I allas cut em a bit over sized an coat the cut ends with wood glue both with and with out the bark on then i set em aside in a box for the year or even longer ,as i keep a good supply of forks on hand all the time so i always have one er two i can work on,also have cut forks offa dead trees an air dried for a week er two an they work fine also ,but i live in a mountainous -high desert type country so we have very low humigity which helps speed things up imo.