A home for every log....

[Jim_Rogers]

Not at this past open house at Woodmizer in Maine, but last year's open house, I heard Ross say: "there is a home for every log".....

What he meant was there is lumber in every log and you need to find the correct home for that lumber.
Some logs are great and make nice clear lumber, some logs (as we all know from looking at the "ugly" log thread) are not so great.

I have been holding on to a "not so great" large red oak log for a while waiting for just the right "home" for it to be found.

Here it is:



 

What you see in the photo other than the trailer planks are some very large red oak wedges. They are 12" wide by 10" tall and 3 feet long. The customer is a very large paving company that puts down hot-top all around my side of my state. The have several large trailers to move the paver machine and the street rollers to the job sites. The problem is that these large trailers have ramps on them that are too far apart. And they have trouble loading the street roller machines onto the trailers. Their solution was to have a large wedge to ride up on to get on top of the trailer. You see the trailer ramps are more than 7' apart and the street roller is only 6' wide.
I don't have a picture of the wedge being used.
Or of the wedge on the trailer when not being used.
But I do have a picture of how I make them.

First, I cut the timber. I make it 10" tall and 12" wide.
Then I take my chain saw and very carefully cut them to 3' long. Hopefully with good square ends.
I put a plank on my bed rails to act as a table, and another plank on against my log uprights to act as a fence.
I put a left over 10" tall piece of the timber on the planks and put the "wedge" piece on it as well. But with one end of the wedge piece being up on the extra block.
Like this:


 

Here you can see the "table" plank and the fence plank as well as how I get my clamp to hold it still.
In this position I can cut the short timber from end to end diagonally, to create the wedge.

Like this:



 

I figure these wedges weigh about 86.25 lbs each. They are a bit heavy but you can easily flip them over and move them around.
The paving company order 6 wedges.
Before I could cut up the above log into the timber, the called me back at 6:55 am and asked if they could add to their order.
"What was I going to say?" No?
He added some 6x6x2' blocks and some 12" x 12" x 2' blocks for blocking up their heavy equipment in the maintenance garage while they work on them.
This "block log" as I like to call it made all six wedges and 11 out of the 12 6x6x2' pieces they ordered. It was an ugly old knobby log that wasn't much good for anything other than being a "block log"....

Saving odd knobby logs for things like this seems at times to be a waste, but then again sometimes these odd junkie looking logs can "fill the bill" and make some usable product that "has a home".....

Jim Rogers

[rasman57]

Very clever use of the right log for the job!  Like the pics and details too.

[Ocklawahaboy]

I love your thread title and sentiment.  I hate seeing any log go to the chipper, much less rot.  between the pen turners and rustic furniture makers etc, I cant see wasting much of anything.  those big wedges are a great use of a less than desireable log.

[jamesamd]

Most excellent,Jim ;)

Jim

[barbender]

Right on, Jim ;) I also got to pick out another regional dialect difference in your story- "hot-top". I worked for an asphalt paving outfit for 16 years, and never heard that expression. We called it "blacktop" for the most part, or just "mix". Thanks for the insight on how to make the wedges ;)

[Ianab]

My thinking is that most ugly logs are in fact very nice short pieces of wood, held together by various knots. Because I use most of my wood in various projects I'll saw some pretty ugly logs, dry them, and then see what I can recover. Most furniture only uses pieces 2 to 4 ft long, so with a bit of planning you can get that out of some pretty low grade logs, and still get to use 3/4 of the wood. The reject pieces you cut out are nice dry firewood.  ;D

One of our computer clients has a large finger jointing facility. They do this on a big commercial scale, with a computerised chop saw. Feed rough knotty boards in one end, chop out the knots, and clue the boards back together again. Then it's pre-primed and sold as paint grade clear boards or various mouldings, which are worth a good price. This is an operation with maybe 12 staff, and they run 2 shifts, so they process a lot of wood in a week.

Ian

[Ianab]

Right on, Jim ;) I also got to pick out another regional dialect difference in your story- "hot-top". I worked for an asphalt paving outfit for 16 years, and never heard that expression. We called it "blacktop" for the most part, or just "mix". Thanks for the insight on how to make the wedges ;)

, here it's call "hot-mix", so add that one to the list.   :D

[beenthere]

Often it is referred to as hot mix here too, as opposed to cold mix, or cold roll.

Fifty years ago, the local roads in WI were all put down with a cold mix, gravel put down and wind-rowed with road graders, then a mixer moved over the wind-row and mixed the hot oil with the gravel, which was then spread out and rolled out with heavy rollers. Made a great roadway.

Still most refer to the asphalt as hot mix which is trucked in and spread with a machine, even tho we cannot buy cold mix any more. Something about the oil that was used is no longer environmentally appropriate.  :

[thecfarm]

Ianab,my Father and me sold alot of ugly white pine to a sawmill that dovetail lumber. We chased down all of the ugly ones. My Father said,You can sell good logs any time,but the ugly ones you can't. They even brought the crotched ones too.That was when they paid pretty good for it. Now it's the same price as pulp.
Hot top here too,Jim

[thechknhwk]

, here it's call "hot-mix", so add that one to the list.   :D

Most folks around here would say blacktop, but I have heard it called tarvey as well.  BTW, nice blocks Jim.

[bandmiller2]

Hot-mix around here then theirs Dixie mix for skimcoating, not fun to work with on a hot humid day. Frank C.

[Jim_Rogers]

Thanks for all your comments and kind words.

Jim Rogers

[barbender]

I'm always in admiration of you fellas that are making a living with your mills, and post pics and methods that help others out. Thanks, Jim ;) Now on the asphalt, we also call it "hot mix", I've heard "tarvey" as well, that usually had a negative connotation, "I'll still be out here when I am 65 with tarvey on my pants" for example : I miss the asphalt sometimes, it was something I was truly gifted working with. I was a "lute man", the lute being an aluminum rake with teeth on one side and a smooth edge on the other, that is used for shaping and leveling the asphalt. I decided on a career change so I could have time off in the summer, and there was nothing I enjoyed about paving on the 90° days. I wouldn't call myself old by any stretch yet, but the heat was definitely having more of an effect than it did when I was 20 :D One other term, if you wanted to sound uneducated you called the asphalt "tar", for example folks might come and ask "are you guys tarrin' today?" Or even worse was,"are you guys pourin' tar today?". But then, you fellas in the northeast would say that "tah" anyhow, right? ;D

[pineywoods]

Jim, here's another use for the custom ramps. I use the same technique to make custom wheel chair ramps. Most are only 4 inches or so high. 2 or 3 of these laid side by side make an excellent chair ramp. Easy to install, definitely strong enough, and easy to move about if required. Like you, I make them from what would normally be junk logs..

[Cedarman]

Now just how much lumber do you think I would have left if I cut out all the knots? :D  Much better to sell the lumber with knots in it as high grade lumber, with knots no defect.  I know some of you would cry if you saw the stuff we run through the hog for mulch and cry even more when you see the low grade lumber we make into specialized sawdust. 
We have all kinds of lumber stacks and log piles of those "special logs and lumber" that someone just might want  "tomorrow".  And sometimes they do.

[JohnM]

That's pretty slick, Jim.  Nicely done.

[Skip]

Pretty doggone slick  :D