A customer brought me a hickory log to saw into a 6.5 x 6.5 x 27' beam. It was 16" to 9" dia. I had my doubts but we mounted it on the Peterson and I tried. Just can't be done. Had it been dead straight...maybe. I did get two sides sawn and there was just no way to finish the other two cuts. We moved it to the WM and finished the other two cuts by sliding the cant back and forth. That worked fine except that the cant warped a lot with each cut.
I won't try that again. I've sawn several Hickory logs but none have moved as much as this one.
I feel your pain. I am through sawing hickory. I use it only for firewood.
Hickory isn't too bad in shorter lengths, but I too have had tension issues with long hickory. It does make really good firewood...
smiley_devil If I recall correctly.
Unfortunately, I sell a good deal of hickory, so I have to saw it to sell it. But its not fun, and I don't mill 27 footers...
YH
hickory can definitely be nasty when it comes to tension and drying issues :(
I have had some 40' hickory logs/cants move so much I wasn't sure I would be able to keep them on the mill. Since I have hyd. toe board rollers on both the mill and the ext. I just raise up the far end to start the cut and then when I am half way down the log I lower it and raise the close end. ;)
My favorite photo of log tension this is eucalyptus :o
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20727/WM_Tension.jpg)
Stand it up and put a deer blind on top of it. :)
I try to avoid hickory.
I once had a customer ask me to square (12X12) a 20' Poplar and then saw him four 6X6's. He would not/did not listen when I told him that it would not work. Guess what, it did not work and looked very similar to dgdrls' picture above. Curled up like a banana peel. Did I scale it? Yes I did. $$
.......and then you left it. :)
That is what he does.
I do. ;D
That's what we do,, the worst hickory I (tried) to saw, was a 12' 22" got the four face slabs off, seemingly no issues, thinking this ain't so bad,, when I went for the q-saw pattern cuts, it got bad, never made it through. So bad, I had to get the 4" grinder to cut the blade out, it was an ugly afternoon, memory serves me, I was in the sun as well, during the summer. Lots of mumbling going on :D
I was wrong. Pecan is Devil wood. But ain't pecan and hickory cousins?
Double First Cousins at that. :-\
I have sawed hickory that did make reasonable boards...pretty too. That was not the case with these.
Herb, they are both in the genus Carya, and they are both the smiley_devil :).
Quote from: dgdrls on November 15, 2014, 06:20:03 PM
My favorite photo of log tension this is eucalyptus :o
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20727/WM_Tension.jpg)
Big mistake trying to mill most eucs when they are dry. The only way I manage it is to mill as soon as they hit the ground even then I get quite a few curves. My mill is a twin saw so it seems to work better that a single blade but I have no idea why. I have also heard that if you aren't going to mill immediately it is a good idea to weight them down in a pond until you get the chance to cut.