ive had my mill for a few years now and still have a few species i havent tried. i got poplar(aspen) layin all over my woods, dry and fresh logs. my neighbor (neighbour for the mounties up north). built his whole house from this stuff. i like hemlock but not the way it dries. the smell of cedar makes me sick, but i cut it up for my friends anyway. white oaks cover the woods and i have many that have beautiful clear trunks some 20 - 30 feet, but the sheer weight of these scares my loader to a stall.
so
what do yall like to cut up and why?
i mean when you have a choice.
what stuff cuts like butter or chips like stone where your at?
fill me in, im a virgin.
i mean in the wood sense, er the species sense.
yea thats it, species :D
Sweet Gum,we cut the heck out of sweet gum for our stake operation, and it cuts great, works well, and is readily available.(cheap)
Red,
Many folks on this site do not make a distinction between aspen and poplar but to me there is a huge difference. I have both big tooth aspen and yellow and tulip poplar in my woods. I intend to utilize both when I begin sawing lumber for my saw barn later this spring.
The tree I refer to as poplar has a big blocky leaf and a flower that resembles a tulip - it is part of the magnolia family. It grows very tall and straight and has self shedding limbs. The bark has verticle grooves with a salt and pepper appearance. My aspen have a leaf that is alternate, nearly circular or broadly egg-shaped, with a short sharp tip at the end, 4 to 6 cm long; fine, shiny dark green above, yellowish-green below, irregular teeth on margin; slender, flatted stalk, trembles in a breeze like the smaller leafed quaking aspen. The flowers are part of catkins. The bark is more horizontally grooved and greenish in color both light and dark green.
What does your aspen/poplar look like?
Eastern White Pine!!!
The logs average larger than any other specie that I saw, and it cuts really easy. The requested material from it is usually 2" so I get board feet stacked up fast without so DanG much carrying.
Red Pine would be a close second. The bark is smoother than white pine and lots of times the lower logs have very little taper and are pretty straight. Again, the most often requested material is dimension. The top stick or two will have some big knots that may cause the blade to wander a bit unless you are really careful.
Here in the Ozarks, I like Walnut and Northern Red oak the best. They have good form so we get some good logs, they are easy to saw, and sell well on the commercial market.
We also have a lot of SYP which also has good form and is easy to saw except for knotty tops or old "fat" pine that has a lot of pitch. We don't have a good market locally for pine except for construction of farm buildings and ocassionally house patterns.
Noble
we have both quaking and bigtooth aspen, both from the populus genus. the diff. i use is the bigtooth leaf is usually twice the size of the quaking. cottonwood, or eastern poplar, has the widest leaf, usually is much larger than the previous.
broad furrowed old growth and greenish yellow new. all in the same genus. we dont talk much of black poplar, except for windbreaks and screens. ive yet to find it relative, the white poplar growing much around here. i thought the reason for the branches shedding was for a disease inflicting upper branches. my woody plants prof called it aspen canker, he said it afflicts most elder poplars. id need to look up the actual name, but i see it all over
thats the rundown on the poplar/aspen in my area
My two favorites are walnut and cherry. Cherry is a little harder to dry properly.
White oak isn't too bad if you've got clean logs and sharp blades. Northern red oak cuts easier but I have more problems drying it than white oak. That probably has to do with the fact I q-saw almost all of the white oak.
Hmmm. I like to cut the kind that already is sold! :D
I enjoy cutting English walnut figure wood the best
Species I have cut: red oak, black oak, white oak, scarlet oak, pin oak, swamp white oak, chestnut oak, tulip poplar, aspen, ash, beech, hickory, black locust, honey locust, black cherry, sweet cherry, black walnut, English walnut, black gum, red maple, silver maple, Norway maple, sugar maple, black birch, eastern hemlock, white pine, pitch pine, Norway spruce, Atlantic white cedar, yew, elm, catalpa, osage orange, sassafras and cottonwood. There's probably a few I've missed.
The only one that gives me much problems are the Norway spruce. They're just too limby. Pitch pine can be a joy if you like big pockets of sap. Black locust is a little to dusty.
I don't have any problems sawing any wood, as long as the saw is sharp. Small logs are a pain, since all you do is turn.
I like to saw Red Oak and Pine, I only come across a couple of pine logs a year and have a couple of people who buy it all.
I have had some stuff on my saw and didnt even know what it was.
ive got some old dry maple to cut up an im lookin fer some tips. no checks and its been down, off the ground, branches on, fer a good 5 yrs. probably 2 foot at the top and 35 or so feet of clear logs. i got 2 logs, about 2-3 cords from the branches. nice wood, very hard. my loader is scared.
My favorite wood is black cherry. I like to saw it, dry it, and make cabinets an furniture with it. Just don't like to pay for it though. Curly maple, both soft and hard, wood be next on my list of favorites. Norway spruce is my least favorite and I refuse to cut any of it.
My favorite is lobloly & shortleaf pine as long as it is not to knotty. ;D :D
Favorite, what is that. Just making sawdust is my favorite. but to get to a specifiic species I would have to say that sawing Douglas Fir is about the most fasvorite of all. 8) It cust fast and there is plenty of it to go around. The most lucious species is Western Wild Cherry. ;D In fact I just sold the last of what I had dried and happened to save a few boards for my Grand Doughters first baby rocking crib. :) then, further down the list we have: Western Oregon Oak, Big Leaf Maple, Sequoia, and Myrtlewood.
Redpowerd,
When you saw that dry Maple, make sure the saw is sharp, sharpen often as dry wood duls the blade much faster than fresh cut does, and wear a dust mask. I was surprised how much dust was floating around in the air when I sawed some dry black ash last spring. Facing toward the sun, there would be a big cloud of dust surrounding the mill. I'd wait outsid the cloud until the saw reached the far end, then get a lungfull of air, hold my breath and dive into the cloud after the saw and bring it back while holding my breath. Would have been much easier if I had a dust mask, but that was 30 miles away at the time. :-/
Has anyone sawed Cal. redwood? I have a few trees here that were planted about 90 years ago and I want to drop a few. Are they worth anything?
Steve
Favorite hardwood so far is White Birch, softwood Doug Fir. Steve, I'll take those redwoods of your hands, I'm only 6-8hrs South of ya! Don't know if I could get 'em across the Border these days though. BWW
What are they worth?? Or better yet what would you pay for them! They have to be about 80' tall and they are big. Lots of limbs to clean up.
Steve
Worth is such a fleeting term! Are they yard trees, or is there a building or power line problem? I'm sure there's a redwood or cedar mill in your area that could tell ya. If you want them find someone with a swingmill, they may go halves with you. BWW
Steve,
When I heard you had Redwood,I called the Langley Township and asked that they declare your trees Heritage Trees.
Besides I thought I spotted an Owl in one of them ;)
Paul a few years back we had the trees declared heritage and the township even came out and put a concrete block out front with details about the trees. There are about 5 out of the 25 that are dying or nearly dead that I'm going to be talking to the city about. We've asked the city to come out and find out why they are dying but they haven't done anything about it. Any ideas as to what we should do?
Spotted owls, eagles and every other bird has lived in them over the years. With all the land rape and the building that's been going on we don't have any wildlife anymore.
People wonder why wild animals are in their garbage and are eating their pets and maybe if they stopped and thought for a second then they would have the answers.
Steve
Steve, if they are West Coast Redwood they are worth twice what Cedar goes for. 8) If they are Sequoia, well, then they are nice for ornamental in a house and not of much value commercially. Around here, people think that Sequoia is very valuable but there is virtually no consistant market of any kind. :'( I have three log truck load in my log yard at this time with no market in site. :-[ Even for firewood it is very marginal. :-/ It burns like paper when dry. Perhaps Tillaway could give us a better value of both. ::) :P
Steve,
I was only kidding around about declaring them Heritage Trees,but I remember a big battle over the same issue in the Newspaper,at least 15 years ago.I think it was on the Island,maybe around Victoria.
It sounds like you are going to have some Heritage Snags in your yard,real soon.You could talk to the Township,and ask what can be done about them.Snags are a liability in a residential area,it might be good to find out who's it is.
You had me going there for awhile Paul! lol! Then I realized that you couldn't call them because they're closed at night! HAHAHA
Steve
I'd post a comment, but, I would just be in trouble with Jeff, AGAIN. :D :D :P
Use your Spanish, Harold,he'll never know :)
no has yet brought up findin a big lump of curly maple. 8). sure does great on the visuals and the bottom line.
GUITAR WOOD
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