ok to chainsaw mill Texas Cedar?

[mkdmj]

Howdy,
I am very inexperienced.

Is their any problem with with using a chainsaw mill on Texas Mountain Cedar (its actually Juniper Ash). 

We have a ton of them and I was thinking of building a little cabin from them.

I know it is advisable to let them dry for a while, but would their be a significant problem if I was to build with them within a week of cutting and milling?

I am not trying to build a structure that would last a long time, just a little project that I would use for a year and to gain experience.

Thanks for the help
mk

[mkdmj]

Rough idea of what I am thinking.

[starmac]

Me thinks that door is going to be pretty heavy. I have thought about close to the same design, but was thinking two swinging doors or an overhead door on the end to get the wheelers in.

[Ianab]

See no reason you can't mill it. It's a softwood, and related to Eastern Red Cedar, so it should cut relatively easily. The wood is very  durable, so if you build something with it, it will probably outlast you  :D Fence posts made from it are supposed to be good for 50 years in the ground, so it should last even longer above ground.

For a  little cabin like that, you can saw and nail it up the same day, especially with cedar.  It will dry out nailed in place just fine.

[mkdmj]

Thanks alot!

[terrifictimbersllc]

Good luck.  Those trees will run away once you start the saw. They have heard about another Texas Chainsaw event. 

[TKehl]

Should be fine.  Keep a bunch of Gatorade chilled and eat bananas or potatoes for potassium. 

[OffGrid973]

Do you still want to seal the ends on fresh cut cedar as I have some sticks getting dropped off tomorrow as a barter on my new trailer.  He is going to use them inside for paneling and I saw this thread so was curious if movement will be the same outside (cold weather) vs inside (70 degrees).

[Magicman]

There is no reason to end seal ERC nor SYP for that matter.

[LeeB]

Lots of bark inclusion in mountain cedar. Hard to get a solid board. The dust is a killer. Very rot resistant. go for it. 

[OffGrid973]

Thank you MM

[Ianab]

He is going to use them inside for paneling and I saw this thread so was curious if movement will be the same outside (cold weather) vs inside (70 degrees).

It will dry (and hence experience any movement) faster in the warmer air. But the end result should be pretty much the same. Most Cedars are pretty forgiving to dry. Fast and low shrinkage, and not very prone to end checking.

[Darrel]

Texas Mountain Cedar is very much like the western juniper that grows here on the east side of the cascades in Oregon. I love sawing juniper. I was framing in a small shed and need eleven more 2x4 studs so I went out to my mill and sawed them, made three trips across the yard carrying them and nailed them.  They have stayed straight as the day I cut them.

[Cedarman]

About 10 years ago we did a clearing job at Chickasaw National Rec area just south of Sulphur Ok.  A lady with the state took us down south to the  big hills just north of Texas and we stood on a high knob and looked out over 50,000 acres of Ashe Juniper.  Said we could have all of it, just cut it and get rid of it.  Those junipers had 3 to 6 big stems coming out of the ground and spreading in all directions.  Wasn't a straight log in any of them.  60 years ago it was all pasture with lots of cattle.    It used to burn every 3 to 5 years keeping the AJ out of there.  Now just a fire waiting to happen.   They are twice as hard to cut down as ERC.  I did cut a couple of 6' logs I brought home.  Was kind of a tannish brown if I remember. 
It was very rocky ground too.
Good luck with the AJ.

[Darrel]

Juniper here is considered a weed tree and the government is paying grants to "stimulate" the juniper industry. And it grows much like you describe the AJ growing. Finding a good saw log is difficult at best. But here on my property, I have a mix of 90% Pondarosa pine and 10% WJ that grows straight and tall like  pine. Good saw logs, every one of them.

[starmac]

Most Texas cedar I have been around is as you describe and we just cut what we could for fence post, but in the late 70's I was on a crew that built all the roads ina new subdivision at Baytown Texas, and the cedar there (a different species) was all probably 24 inches at the stump, straight as an arrow with very little taper. It was beautiful logs. We pushed them into piles and burned them to get rid of them, probably a hundred or more.

[Ianab]

Trees that are "first colonisers" in open pasture tend to end up with very poor form.  Cattle bust up the saplings so they end up with multiple leaders, and if not that, they have a lot of branches and taper in the log.

So it's not that the wood is useless, it's just hard to find a decent sawlog.

Where as the same tree growing in an established forest setting like Darrell describes tends to grow upwards more to find the light. Leaves you with a decent straight trunk that's shed most of it's lower branches, and that makes for a decent sawlog.