Heard a segment on the radio yesterday with a local artist named David Philpot. Philpot carves these fantastic staffs (staves?)...here's a link to a photo of two of them:

http://www.art.org/permanent-collection/dphilpot2.htm

I guar-ron-tee that any of you who saw, as I once did, a gallery full of these staffs would be jonesing like mad for one to have and hold...the work is phenomenal.

Anyway, David pointed out that he does not remove the bark from the branches that he harvests until they are dry...his experience is that this helps keep them from developing splits. Nice to know as I look at the cherry tree in the front yard and contemplate a pruning plan with the side benefit if having lots of nice cherry branches to use for various projects.

Any of you woodworkers found this to be true as well?

Best

AA