I had an interesting job yesterday

Tom · October 25, 2003, 06:26:17 PM

Florida Cypress Wood Products called and said that they had an order for a 22 foot long 12" x 12" that needed to be trimmed evenly from bottom to top such that the bottom was 12" x 12" and the top was 6" x 6". Could I do it?

Sure, I said.

The brought it out to the house and we drew a centered 6" x 6" on the top of the timber. I ran the mill head to the bottom of the mill and laid the blade against the timber. It was 11 3/4 inches. I then came back to the top of the mill and set the blade at 11 3/4". Then I raised the timber with my hydraulic toe board until the top of the drawing of the 6" x 6" was even with my blade. I raised an intermediate toe board to take the belly out of the timber and we sliced the top of the timber off.

Leaving the piece in place, I turned the timber 180 degrees and did the same thing again. then we took those two "waste" pieces off and put them on their truck.

I turned the timber 90 degrees and went through the same procedure again.

Voilà! a tapered timber as pretty as you please.

"What is this going to be" I asked. I had been dying of curiosity and they wouldn't tell me.

"Is it going to be a flag pole?" That's all I could think it would be used for.

"No, you're not going to believe this", said Bill Kavenough, the owner of Florida Cypress Wood Products.

"It's to have a pulley assembly affixed to the top 6" inch end and be shipped to New York, NY where they are doing a restoration. It will be planted upright in the yard and a line will be run from the pole to a second story window. :D It's a clothes line" :D :D

"Well, I never........" I said, astounded, as he shoved money in my pocket. :D ;D

What is really funny is that someone, later, will ask him for a 3 x 12 x 22 or 3 x 6 x 22 tapered to nothing on one end and he'll sell more special cuts. "Don't throw anything away!"

Bro. Noble · October 25, 2003, 06:48:20 PM

Tom,

I use that sawing procedure every once-in-a-while.

I use it to turn ties into pallet stuff when I forget to lower the tapers :-[

Looks like them tapered ties would be worth a premium for use on hillsides or banked curves, but those buyers are pretty narrowminded ;)