If you are new to using Compressed Wood, make your fist project a test or prototype, not a paid commercial application. There is a learning curve to using compressed wood. The first thing you could do with it is to re-saw a piece to about 1/4" to 1/2" square, and bend it into a ring. Tie it in a knot, then keep reducing the radius to about 2.5". Ash and Oaks can frequently be bent much further, to about 1.5" radius. It is Ok to bend further. If a failure shows up due to over-bending, it will show up in the initial bending, not later during drying. Most people are not aggressive enough in testing the bend radius. Once you have a tight knot, weave or wrap the remainder of the strip around the ring you've created, sort of like you are creating a wreath. You should break a small piece just to see how far it can go. If you haven't broken a test strip, you haven't seen how far it can go yet. And you will be amazed at how far you can push this material.
Re-sawing on the Band Saw and Table Saw
The Compressed Wood planks will be S2S, or surfaced on 2 sides. You may resaw these planks in the same way as any other hardwood, but bandsaws are much better than table saws because compressed wood often has a bow in it. If you need to straighten out a plank, do not use a jointer, which will cause tear-out. Clamp it to a bench top or a straight plank overnight before resawing. You can shim it to put in a bit of a reverse curve too.
For re-sawing on the band saw, use a 3 or 4 tooth/inch blade in the widest blade width that your saw will accommodate. A 1/2" blade works very well, and is often all that is available on most saws. We use 1/2" frequently when it is inconvenient to change out a blade to something wider. A current favorite blade for resawing Compwood is the Shear Force blade from Laguna Tools, but any sharp blade will do a very good job. An under-powered band saw with a dull blade will not be very effective at resawing 6" planks of hardwood. But most any saw with a new blade can manage it. If you find that your saw is too slow with the 3 to 4 tooth/inch blade, you may want to try a 1 tooth/inch blade to speed up the cut, but you'll have more sanding work to clean up the cut.
Keep your Compressed Wood in as large a plank as is practical and plastic wrapped until it is needed for bending. It is best to resaw just before bending, or within a day or two. Boards resawn into fine strips will start to dry fairly quickly, and should be wrapped with kitchen stretch wrap and put back into their tube bag if you aren't bending them the same day . Boards re-sawn to 1/2" or more keep for months if wrapped well. 1/4" and thinner strips dry quickly, and may only keep for a few weeks even if wrapped well. However, if the wood hasn't been kiln dried, many users will re-hydrate the partially dried compressed wood by soaking. This works well for thin strips.
Power Knife Planing versus Abrasive Planing
Planing moist Compressed Wood with a thickness planer or jointer is not successful and not recommended on the wet wood. The wood will tear out and may create a dangerous situation. Instead, re-saw it or use abrasive planing. A coarse paper in a drum or wide-belt sander can remove the resaw marks. Keep in mind that you wouldn't normally joint or straight-line a plank of compressed wood, as it is about to be bent, not straightened. Even spiral planer heads do not perform acceptably on the wet compwood. The wood does plane if you go across the grain. Hand planes across the grain or at an angle to the grain can work well. And by the way, the wood is so soft in its moist state, that it is easy to carve, very much like softwood.
Routers
Compressed wood is usually used in S2S blanks (squares and rectangles), and can not be routed while wet. Most routing techniqes on the dry material are effective, but by that time is curved, and cannot be easily routed anyway. Compressed wood does perform very well in dowel makers and on lathes. These machines cut the wood around the circumference, or across the grain, rather than along the length, or with the grain. This gives some clue as to how the wood responds when shaping it. If you plan to mould the wood, first re-saw it, sand it, and then bend it. Shape it after it is dry.
Turning Compressed Wood
Cold Bendable Hardwood is very interesting and rewarding to turn. Fluted Beams LLC has developed proprietary methods in woodturning Cold-Bend™ hardwoods. Other woodturners are developing their own methods for turning cold bendable solid hardwoods and we encourage you to try to work out your own as well. Turners are sometimes partially drying the wood first (so that it can be glued), gluing it up, turning it, then re-hydrating it by soaking overnight before bending. Since you don't need backing straps to bend Compressed Hardwoods, it is possible to bend spindles, sides of bowls or plates, and parts for your turnings like handles, spouts, vines and leaves. Keep in mind that if you bend a turned spindle, it will bend at the thinner points more readily.
Bending and Drying Cold-Bend™ hardwoods
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