After St. Josephs 240-year-old Liberty Tree fell last year, ideas behind the use of its wood continue to grow.

The tree, which was dedicated as the citys Liberty Tree in 1976 in celebration of the nations bicentennial, is currently drying behind the St. Joseph Parks, Recreation & Civic Facilities Department building on Grand Avenue.

Director of the parks department Chuck Kempf said that a company from Wisconsin has reached out to the city with interest to make mementos from the wood.

We sent them some pictures of some of our prominent parks facilities and have asked them to do some diagrams of those, and they now have asked us if we could send them some pieces of the Liberty Tree that they can kind of run some tests on, Kempf said.

He said the city is interested in having some carvings made that will represent not only the Liberty Tree but St. Joseph as a whole.

They tend to do smaller ornaments, knick knacks, keychains, things like that, Kempf said.

He said the city also is interested in creating some more practical items from the tree.

Were still looking into the possibility of finding somebody who does larger wood working to possibly do a few benches for us, Kempf said.

Local Woodturner Bill Hinde presented a bowl made from the wood to Mayor Bill Falkner at the July 5 City Council meeting.

Hinde said he was originally going to the city to obtain wood from the trees that were cut down for the Blacksnake Creek project when he came across the Liberty Tree wood.

The city was kind enough to cut three pieces of log out for me, Hinde said. I brought them out here, split them, put them on the band saw, rounded them out, put them on the lathe and turned them.

Hinde said his first attempt at making a Liberty Bowl ended with cracked wood. He changed up his technique by fully lathing the bowls before putting them into his kiln to dry.

He said drying wood can take months, but he created a kiln out of an old refrigerator that uses a 60 watt bulb to heat the air inside up to 115 degrees, which limits the process to four to six weeks.

Hinde has worked with wood for over 20 years, and was happy to present the bowl to the council.

I started off building furniture, built a number of pieces for our house and for the kids house, Hinde said. Then kind of graduated into the lathe work and bowl turning and urn turning and that type of thing.

He said the actual turning on the lathe takes about two hours.

Hinde actually made three bowls from the tree. The official Liberty Bowl was dedicated to the mayor, City Council and citizens of St. Joseph. Two other bowls were given to the parks department.

The Liberty Bowl is currently in City Hall awaiting a plaque to commemorate it. It will be put into a display case on the first floor.

Hinde makes bowls, funeral urns and other items that he sells online. Those interested in his products can visit billturns.com.

The rest is here:

Fallen Liberty Tree continues growth - News-Press Now