Today I was sawing up sycamore and ran into "that log" you know the one that saws about as perfect as perfect gets sawing logs. It made me feel real good, like I actually knew what I was doing... very little if any taper, no crook, no knots, the band cut like butter, it was just "that log". No matter what I did it just seemed to drop boards, It just laid there and took every pass of the blade with no movement. I actually came out way over scale too, I wished all logs were like "that log". It's nice when you get a log that wanted to be sawed, most of the time it seems they want to make it challenging for you...
Thanks
Seems like Christmas came early for you. Logs like that make you glad you have a mill
I know just what you are talking about. I had not one, but two of those logs today! :o :o 8' white pine. straight as an arrow, almost no knots (that's ok for pine ;) ) no taper. Got 40 1x12's and a buncha smaller ones too out of those logs. The other logs were good sawing as well. This load came from some urban harvesting on someones lawn. ;D Waiting for the Zinnnngg! however. ::)
Dave
The urban tree cutting that I do in the land of free for the taking eastern white pine does not allow me the opportunity very often. When it does happen, it is memorable.
Captain
I had a couple of absolute ripper logs last week. The first looked good, solid, striaght, next to no taper and clean- a beautiful white stringy bark. It cut so well- 2 inch boards just kept falling off it. It was almost embarassingly good. The next one looked a bit of a dog but low and behold it cut every bit as good. It really made my morning. The woodmizer was just singing.
You need those up moments. Its a funny thing how with good logs all your equipment seems to operate at its best. Start trying to work with low grade stuff and its just hard. Hard on you and hard on your gear. Got to get the best logs you can.
Best Regards
It's a real treat to go from the dried out, wormy, blue stained junkers to cutting fresh good quality sawlogs. The logs I sawed this week are the first since last winter that have been fresh.
Dave
Yeah, I cut a 30" red oak a couple of weeks ago that was in this category: wow, it feels so good when everything just works right. Of course, making anything useful out of the crooked ones or the ones with lots of taper and knots has its own reward, but you're right about that occasional "perfect" log-
Merry Christmas!
Lj
The oposite end of this is the "log from hell" Boy, I cut one up a year ago, 10' white pine, 34 - 36 dia. Too big for my mill, that log beat me up so bad, it was like everything I touched on it turned to dung.
Last week I had an afternoon with 4 logs from the same pine-all great. I pulled up at 12:30 PM set up, cut 980 bf of 3/4 siding, packed up and drove home at 4:30. Sure wish it went that well more often. But if it was that easy everyone would do it.....
8) Just curious, dad2nine, did you quartersaw, or flat saw? Would like to see pictures if quartersawn. Also, what is the final use?
That particular sycamore log was one of several flatsawn into 7/8" x 7's to be kiln dried and I think made into 1/2" x 5 1/2" or 1/2" x 6" clear finished T&G V-groove boards to cover a cathedral ceiling. I don't have any pictures, sorry...
You guys are right about "the log from hell" I had a strange kind of maple earlier this year that a customer brought me and wanted cut up into 2 x 14's I finally ended up calling the customer back and taking off the mill. I think Noah could have used that lumber to build an ark. The customer agreed and it was sent to the firewood pile. Too bad cause it was a good clean log, just had way to much stress to make lumber, less you were building a boat... I could have been the way I sawed it to, so I didn't charge him anything for my time. There is only so much you can do when you need to end up with a 14" wide cant. He did bring me another maple log and it sawed fine, so we were able to get what he needed.
Thanks