moisture to the surface area while heating the inner portions of the piece. The surface and perimeter are drying faster than the center. Even if this works well, there will still be pieces lost from the grain running vertically over such a short distance. Happy sawing!

Good morning Mike and Melissa, another great video, thanks. I try to preserve my cookies with milk, however that only lasts about 10 seconds before my inner Cookie Monster kicks in...... 😂. Anyway, wishing you, your family and all the subscribers a most wonderful day filled with love and happiness. ❤️😊❤️😊❤️😊

Good morning Morgans! From my wood working days on furniture grade lumber, Pentacryl works the best for green wood. It's not a stain, so subsequent finishes aren't effected. Sealers like Anchor Seal work, but require a final cleanup of the surface and can yield inconsistent coloration.

I used to live in a Rain Forest. 130" is a drought year. The ground would get like jelly if pounded by rain for 2 weeks or more. Hard to get firewood to the house. So These 'end slices' were used to create a trail from the large wood bin to the cement porch. Mine were 4" to 12" as I move up hill and across. They were based in the mud and lasted. I used them for 5 more years before we moved. Cool.

Good morning Morgan’s. A beautiful day, sunshine, blue sky, great coffee and Outdoors with the Morgan’s. It’s going to be a great day.

I was watching Buckin split wood and work on his old/new logger truck today. I noticed his shed has a pallet floor in it. He also leaves a space between the rows. Those big pallets you have would be great for that! 4" of air under and an inch between, plus through the logs front to back. I could watch him split wood for 2 hours! I swear sometimes he's dancing with the axe and the wood! Plus like he says it gets his heart pumping.

Great Intro! Hunter receives yet another “Shout Out” from the Great 👍 State of Maine. ❄️ ⛄️ Hello 👋 Hunter! 👋

Its DST I'm sure you're liking it, I'm retired, I'm just going to ease into it. I like the tip on the slices, I'll try that. Thanks, y'all have a great day!

Great Chanel guys! I don't have much timber to choose from for my cookies but will defiantly take your advice. I am trying to inlay some into a partial live edge walnut coffee table I am making, with epoxy. First time so wish me luck. That constant big smile on you wife and your general, mater of fact so happy with life demeanor is awesome! This video and you two have just pushed me to pursue my dream of moving to the country and starting a small saw mill of my own. Not for financial gain but for quality of life. Thank you!

Another great video.... Thank you. I definitely agree with you on using dead wood as your base stock. Using dry wood is 90% of the solution to having your product not crack. However I have found that using 100% Boiled Linseed Oil as a sealer can result in a finish that never completely drys - it remains 'tacky' forever. I use a mixture of 50% Boiled Linseed Oil/50% Mineral Spirits. This mixture will dry completely with the added benefit of being a thinner solution and therefore will penetrate deeper into the wood which also helps reduce the chance of cracking/checking.You will find that cutting the wood with a sawmill blade will seal the wood more than if using a chain saw. You may want to go back to the forest and find a dead standing tree, cut the cookies, let them sit for a couple of weeks then seal the the ones that don't crack with the Boiled Linseed Oil/Mineral Spirit mix. That way you will only be sealing the cookies that don't crack/check. Just my comments. Keep up the great work. Hunter could add these cookies to his business =) Michael from Canada

Great method for cutting cookies. I have very good results with salt curing the wooden cookies, use curing or pickling salt, make a very thick brine solution and soak the the rounds for 3 to 4 days. Make a salt paste and coat both sides of the rounds and then let them dry. The salt preserves the cell structure of the wood, especially the cell walls. You will end up with almost green dimensions in the rounds. I am 72 years young and have been processing hardwood most of my life and this has always worked well for me. Keep up the good work.

Nice video Mike and Melissa! Yes, wood cookies are a very popular cut of wood, but also the most challenging to stabilize. The 100% end grain on both sides dries super quick, plus this round cut has a ton of tension on the outer rim and will want to crack from the outside in towards the pith (like a pie shape) to relieve that tension. Linseed oil does slow the drying of the wood (which is good), however, it will just lay on the surface not allowing the wood to breathe. For green wood especially, this traps moisture inside which can build up and cause mold to grow between the linseed oil finish and the wood surface. Also, when applying it to wood cookies it does not eliminate the stress in the wood. On that note, we would love for you to try our Pentacryl product. It is a stabilizer formulated specifically to treat green, fresh cut wood to prevent cracking, splitting and checking as the wood dries. It is not a finish like linseed oil, rather, it works by penetrating all the way through the wood and displaces the moisture. You will get a much lower cracking rate than 50%. It looks like you guys are doing really cool projects with fresh cut wood (not just this one), so a gallon of Pentacryl is on the way to you! Thank you for making wood working so fun!

CRAFTY!!! Warmer days and more daylight hours. Spring is on the way. Looking forward to 2020 from Camp Morgan. Say hey to the family and yall HAVE A DAY 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

Brilliant idea Mike and Mark Lengal's idea "on the bias cut" as us chefs call it is great too!

Hey Mike my name is Myles I am a chain saw carver . 2 things I have found that helps stop the cracking is #1 use wood glue on bottom it days and tightens up the disk or cookie. The #2nd is use anti freeze the chemical in the anti freeze is the same chemical that wood turners use to stabilize wood only a cheaper alternative. Personally I have more experience with the wood glue some will still crack but a lot less. Hope this helps a a day

Holy Cow! Beautiful day. Those are some nice logs. Great video. Thank you.

Happy Spring Forward day to the Morgans and everyone else who enjoys the extra time spent outdoors. Have a day!

Good morning to the Morgan's. Mike it's now daylight saving time. Interesting video. I made these 3 weeks ago for my own wedding for center peices with little lanterns and mason jars. Along with a large one for the wedding cake.

Sunday morning drinkin my coffee watching the Morgan's. Yesterday the hunt club cut 4.5 cords of wood.love watching this show ....

Pentacryl and Anchor Seal are head and shoulders above other suggestions for sealers. Standing dead is the best hint.

The mill did a great job with the crosscut. Nice job with the "charm school" balancing act Melissa!

Hey Bush here, and thanks for reading my message to you all... I just wanted to let you guys know how much I appreciate you taking the time to mention the music you use on the shows. Being a professional musician and coming from a family of musicians, it's important that people know where the music comes from. I've clicked the subscribe button and hit the like button as well as the bell for notifications and I'll see your next video soon...

Good Morning Morgans Slick and novel idea for a woodsmans centerpiece

Arts and crafts with Mike Love it. God bless

Over the years I've cut loads of these for people. Your right, dead stand is the best. I also continue to let the logs cure even longer loosely covered so they don't wick in moisture. And like you said, cut more than you need. There is no waste because I burn the ones I don't use in my stove and the chips go in my garden.

Yup. Made bunches of those things too. There is no outguessing the cracks. Fortunate to get 50% salvage. Thank you for sharing your day.

Great DIY experiment. Anything that will seal both sides of the cookie will slow the drying process and help prevent checking. Rapid and uneven drying (shrinkage) will encourage cracks. I suspect that water based products are best since the escaping moisture might compete with or slip around the oil products at the molecular level. (I made a number of smaller cookies for a wedding last year and experimented with a variety of wood types -- oak, maple, pine, fir, ash, etc. Hemlock seemed to hold its bark best and crack the least. Bark retention can also be affected by the time of year that the wood is cut. Summer cut has sap under the bark that acts as a glue as it dries.)

There is a product that you need to keep the wood from checking. Is called anchor seal.it needs to be installed as soon as possible after the tree is cut down. Best Regards Fred Thomas

Greetings from No. VT - Welcome to DST! Great advice on making the "cookies" especially using the linseed oil. The only refinement I would offer from my experiences is to cut the Boiled Linseed oil up to 20% with turpentine, or as an alternate thinner, either denatured wood alcohol or mineral spirits. My favorite is turpentine. That thins the linseed oil just enough to penetrate into the grain a little better to give the wood a nice seal, especially if the wood has a lot of moisture still in it like Mike's new cuts. If you use linseed (either cut or uncut) I would let them set for a few days in an area with good air circulation to let the vapors and smells cook off.

Impressed by your method to secure the logs vertically in the sawmill! Adapt and overcome!

Happy Daylight Savings Time Mike...good video and thanks for the tip.

Another great video 👍 Spring is in the air !!

thank you keep up the u tube you both give me courge to watch my son and me are in the process of building a band saw

Actually visiting PA for the first time. The wife wanted to come to Hershey and I get to visit Gettysburg battlefield. So after an 8 hr drive from Western North Carolina here we are!

I have cut cookies up to 4 foot in Dia. I paint both sides with " wood juice", never paint the bark, I weight them, let them air dry for a week, I weight them again, and paint them again, and let them air dry, I keep weighting them to know the water loss, when the water loss stops or slows way down, I kiln dry them, some crack some don't, you want the water to come out the bark. Have a Day, like Billy would say " Be Kind " I try

Hi to both of you. Great video. Keep them coming... I also get asked all the time to cut cookies on my sawmill...lol . The best way i found to stop that cracking (regardless of the wood species) is to submerge the cookie in a metal container under vacuum pressure using a stabilizing solution. The solution I use is called "Cactus juice" . It's a resinous product to stabilize wood for wood turners. Many crafters want cookies of about 2" to 5" in diameter for doing wood burning on them or Christmas ornements etc... I use that technique for that purpose and i nevr had one crack. I will attempt to build a bigger vaccum chamber to accomodate the larger cookies like 12" to 20" . I will let you know how that turns out...I'm confident is will turn out. The time in the chamber is about 45 minutes, then i wrap them in foil and bake them at 200 degree F for about 30 minutes. That dries the wood and also kills any bug that might be in the bood. have fun cutting cookings.

Bless your heart....you really don’t know HOW popular those are in home decor right now. People pay $10, $20 each for these! Some that thickness....easily get $15/$20 each for them. Spend an afternoon making these and you’ve got another side business! I would love to get my hands on 6-7 of these!

I dunk my cookies in my coffee before they crack! 😜

Great Information On The No Bake Cookies To Minimize Cracking!!😂👍👊

thank you for the tips for preventing my cookies cracking , and that's a great bonding,.

Good Morning Morgans, I always enjoy your videos. Just a little tip, an orbital sander would speed up the process considerably. Have a day

That end cut is perfectly checked, looks great.

Melissa your the best Turn and Cough!!!😂😂 Mike I did the same thing. I used bees wax for my slices that were used for hot plates or cutting boards. I also used anchor seal on some to help seal in the moisture so it didn't check. It's just the nature of the beast. But I agree 100% with what your saying but the thicker the better seems to help too..

Happy Day Light Saving Time Mike! Have a day!

Just what I need to put my cup of tea on.....👍🇬🇧

Happy Daylight Savings Time You already use a paint to seal logs to protect from checking. I'd always heard that checking was due to the drying difference between bare wood and barked wood. The wood in the out side having the greater moisture content. So the edges toward the bark would be the last to dry. If you would paint the end of the logs and allow them to dry for a year or two. That way you control size of the tree for cookies.

Loved the Glitter sticker ........

Morgan family , good morning, Mike love you content, keep up the great videos. Good idea cutting those rounds. Special hi to Hunter love you.

Good Morning Outdoors With The Morgan's!❤

Sunday morning coffee watching the Morgans making cookies lol 😉. Doesn’t get any better than that! Another informative video and great intro and outro! Have a day y’all! 👍😃☀️☕️🌲🌳

Happy spring forward Mike

Only use pentacyril if you have a lot of time for them to dry as it will leach out onto tablecloths. Aquaseal ll is a better choice as it will turn clear after a while.

Morning to all.

I’m from Maine and love what ur doing!

Renewable resource center! Now that just makes sense.. you are the man Mike.. lucky man :) your channel came up on my feed and is now in the mix Thank you for sharing you 2

I agree Mike, I've tried to make some cookies and they check and crack. Found cherry is a little better than oak, from my experience. Great tips for next time I do them. Have you ever cut them the other way, long ways? Love the videos! Melissa I laugh everytime you get something from "downstairs ". Also to Hunter, BK is my favorite too! Have a day Morgans.

You guys are a good team..

Awesome and fun. Mike any pressure from the axe will get you cracking but if you make the slot larger and use a quick set epoxy to set the axe. My wife is a crafty woman and you know what that means for the husband. LOL. God bless you all. Love your videos.

Your looking good there Mike Solid handclap!

Good morning everyone. Ron

yes Mike I have done 100's of them for weddings I got an order for 75 this june I have poly them i use maple ash oak and cherry once hemlock

Great idea how to set up logs for making cookies. 👍👍👍

Με αρέσουν πολύ αυτά που κάνεις.Μπραβο!!!! I am from Greece

Awesome idea Mike! I might have to steal that from you, imitation the biggest form of flattery!

Very cool and great advice. If you keep this up, pretty soon you’ll be building a gift shop ... and need a bigger parking lot ... and an outdoor picnic venue ... and more parking ... more mud to deal with ... and tour groups on buses ... I’m tired already thinking about it. 😓 Hey Hunter! ✋🏻👴🏻

looking good , really like the ax center piece . Hello to Hunter !!!

thank you guys!!!!

'turn and cough' very funny! :-)

Happy day light savings, Mike 🌞🌞🌞

NICE SAW AND GREAT VIDEO , WE ARE ALSO HERE IN PA.(HERSHEY)

Great video. With wood that green, you could slam the axe in without cracking the piece. Even after drying for a few weeks. You could make fast work of sanding by running them through a belt sander. Some woodworker in your area will have one you can use. Have a Day!

most excellent ..

Mike today is your day! Have it!!

As far as checking goes, the fruit woods (cherry, pear, apple, and to a certain extent walnut) are the woods that are most susceptible to checking. Species such as the different oaks are less likely to check. Another note: the checking starts at the pith or the center of the tree even though the heartwood is dead. The sapwood is the layer where the moisture moves up through the tree to the leave. I have tried sealing the wood with paraffin which has been successful to a certain extent.

Hey Mike & melissa I wish I was able to do what you are doing I'm disabled from open heart surgery but I enjoy watching yall"s videos

One thing I learned from your channel If I get a mill expect to loose interest within a year. I see this on several channels.

Thx and I love your dog too...

The only "Cookies" I have ever made have been Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal. Now you tell ma there are WOODEN ONES! What's Betty Crocker Going to say? Like the idea, make neat wall plaques for decoupage also. Stain after drying, polyurethane finish coat. Have a great and safe day up there.

Great video Mike and Melissa! I was just researching this very topic. Have some huge maple cookies that I am trying to figure out how to keep them from checking and splitting. Btw, Mike, I finally pulled the trigger on a Woodmizer. Hoping to pick up this coming Friday from the Indy location. I went with the LT-35 since my land is so hilly, it's gonna be easier to take the mill to the logs vs. skidding them all to the mill. Can't wait to try it out. As usual, enjoyed the video very much!

Rugar 🐕 having a good time over there brushing his teeth🦷😬 with that stick, while Melissa is sanding the cookies.🍪🍪😁LOL Love the videos...keep up the good work. HEY ITS MARCH 8th...Extra daylight in the evening...About time !

Mike happy 8th of March. 👍I do crafts with cherry burl cookies. I use a product called pentacryl. Made for green wood to displace moisture to prevent cracking. Seems to help

When " working with cookies", I have cut n traced around the cookie a 1/2" piece of plywood.. Screwed it to the bottom edge n either oiled the top with linseed oil or tung oil n no cracks!! Just a suggestion! The edge of the ply can be stained to match or hidden with decorations... The wife was happy n the guests wanted to put in their orders for sets! Jus' sayin'!!

I made a bunch for our wedding and I didn't do nothing to them but it was just the weekend and then threw them in the firewood pile. Also made a 30" by 3" tall oak cookie for our wedding cake and the cake was wood grain frosting.

Great vid…..I love the way you call things in the states……cookies….we eat them here…ha..we call them boring rounds….thanks foe the tips, best wishes a rainy uk Pete😎

I don't usually comment on videos, but I have to on yours. You guys are great and I have fallen in love with Melissa. Keep up the good videos. Like some places in Indiana, we in Arizona don't have to move our clocks at all. I like that.

I think a time stamp will be great for a video this long. For example, 0:01 Video intro 0:25 Moving the lumber 0:50 Measuring the lumber with a measuring tape 1:04 Sawing the lumber 3:25 About the channel 4:20 Intro about ways people prevents cookie from cracking 5:26 Intro about the blade and the cherry tree logs and the clamp And so on

Me and my ,at the time future son-in-law, made a cupcake stand for his and my daughter's wedding. We used seasoned red oak rounds to get our cookies. That cupcake stand is still in use after 5 years. After we cut them we used watco oil .

I'm not sure I'd want a wedding reception with 20 hatchets (battleaxes) readily at hand. 😏

Happy DST Mike!! I have been power-watching your videos to try to catch back up and finally did that today. It's good to be caught back up, but am a little sad now that I don't have multiple videos to watch now. Can you make more than one video per day?? 🤣🤣 I'm not quite as big of a fan of DST as you are because jumping ahead means spring which means weeds, spraying, irrigation, clean-up after winter, etc. it also means mowing, BUT I am excited about that because I got a new Gravely ZTR last fall and i like it a lot. Your videos from last summer helped a whole bunch with determining what I want. Thanks for that. Don't overdo with all that extra daylight in the evenings now... :)

I have been making these for years I have a wood working business. I cut them into cookies and also on 45 deg. I sell them to taxidermist. I have always cut them in the dead of winter never had any problems with them cracking. I use mineral oil on them. That way if I want to use them for turning a bowl or something that needs to be food safe.

Up here in the land of taverns and cheese (Wisconsin) I would find those center pieces very interesting when the folks get to drinking too much. All in a days fun!

Wood turners have used polyethylene glycol (mixed themselves) to treat green wood before turning it on a lathe. Oil then must be used as a preservative. Paint, varnish, etc., don't adhere well. Years ago I chained red cedar into my old Woodmizer frame and cut them at an angle for a friend who made clocks from them.

You could make clocks out of those discs. Drilling a center hole for the shaft that the clock hands mount to should allow the pieces to dry without splitting.

Not that you need one every day but dewalt makes a great random orbital sander. Have a productive day.

Another night with Outdoors with the Morgans.

Looking good