Hello I'm new to the forum and it is obvious this is the place to fill in my knowledge gaps. Over the holidays I removed a dying sycamore in my mother's front yard. This was my old treehouse 30 years ago so I knew there were some big nails buried in the butt. I did cut a couple short uppers but chunked most of it into firewood. By BIL was kind enough to help and less wary of the metal, he ripped the three biggest rounds in half and then we saw that beautiful ray fleck. That started a discussion about what we weren't milling and why. I spent years working for a miller who specialized in urban trees, metal was inevitable. Sometimes a customer let us know that they had to change planer knives after buying our lumber. I figure any steel is too much but I want to learn more. How do yall' deal with nice logs that have metal?
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Usually I say bad things then put on a new band. Some logs, oak especially, will let you know they have metal in them from the blue stain. I do have a metal detector for those I am suspicious of, but it is not nearly as good at finding metal as a new band is.
I usually break out the metal detector after I hit metal, it says yup, that was metal. My best one was when I hit metal, rolled the log off the mill, swept it and marked where the metal was. Went and dug out the chainsaw, had to sharpen, fuel and oil it, then came back and... cut at the mark say_what
Ha - I pretty much did the same thing once, hit something during an opening cut - was not sure exactly what it was given the noise - went and got the saw to cut off the slab and chunk out the "something" only to run the chain full tilt boogie right into the "something" - made the same strange noise again - which turned out to be a giant ceramic insulator.... band and a chain dead in less than a minute!! Said more bad words... >:(
I am very familiar with the bad word syndrome.
I find stuff in woods trees from old tree stands every so often.
The latest was a very nice EWP and affected 2 logs.
I dumped them in my slab pile.
Thanks for the replies, I am going to test a small "wand" style detector with some scrap wood and get an idea of how handy it is. I've used the same tool to find survey pins in the ground but that's not asking as much from it.
My radio shack detector doesn't get very deep, but works OK on shallower metal.
A case in point is the aforementioned WP logs, I used it on the first one and still hit a big nail that was 6" deep in it.
I'm sure there are much more sensitive detectors out there.
The wand style detector picked up metal between 2-3 inches under pine and hardwood but no bark on either. A little deeper on the hardwood. This doesn't justify purchasing one to me but it's still good to know for when I think a survey pin is under a fallen tree at work. I mill as a hobby and most of the wood goes to family and friends. I'm trying to think outside the box on this. Today, in my mind, steel ruins lumber because it's going to tear up somebody's woodshop toys. Tomorrow, I want to imagine a way around this. I'm not excited about the live edge slab thing but that's an example of a product that doesn't need a lot of machining. Anybody know of any similar products? Stuff that can be made from rough sawn lumber without much resaw, planeing, or routering, but still shows off cool grain.
It is a lot of trouble but if you sweep the metal detector over the log between cuts, it should find any metal. It is certainly capable of finding any metal in the lumber that you have already cut.
Quote from: GullyBog on January 03, 2019, 06:33:55 PMHow do yall' deal with nice logs that have metal?
I think they call that an oxymoron. No such thing as a nice log with metal in it. Sure sycamore is spectacular when quarter sawn, but every sycamore has it. I'd suggest you buy what you want from a real nice log and let the metal one go to the grinder for chips. It's not like there are a shortage of sycamores!
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Mom's neighbor came and got all the firewood. This one was too much of an uphill battle. I'm glad I didn't let my sentimental side waste blades and time. My barn's already filling up with lumber from trees that had more memories than board feet. Hope to make some nice inlay with the two uppers next week.
I've milled mesquite with the Alaskan mill that has bullet fragment in it, usually lead. Makes for a pretty stain, not hard on the chain, but lead is a turn off to people who want a table top.
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I knew that I had hit metal big time when this happened. :-\
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The round object was this bolt.
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And the wrench handle looking object was a .....wrench.
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Yup, buried inside of this ERC log laying side by side was a bolt and monkey wrench.
Wow MM that's cool metal. Did you try to figure from the growth rings when the wrench may have been left? Nice mystery anyway.
Somewhere, someplace there's a father mad at his son for losing his wrench!