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I have a 4 inch cookie of honey locust I purchased from a local dealer. Kiln dried and moisture between 8 and 10.

I had done all the crack filling on this piece and sanding it up. Left it in garage for a few weeks as life gets hectic. Came out to find new and large cracks, some straight through.

Is this the nature of the wood? How to stop this from cracking further?

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    4 inch cookie? I read this and saw coaster in my head :) Images please! I think it is 4" thick? Very likely surface is more dry than interior and cracks almost impossible to avoid.
    – Volfram K
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 6:15
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    A photo or two would be good, but I'm not sure how helpful they might be given the nature of the problem. As you already know, cookies/discs/slices are very problematic as far as drying goes (and their response to future moisture can be poor too). You can slice the length of a tree trunk, take good drying precautions, and still 75% or more of the discs will split (I've read of yields as low as 1/10 or 2/10, it can be that bad). With the other <25% that didn't split, sometimes there's no obvious reason why they survived. So basically there's a lot of luck involved, as frustrating as that is.
    – Graphus
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 14:31

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Discs of most woods will crack. When first cut you can treat discs with PEG to limit cracking.

Your wood was probably not at EMC (equilibrium moisture content). Moisture meters either

  1. check wood at one spot (where you put the pins), or
  2. check the average MC (moisture content) across a section using resistance. Taking samples from all parts of the wood is the only surefire method.

More info here: https://woodweb.com/knowledge_base/How_to_Limit_Cracking_when_Drying_Wood_Discs.html

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    Maybe mention it is too late to treat with PEG. Soaking must be done with green wood.
    – Volfram K
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 6:27
  • Indeed. This is a reason why that "fill the voids with epoxy" technique became so ubiquitous. You let the discs do their thing and then pretend like you meant to do what you did all along!
    – user5572
    Commented Jun 30, 2022 at 13:51

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