Tree tops

[OHBucknut]

Well I put my deposit on the new Frontier OS31 sawmill by Norwood.  It should be here by end of Feb.  Anyways now that I am decided on the mill I now have a question regarding the lumber Ill be milling.

At the end of last summer I had my land (about 25 acres) select cut lightly.  They left a lot of what I think would be great lumber on the ground.  A lot of the stuff is straight and solid but maybe just too small for the buyer.  There is stuff from 8" to 18". The whole reason I am buying a mill is because I want to build a building and I am cutting up firewood out of perfectly straight and usable cherry poplar oak and maple.

Do you guys know why the buyer would have left these behind ? Also is there anything I need to be careful with when cutting the tops of the tree (as far as quality and strength of the wood)?

I am going to start piling these logs up so when I get my mill I have something to start on right away.  I really dont need to stack up a bunch of firewood.

Thanks guys!

[Crusarius]

I would think the primary reason for leaving them behind is no money in them.

My process for stuff like this is to start at the top of the tree and start cutting 16" rounds for firewood till I get up to about 8" diameter. then I cut 42" long for stickers. then after I get up to about 10-12" range I start cutting sawlogs.

This has helped me tremendously on not having to make stickers every time I cut. and also gives me a stock that is always replenishing, dry and ready to use. When I notice my pile is getting a little small I just grab a couple 42" logs and make a 1x1 sticker.

It can be surprising how much lumber you can get from the so called garbage they leave behind.

[nybhh]

My process for stuff like this is to start at the top of the tree and start cutting 16" rounds for firewood till I get up to about 8" diameter. then I cut 42" long for stickers. then after I get up to about 10-12" range I start cutting sawlogs.

This seems like a pretty good method.  What do you do with the smaller branches that aren't really worth it for firewood?  I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about how to speed up the process of getting wood from our woodlot to the mill as it just takes too long currently by the time I get everything cleaned up.  We also use our woods recreationally and my wife is pretty adamant that I clean up as I go if it is in an area she sees.  The problem is that the easiest logs to get out are near the same trails she walks.  I need a better system.

[Crusarius]

I have just been dropping then for now but have planned on chipping them and putting them in the gardens.

They blend in with the rest of the branches that keep falling out of the trees so leaving them is not a big deal

[nybhh]

We use an 8" hydraulic PTO wood chipper for the tractor that is great for that and we do use the mulch also but it takes FOREVER.  The hardwoods aren't too bad looking if they are cut in the winter but the pine tops are what she gets upset about and that is mostly what I'm cutting.

[Crusarius]

I wish I had a nice chipper with some type of feed. Mine os a rough manual unit that beats the hell out of you.

[TKehl]

Probably left because it is too small (under 12" here unless it's Walnut), too short, has sweep, or has "character".  Big mills need consistency.  Guys like you and me can work with short lumber, sweep, and other "defects".  Highlighting "defects" is a great way to sell custom woodworking as there are a lot of people who pay good $ for unique pieces. 

[nybhh]

I wish I had a nice chipper with some type of feed. Mine os a rough manual unit that beats the hell out of you.

The feed is nice to reduce the amount of trimming required and you can "pulse" (feed, pause, feed, pause) the borderline trees that would be too large for the tractor HP if they were fed through all at once but I think they all beat the hell out of you!   My back/thighs/knees can't take a full day of chipping anymore either due to all the bending over.  Two hours of that and I'm shot.

[Crusarius]

Makes burning so much more enjoyable. A lot of times I do plan a burn around my Cinco De` Mayo party.

Sometimes it helps dry the ground out.

[OHBucknut]

As for me when I am cutting I leave the real small stuff for wildlife. I just know there is a ton and I mean a lot of good wood left laying around. I am going to start gathering and piling it up as I can only do it when weather allows. Need good freezes.

I am a wood worker also so I'm kinda looking for those crotches and defects. Thanks for the input I just didn't want to have a huge pile of small logs just to cut for firewood  

[Rhodemont]

The owner of a sawmill stopped by this fall to look at saw logs he would be interested in for timber frame beams.  I have a lot of white oak that gypsy moths killed and last year storms damaged, more than I will be able to mill.   As I expected he is interested in the large diameter 16 ft clear first and 12 ft clear second logs of the trees. I typically get a third 8 or 10 ft log.  I can use the smaller and lower grade logs on my LT35 to get whatever I can, boards, 6 x 6, and other dimensional  that he would not want to bother with.  The next smaller diameter lengths / branches are fire wood.  Then all the small stuff, less than 4 inch, I make in to a pile to support my forest plan.  takes some extra time but those piles support wildlife, especially rabbit (until the fisher cat comes through).
So now since the ground froze I have about 2 dozen logs for him and can pull out a lot more.  I can load 3 or 4 on my trailer and deliver about 15 miles away.  Made a proposal to him we are going to discuss further, If he gives me a list of cant sizes with room for him to finish to his required dimensions I can face the logs and take some boards.  Those first slabs will be firewood I sell, get some nice boards and a bit more per board foot on the cant..sounds good...maybe.   

[OHBucknut]

That sounds like a good deal. 

[Brad_bb]

Step 1: Get the logs off the ground.  Use some smaller sacrificial logs as bunks and get them piled off the ground.  Being on the ground will rot a log the fastest.  Getting it off the ground so air can flow around the stack and dry it after it rains will preserve the logs the best.  Also, use Anchorseal to seal the end grain of the logs ASAP.  


 
I am a real Wood miser.  I waste very little.  I figure out a use for a lot of stuff.  I look for small branches 4-6" dia that are wonky in one plane.  That way I can mill a single live edge board out of the middle anywhere from 2-3" thick.  It will get planed after it dries.  These wonky live edge boards can be used for a number of things if you're creative- railings, furniture parts etc.  I've been doing this with Walnut, Ash, and Honey locust. 

Sometimes if there is a good shape, I might keep a 4-8" dia piece in full round, just debark it, let the dry some, and then sand the surface.  I do this with Walnut and Osage mostly.

I use even smaller stuff, branches 1.5-3" dia Plumb, and some Honey locust.  Remove the bark, let it dry, then sand the surface with the orbital.  Use for furniture, railing balusters...

Logs 8-12" dia, especially if they have a slight curve, I mill 4.5, 6.5, and 8.5 thick for timberframe braces either live edge, or if needed I can convert them to square.  They are oversized by 1/2" so they can be jointed/planed after they've dried for a year to stabilize.

Straight logs that you can get an 8x8 out of are good for many things- timberframe timbers(typically 12-24ft long, cut for stickers if they are shorter. I use mostly Ash for stickers.  It's the most plentiful wood I've had for the 4 years I've been milling.

Don't discount dead Ash if you've got it.  Good wood and already fairly dry if dead on the stump.  It's pretty easy to tell on the stump if it's still good.  Obvious if it's not.  Most I've cut has still been good. Only 3 logs in a 100 have not been once I cut into them.  Ash is pretty and very useful for a lot of things - T&G flooring, I use a lot for horse stalls in a barn, furniture, stickers, timberframe parts, handles, etc.

I use cherry for timberframe braces and boards.  I don't have much oak, and I've never had any hard maple.

Slabs get made into firewood.  The only waste I burn is saw dust, bark, and planer chips.

[SawyerTed]

Whatever you do don't start milling the best logs first.  Learn to operate your sawmill on junk.  I cut about 1000 board feet of poplar, pine and junk oak the first three weeks I owned my mill.  Most were firewood logs.

Don't start with logs too small either.  It's tempting to try to saw the 8" logs first.  Small logs are hard to learn to saw on.  Something 12-14" is a good size to learn on they are big enough to make 1x6, 1x8 or 2x6 and 2x8.  Stick with 8'6" lengths for the first few logs.  Get a feel for the sawmill and for what the logs will make then work your way up to larger logs.  

No matter what you do, you will produce some junk lumber to start.  It will crook, cup, bow and warp.  Try to figure out why.  

Whatever you do, don't put that walnut/cherry/hickory/ash log you might have been saving for a couple of years on the mill first thing.  Odds are against that producing good results.

[Don P]

Branches, small, short stuff gets turned into 6x6, 4x4, 3x3 bolster material or cribbing. That and stickers you can never have enough of. Logs that don't make structural lumber often can make sheathing, if not it can be forms, temporary bracing, sacrificial lumber. Not trying to make a living from the mill I'll saw a lot of stuff that in the end becomes dimensional firewood.

[Magicman]

A quick answer is that limbs ain't logs.  They will usually have an off center pith and contain much stress because they grew supporting an unbalanced load.  Trying to make lumber out of limb logs usually produces crooked/bowed boards. 

[thecfarm]

I use the whole tree. What I don't use for for sawlogs,is firewood. I do have a OWB so can burn softwood too,with a control burn. But what I do leave in the woods,gets cut into pieces not much longer than 2 feet. Yes,it does take time,but when I am done,you would not know I was there,except for the stump. I even run the saw up and down the limbs. I find it's easier to leave the limb on the tree and work my way towards the tree.

[Brad_bb]

I have to differ with Magicman (a rare occasion).  Limbs may not yield conventional board lumber, but they can produce useful material as I've enumerated.   When I center cut a limb, I leave enough material so that I can later (after enough drying has occurred to sufficiently stabilize it) flatten one side and then plane it to have two sides parallel.  One man's trash....  

[Magicman]

Why do you consider your reply differing with me Brad_bb, when actually it said the exact same thing?  I specifically targeted the fact that the lumber will usually bow or crook and you said that limbs may not yield conventional board lumber.  I never said that limbs were unusable.

The OP made this statement in the opening reply:  They left a lot of what I think would be great lumber on the ground. 

My reply was simply to address that statement and point out the fact that limb lumber is generally full of unwanted surprises.  There is a reason that log buyers consider it waste. 

[nativewolf]

I agree with Brad that it is possible to merchandize everything.  I think magicman is hinting at the answer but let me use a sledgehammer.  Most loggers are terrible salespeople.  In my view of things they are lazy or ignorant re the value of marketing.  They spend tremendous amounts of time on cutting trees, they spend only a fraction of that time on selling them and that's the reason most small guys are poor.  I think it is even deeper than that, I think many small loggers don't enjoy the process of selling/marketing and that's the reason they re logging.  

I spent 15 years selling at a high level and I am looking at things differently.  I entered the land management business to manage my farm, then my neighbors, then I was managing harvest for a neighbor, then another neighbor, then I had more customers than I can service.  My next challenge was selling, in 3 months of working phones I was getting 10-50% better pricing on conventional material (straight logs, walnut, etc) than the loggers I was using.  Then I started developing markets for junk stuff and I time everything.  I cannot do anything about the weather but other than that I'd have done ok this year.  In my largest walnut project I sat on it until I got the pricing I thought it deserved and in the process found out a lot more re selling walnut.  On the next project of this size I'll do better.  

On limbs:  I sell limbs, we clean the sites up so nothing over 6" is left on the ground.  Somewhere there is a market for it.  Firewood, pallet wood, scrag mills, hardwood pulp mills, etc etc.  Actually lots of markets but it is the cost of getting it to market that bedevils the little guy with equipment & process only designed to cut and process straight logs.

Last, most loggers, small guys, have the wrong equipment to deal with anything other than straight logs.  It's one of the reasons I'm looking at harvesters and forwarders.  I need to pickup small stuff like black locust, it's worth $150/ton but not a single logger takes time to cut and sort that unless they are desperate.  On my walnut job there are over 100 tons of it dead or dying.  Costs me very little to pickup a locust stem with another stem if I am using a forwarder.  On a skidder that could be destructive and slow.  

All in all though I chalk it up to people just getting by and being too desperate to stop and think and work a phone instead of a chainsaw.  The phone makes more $ and until they use the phone more than a chainsaw they'll have a hard time getting ahead.  

[Magicman]

 smiley_dizzy  Of course I know that other useful materials can be recovered from what loggers leave after logging a property.  The OP only mentioned "lumber" and so did I.   :P 

[Southside]

To add to @nativewolf a big part of the problem becomes cash flow.  The price of equipment, labor, insurance, taxes, fuel, has such an impact on the cash flow that many operations don't have the time to attempt to merchandise anything outside of the commodity flow just to keep the wolves at bay.  

The river one has to cross between a successful micro operation - couple guys, older equipment - and a full fledged logging operator with the capacity for full utilization is about as wide as the Atlantic and as treacherous as doing so in a canoe. I am sure most everyone would like to make more profit, but if the owner is running the day to day operation because he can't get someone to run it for him then who is doing the targeted merchandising?  You have to keep the doors open before you worry about the color of the paint on the walls.  Logging is a commodity business, as such the industry is always just about at break even and the real opportunities are in the niche markets.   

[Brad_bb]

But this is exactly the point. ;D The OP stated that he has purchased an entry level sawmill and is trying to recover usable material from what the buyer left.  He's not mentioned any intention to sell.  He intends to build his own building and in doing so, he can salvage usable material from smaller stuff as needed.  Since it's his building, he may be able to afford a little more time to salvage material instead of buying material elsewhere.    

[Magicman]

Again I totally agree with you Brad_bb, as well as the suggestions and comments made by others.  We can not know the "intentions" of the OP until he states them.  He stated "lumber" which is what I addressed.  Yes, "usable material" other than firewood can and should be recovered from what the logger considered waste and did not recover.

[OHBucknut]

I appreciate the passion in all your responses. You all gave me something to think about. I am looking to use the tree tops primarily for 2x4s and 2x6s. If it doesn't work out or twists or bows too bad I have an OWB at least I can get some BTUs outta it lol. I am learning and since the limbs are as established part of the tree as the main tree (Pardon the lack of technical terms) ideas wondering about the actual structure also. 

I also realize that it won't be the most productive sawing I'll ever do but better than burning them or letting them rot

I do have plenty of time as it's a personal project and don't really plan on selling lumber until it's like slabs or turning blanks for wood working.