I was down at the beach yesterday, less than a mile from my house, and was wondering if anybody has bothered cutting into a piece of driftwood. There were some dandy looking logs floating around out there.
U don't want to put them on a band mill they are full of sand and the blade wont last very long. U can't see the sand BUT ITS THERE.
We saw waterlogged stuff all the time. There will be sand, but, we wash them off with a hose and saw 'em up. Still get around 500+ bdft per sharpen. ;D ;D
Depends what your beach is like too... round here if woods been on the beach it will be full of coarse volvanic sand. Nice mix of iron and titanium oxides. Like coarse sandpaper without the paper. Most saws wouldn't make one cut I reckon. A bit of fine silt like FDH has isn't near as abrasize.
Ian
Fine Silt ??? ??? :D :D When our logs dry on the hill, before we wash them, they are as white as SNOW. We cut snails, clam shells, crabs, crawdads, Catfish, AND Sand. Them "Monkeys" is TUFF. ;D :D :D :D :D
If we are sawing close to "Dark Thirty", we get a great "Light Show" from the Debris, as the blade slides through the logs. Pecky is especially spectacular. :D ;) :) :)
FDH What makes that cypress pecky anyway? Is it worms? ???
Beerguy,
My neighbor up in the San Juan Islands has an LT-15 and he saws about 95% driftwood. He saws right off the beach. As he finds logs floating or along shore lines he tows them in and then keeps them tied until a good high tide then pulls them up onto a shute and then they get pressure washed. I'm not sure what the long term blade life is, but there are less logs to worry about in the water for us who are fishing. ;D
rvrdivr
Don't mean to horn in on Fla_D's response to your question, but here is one source that explains it is caused by a fungus.
http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/SoftwoodNA/htmlDocs/taxodiumdisticum.html
YUP, it's a Fungus, and, we have heard that a tree has to be 150 years old to start showing any sign that it's pecky. Ya can't tell from the outside, ya gotta saw it. ;D
We were down at the beach today near Newport, OR where we live, watching an awesome show, as the tide was high about an 8 to 9 foot tide and the ground swells were 20 feet high coming to the beach. Anyway I was wondering the same thing about sawing logs off the beach. If you were able to get them home and let them set for one full winter, clean em off real good and if you use a debarker I would think that it might be worth it, at least give it a shot. We get some really nice logs as well as burls that end up on the beach. When I get my mill and if I can get the proper permission to go and fetch them off the beach I plan on giving it a go, if the blade only lasts for a couple of cuts than its porbably not the thing to do.
The only thing that would concern me would be the corrosion of the mill from the salt. I think I would want to be very meticulious about cleaning up after sawing drift wood. Let us know if you do it, better yet PIC's would be great. thanks
Thanks for the replies. I do see a lot of good logs in the water. Maybe I will try to snag some out of the river before it gets to the saltwater.
Why wait to saw them ??? We saw right out of the river, if at all possible. Wet logs cut much easier than dry ones. Drying boards through the winter should get better quality, rather than from too fast drying and hot temps, maybe ???
Besides, the Tannic Acid will eat the mill faster than the saltwater. We ALWAYS hose off the mill after sawing. Still get black spots in bare steel. Course, we don't get much freeze-up. ;D ;D ;D