Whatcha Sawin' 2022 ??

[cutterboy]

Hi all. July 10 I cut down this white pine and sawed eight logs from it. 


 
I sold the first three logs then stored the other five up off the ground in the barnyard.


 
I left them there for five weeks to let the sticky sap dry out. A couple days ago I started sawing them into lumber.
The first one was a nice log...about 16" and nice and straight. I love logs this size...small enough to handle easily, yet big enough to get 12" wide boards.


 

 

 
Of course not all logs in a tree are nice ones. This one was the last log up the tree but it gave me a cant I could cut 7" boards off of.


 

 
In the end I got a nice little stack of pine lumber drying.


 

   Happy sawing.....cutter

[Magicman]

Nice cutter..... 8)



  
I finished my White/Red Oak job today.  No QS and really no lumber, just square stuff from some crooked, ratty "logs" for table legs, etc.

No bf tally, just hourly rate for 11 hours plus a 10% tip.  Both the customer and I were happy.   

[WV Sawmiller]

  Wow - 4 days between posts here on this thread.

  I got a call from a guy 15 miles away yesterday who said he had 4-5 oak logs he wanted sawed. I have a couple of orders for stuff I have to cut off my place but my tractor won't be ready (Front tire getting foam filled) till Monday so his timing was perfect included cooler weather with thunderstorms threat for the afternoon so I loaded and hooked up last night and met them there at 7:00 am this morning.


 The logs were in a wood line but they had a skid steer with a bucket and grapple. There were logs from 2 big red oaks and the butt logs both exceeded the specs on my mill so I had to whittle them down to make them fit. We ended up with about 8 logs and 1335 bf of 4/4, 6/4 one LE for counter tops, and 5 nice 4" mantels from 18-20 inches wide (Clear surface). We finished about 3:30 pm with thunderstorms still threatening but I missed it there and on the way home where it had already hit.


 4" one LE mantels on bottom. 6/4 one LE for countertops.

Temporary stacking so they can move it with the tractor forks to their shop for storage. The client says he is going to build a kiln. He has been paying high prices for mantels so was happy to find me and I like the idea of sawing 4" thick slabs.

  The customer is a general contractor who had cleared the oaks to build the house on the site. The client did not want to cut the trees but they were in the way and had to go so he promised he'd use the wood in the build and they were mollified with that answer. (You can see the house under construction in the background.) This promises to be a very good arrangement for both of us.

  I love one day jobs this close to home I can sandwich in between other projects especially when the client is as happy as these guys were.

  I read somewhere here about sending pictures to the customer and sent these to him in case he wants to forward to his client.

[caveman]

Looks good, Howard.  John and I started with a large pignut hickory butt log that we pulled off the mill and set aside.  We then sawed a camphor log, cypress and a eucalyptus.  The top picture is a camphor slab.  The others are eucalyptus.  Some of the eucalyptus slabs had so much stress they split nearly end to end.  I did not take pictures of the cypress mantles we sawed but the color was really good (almost like sinker cypress).


 

 

 

[Magicman]

Wow - 4 days between posts here on this thread.

There will not be any sawing by me for the next ~two weeks which is/was very much planned.  

Looking good with your sawing Howard.  

That is some "wonkie" stuff caveman.  (wonkie is good, just different)  :(

[caveman]

We have sawed quite a bit of "wonky" eucalyptus for a customer of ours.  He came by and picked up some smaller logs that we sawed to 1 1/2" thickness.  I stopped by his place a couple of weeks ago and looked at his inventory, projects he's building and his operation in general.  This guy is a former student of mine (imagine a 20 something Tule Peak) that does unique woodwork.  He does not have a sawmill, but he has a Nyle kiln and has a CNC flattening table that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 7'x15' that swings a 7" cutter.  

I tell you this because he dries and flattens short slabs and sells them online as part of river table kits.  I saw some he was getting ready to send out the other day at pretty high prices.  He told us to keep a log to saw for ourselves.  We'll dry the slabs and probably get more for one or two of them than we charged him for sawing the piles below.


Some of my get around to it projects can be seen in the background.

[WDH]

That camphor slab is upset and frowning at me.

[firefighter ontheside]

I haven't milled much this summer except eastern red cedar that I sold green.  It's been too dang hot to make me want to mill hardwoods on the weekends.  Well, August has cooled off in these parts and it was a high of 82 today.  I decided to mill some walnut that's been hanging around for a few years.  I milled 2 logs into 4/4 boards and a larger log that was about 20" diameter with a nice crotch into live edge 8/4 slabs.  


 

 

 

 

 

[WDH]

That is a nice haul. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Thanks Danny.  I've got a lot more walnut to mill and that will give me something to do this fall.

[Magicman]

Oh wow guys, never say never.  A many times repeat customer that is 236 miles away has called back and I gave him a tentative sawing start date of Sept 5th.  :

Many of you can guess where it is. 

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

  Instead of the million Board Foot Club T shirt you need to  be wearing your Million Mile Shirt. :D

[Magicman]

Yup, this is too big of a customer to not comply.  This is sawing only 11' timbers, no side lumber.  I first sawed for him in 2017.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sounds like Sandy sweetgums are in the future. ;)

[Larry]

Did about a dozen walnut logs this weekend.  This one was the best of the bunch for slabs.  Spent about 15 minutes with the chainsaw so it would fit through the 32" throat of my TK.

[Magicman]

Sounds like Sandy sweetgums are in the future.

He has used all of the trees that had to be removed on the property so this time he is buying log truck loads of logs.  It takes 18" tops to saw 12X12's so we shall see. 

[olcowhand]

@Larry 
WOW!

[JRWoodchuck]

Larry I call that log WINNING!

[rusticretreater]

@Magicman That is totally wonkie that he is buying whacks of logs like that! 8)

Black Walnut, my favorite wood!

[WV Sawmiller]

   I cut a big (24" at the stump) white pine yesterday and bucked it into 10, 12 & 16' logs today.


This little lady moseyed across the pasture below me with her 2 this years fawns. The fawns are good sized to only be about 3 months old.


The upper 16' log was 14" at the little end. barely showing is a 7' crooked top I sawed into stickers. Everything else is 2/4 X 8" wide. I set my start on the final turn so I get a 1"  board at the bottom of every cant.


At the end of the day I loaded my 2nd 12' log on the arms. I neglected to get a picture of the last one before I sawed it. This one is about 17" at the little end but I'll lose a little due to some sweep.


At the end of the day I had about 432 bf/sf of which about 380 sf will go to fill my customer's order although he'll likely want the 4/4X8" dog boards too and I'll throw in the stickers. I was hoping to get the whole 1100 sf order out of the one tree but its gonna be close. The next 2 -12' logs should return 350-400 sf. I just don't know if the 10' butt log will be enough to complete the order. I hate the thought of cutting a second tree to finish the order. These half inch thick boards are much prettier than I thought they'd be. I will probably have to WD40 my whole mill to get the sap off it. I'm using 4* blades and have to slow down at the knots but they are working well and not jumping over the knots.

My JD 750 died at the end of the day. I think/hope it is a simple clogged fuel filter as that is what it is acting like.

 My blade guy called and brought me back a dozen resharpened blades and I sent 7 back with him. So far I am well pleased with his work and turn around time. He picks up and delivers so no packaging or shippers to contend with.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Well my tractor issue was a clogged fuel line. After checking the filter and lines before and after I found it was between the tank and the filter. I put an in line shut off valve in it the last time which was a life saver. The last hiccup was bleeding the air out of the line down range from the fuel filter which i removed and will replace real soon.


I went up in the woods and dragged down this 12' long 2nd cut and the 10' butt log. These 2 plus the last one shown yesterday returned about 661 sf of lumber. Total 1060 sf of 2/4 X 8" 10', 12' & 16' boards. At $1/sf that made this a highly valuable white pine. :D


 12 & 16' boards with sticker material underneath. The boards on the left are 12' with some wane but will trim out to 10' or more on average.

10' boards from the butt log.

 I called the customer and he should be her Saturday. He will call back tomorrow to let me know if he needs any 8/4 framing or such.

 Now I need to start on an order for 130 poplar 1"X6"X12'. I have one 19' log om the woods I need to buck and I guess I'll have to cut and buck another tree or two and drag some more logs down.

[Dan R]

 
 
Got some logs from a 50 year old log home that was taken down. Cutting them into 6 by 6 s for a post and beam structure. All second growth Douglas fir. 

[Ljohnsaw]

I like your saw ;)  I got me one of those, too.

[Dan R]

Just bought the saw. Nice when you can cut 6 inches in one pass 

[fluidpowerpro]

Are you talking about the big skillsaw in the pic? What model is it?