Your green branch will start losing moisture content emmediately after being cut, so the ends need to be sealed as soon as possible, otherwise they will split in what is referred to as "end check". As mentioned, I like to use thin CA glue. Make sure also that you seal the knots, which are really the ends of other branches. The opportunity to prevent knots from checking, by sealing them when still green, is another advantage to working with green wood. When a branch has dried on it's own in nature, through the elements, it's knots will have more than likely checked. When unchecked and finely finished, knots are amazing to look into, with their concentric growth rings. Like looking into the heart of the tree itself. Into creation itself. Growth rings are natural mandalas, medicine wheels, representing to me what Black Elk refered to as "the nations hoop":
Everything the
Power of the
World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and
I have heard that
the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in
its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for
theirs is the same religion
as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down
again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even
the
seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back
again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood
to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves.
Our teepees
were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a
circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit
meant for us to hatch our
children. ~ Black ElkFor the same reasons I like to preserve knots, I like to make one piece branch flutes. At first, when learning to make them, I split the branch like other makers did, carving out the air and sound chambers and gluing it back together. But that glued seam running the length of the wood detracted, I thought, from the beauty and natural strength of the branch. And at each end, the hoop of the growth rings was broken. A vision of how the dryad, or spirit of the tree might make a flute kept nagging at me and in that vision the branch flute was unsplit. Experimenting, I found that I could bore out the air and sound chambers with extended drill bits, from each end of the branch, if each end was straight enough for the respective chamber. I've been
making them
this way ever since. There's nothing new about the concept. Unsplit elderberry branch flutes are traditional to the native peoples of California. The Kumeyaay of the San Diego region, where I reside, who's culture in this area has been traced back over 1200 years, made (and still make) flutes from intact elderberry branches, poking out the soft inner pith with a stick. I must admit here to working with a wider variety of woods besides Elderberry and to my use of modern tools, like a 10 amp power drill. But I also use a stick (a dowel), for sanding the inside of the chambers once they're bored. Further details of how I drill out a one piece branch flute are for another article, but I do want to touch on how cutting through a hardwood like oak is much easier when it's green. Greenwoodworkers know this and can split, or rive, fresh cut oak and fabricate chair parts from it using only hand tools. Then, because of the hygroscopic properties of wood (it expands when moisture is absorbed and shrinks when moisture is lost) they can assemble a post and rung chair, without glue, through mortise-and-tenon joinery. One of the techniques these greenwoodworkers use, quick drying their rungs in a hot box, I have found to be very useful in the making of branch flutes.