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Sheoak sawing mission.

Started by Ianab, August 21, 2017, 01:08:26 AM

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Ianab

Finally, a FINE day.  8)

Web cam view of where I'm working. Beside the white building on the left of the picture.


Web cams around the province.
http://primowireless.co.nz/info/primo-webcams
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

POSTON WIDEHEAD

The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

grouch

How come you're not sawing up on that hillside? Should be some nice trees around where the white stuff starts.

;D
Find something to do that interests you.

Ianab

Pesky rules around National Parks.  ::) :D

The better trees are down around the lower parts of the park anyway. Snowline at the moment is above the tree line, only a bit of tussock growing up there.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Ianab

Put some little piece of the Sheoak that I'd previously cut up with the chainsaw on the lathe to see what it looed like. This is how it looks with one coat of polyurethane  :)





Hard to capture all the grain and ray flecks that are in it in a photo, but you get the idea. I think it's going to be worth the effort of milling.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

grouch

I can see some of them in the part closest to the camera. Hard to get the light at the right angle to capture what two eyes can see when the part is in your hand.
Find something to do that interests you.

Ianab

Tried to get some sawing in today, but called a "'rain off".  Seriously,  7 days in the last month when it hasn't rained.  ::) Got the last tree bucked and a log log loaded in the bunks ready to mill. Then the rain set in again.

At least I had Lil there to record the event.  :D



We have a saying here. If you can see the Mt, it's going to rain. If you can't see the Mt, it IS raining.

We couldn't see the Mt.  :D
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

POSTON WIDEHEAD

I can't see the mountain either.....its raining here.  :D :D :D
The older I get I wish my body could Re-Gen.

Ianab

Had put some little off-cuts in the drying cupboard to hurry them along. Planed / sanded and oiled some today. Wow this stuff is HARD. Going to be rough on the planer, and may end up using the router jig on a lot of it.

Little piece of heart wood, 2x1 about 12" long with a bit of wood oil on it.





Getting a bit of cracking and twisting with some of the pieces, but I think most of it is going to be useable for something.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Ianab

Got a new toy today  ;D



That's the first lot of Sheoak that was cut about 2 months ago.

The meter only claims to be accurate +/- 2%, but it seems about right. Measured a chunk of wood that was well air dried and been sitting inside for a week, and that read 14%. About what it should be in our climate, so I exepct the 19% in that will be about right. Thicker pieces are still 22-25%, which is again to be expected.
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Ianab

Put some of the Sheoak through the planer today, which is a whole other mission.  :D

Want to make some live edge book shelves out of some of the wider boards. Had to take them a bit thinner than I wanted to get "most" of the warp out, These are the pieces I picked out for the end boards of the shelf. Good colour and figure in them. The shelf pieces are bigger, but not as well coloured, although they have pretty much every figure or defect you can imagine, all randomly spread across the boards. Curl, chatoyance, radial rays, bug holes etc  :D



Sharpened the planer blades, but 0.5mm was all it wanted to take off in one pass (that's 1/50th of an inch) This stuff is HARD, ~2,000 lb Janka. For comparison, Black Locust is about 1,700.  
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

mad murdock

That is some very nice looking wood!  I bet Poston is green with envy to see all those $300 pieces he can make out of that stuff! The Mr looks a lot like our MT Hood over on this side of the shore. Climate I bet is similar though you probably average a bit warmer that is over here. One of the timber co's we work for here, has a retired head forester who has spent a lot of time over there in your backyard, he has said that NZ is a lot like the PNw and grows trees just as well maybe better than here. A lot of prior pastureland he said, has been converted to Douglas Fir. Grows like crazy with 100 years of sheep fertilizer in the soil, and lots of bd ft yield per acre, with the added benefit of a government there that is friendly to aerial application of herbicides and other treatments to maximize yield in short time. Quite the paradise you have there!! Thanks for the pics and videos!!
Turbosawmill M6 (now M8) Warrior Ultra liteweight, Granberg Alaskan III, lots of saws-gas powered and human powered :D

Ianab

NZ has a lot of different climate zones in a small area, but California / Oregon would be the most similar. Trees from that area grow well here at least. Doug Fir, Radiata pine, Port Orford Cedar, Monterey Cypress etc

100+ years ago the Govt at the time realised that the local native forests grow too slow to be harvested commercially, and they were going to run out of trees. So they set up a some research projects about what trees could be grown better. There is a fantastic stand of Redwoods in Rotorua that were planted in 1901, along with stands of assorted other species. Redwoods didn't take off as a commercial crop as they seem too sensitive to microclimates. They grow great in some spots, but a few miles away the climate is different and they don't thrive. Radiata Pine was the winner, and Douglas Fir worked best for the cooler areas, mostly in the Sth Island. 

Then in the 30s (Depression) they created work schemes to plant some large forests. Kaingaroa forest is 2900 square km (~660,000 acres) of mostly pine, and gets harvested on roughly 27 year cycles. My maths says ~25,000 acres a year just from that forest. Lots of other marginal farm land (too steep and erosion prone) has been convert from pasture into plantation forestry over the years. 

So yes the Govt takes takes forestry seriously as it's a large part of the economy, but it's more like a farmed crop than traditional forest management. The remaining native forest is pretty much locked up in National parks and reserves now. There are some small private owned areas that can be selectively logged on a permit system, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the exotic forests. 
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

Ianab

My friend Harry who helped with the sawing sent me a picture of what he's doing with the boards he took home. 



Crazy figure in every board, and hard as nails  :D
Weekend warrior, Peterson JP test pilot, Dolmar 7900 and Stihl MS310 saws and  the usual collection of power tools :)

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