Marking Lumber from same logs

[123maxbars]

The lumber/slabs that are going into my kiln get air dried first. I make good size stacks of same species/thickness and have several logs in the same stack.
How do you guys mark the end of your lumber to reference later so you know it came from the same log?  A lot of my customers want lumber from the same log for furniture etc, The same question for book matched slabs. I thought maybe come up with a painting system or something. Thanks for any advice,

[Chuck White]

Different color on the end(s) of each log makes sense!   ;)

[123maxbars]

yeah that was what I was thinking also, Thanks Chuck,

[WV Sawmiller]

   You might use a date and suffix something like 10/1/17-01 with a lumber crayon to show date cut and log number for that day. The suffix would indicate the log number for the day. All slabs with the same suffix would indicate from the same log.

   I haven't done that with slabs yet but would be an easy way to show both how long it has been drying and the log number.

   You could keep a spreadsheet with this info if you really wanted to be high tech.

[YellowHammer]

We don't mark slabs from the same log because of the way I mill them, from opposite sides of the log, but we do mark exceptional book match pairs as they come off with a sharpie on the end. 

It's rare for me to wholesale slab logs, because there are certain cuts that will be much higher quality than others, so I usually only take 2, maybe 4 at most, live edge slabs per log.  These will be the prime cuts of the log, the rest is sawn into edged, narrower 8/4 or 4/4.

We also date every pallet of wood as it gets stickered so I can understand and optimize my cycle time.

[OffGrid973]

Just started tagging since lots of customers are asking for book matched to make table tops. 01-004-03

01 = Walnut
004 = Tree Number
03 = Slab Number

if you take a look at my website http://www.wimerhardwoods.com then select the walnut section you will see the slabs.   My website is almost finalized so once the mailer is fixed and pictures of my slabs are all taken in the right sideways format I will share it in it's own thread as an idea for others.

Good luck,
-Chris

[Bruce Martens]

I use a crayon to mark a unique number on each slab and record all info in an excel spreadsheet under that number. I take a picture of the slab or piece when its still fresh looking, insert a comment in a cell and put the picture into the comment.  

That way if I am selling a piece or looking for something in particular to use myself I can filter all pieces or batches for things like figure, spalted, species, sizes etc. to get a short list of what I'm after then look at the pics to find exactly what I want.  

Its extra work but its helpful and kind of fun to have it all at my finger tips.