Whatcha Sawin' ???

[gfadvm]

MM, You are an inspiration. As long as you are healthy and enjoying what you do, GO FOR IT!

[Magicman]

Well thanks and Happy Birthday to you gfadvm. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Had a couple come by a little after noon just as I was finishing mowing to buy some discount walnut. They bought some walnut and some cherry a week or so back for the wife to make cutting boards. They also bought 3 spalted poplar 1X6 boards and 4 - 1X6 ash boards. She placed an order for a little maple so I'll either cut one or see if my son has one already down he wants cut up. While I was there my wife came out and told me had a guy on his way with a truck load of red cedar.

   I cut a big tulip poplar yesterday that looks like will yield at least 1000 bf. I was going to cut 4 of them but now think one or maybe 2 more will do it. I have a guy lined up with a pair of Belgian mules to haul them. Order for 1600 bf of mostly 12" wide boards along with a few 4X4's. I'm anxious to see those mules pull 8' logs that are 24" at little end or 16' log 20" at the small end.

   The guy showed up with the cedar. Took .8 engine hours on the mill and might have been 100 bf. Had 5 "logs" and biggest wasn't over 10" and 8' long. Most were about 7'. He was going to use them to finish a chicken coop. Pretty fancy chicken hotel if you ask me. I guess his previous miller just cut a square cant then into boards as he seemed confused when I cut flitches then edged them. His girl friend called with a flat tire so he had to leave as soon as we got done so did not get to talk with him much after.

   Had a 16' ash log down so bucked it to 2 - 8'ers for an order. Cut them up just before dark and finished stacking it as the rain started back up. About 124 bf of 1X8, a few 1X6 and 2 dozen 1" tomato stakes. Not a lot of waste there. Already have payment for 200' of ash so now just need the guy to come get it.

[paul case]

MM,
Those are some real nice looking cedar that you are whacking and stacking.  Some may be small but at least they look pretty straight.
We are cutting small walnut logs right now. They are mostly crooked. It takes us 6 hours of sawing to come up with a 800ft bundle of 8/4 and some 5/4 and 5 bundles of slabs. I can hardly wait til we are done.

PC

[grouch]

Still not even halfway through this thread. You guys are making my meals take longer and longer. I'm like an addict. :D

Rain has finally quit so I hope to be able to saw some water maple (a.k.a. red maple?) sometime today. Got assorted logs blocking my mowing.

[Magicman]

Thanks for reading grouch.  :P  We all, including you can claim ownership of this thread.

Gabby had a small whack of ERC ready for our start this morning.


 
Yup, there are some small ones in there that will only make four or five 1X4's.  Lotsa log handling.  Four days sawing yield is only 4657 bf, but we did knock off at 3:00 yesterday and today.   ;D


 
I mentioned edging the slabs.  Actually this is working out nicely for both the customer and me.  Most logs yield 4 slabs which are edging down to 4" up to 8".  I am scaling each as a 1x4 or 2.6 bf.  Much of the time only two slabs needs edging when I rotate 180° after the first face opening.


 
Here is a fence that he made using ERC slabs several years ago.  He popped a chalk line and used a skil saw for the first edge and then ran them through his table saw for the other edge.  This is much faster.


 
The back side of the same fence.


 
Here Gabby is using a brand new "fresh out of the box" MS461, bucking the remaining 47 tree length ERC logs into 8' lengths.  Most are making 4 logs and some even 5.  Next week will be busy.

The SYP logs have not arrived yet.

[fishfighter]

MM, starting Monday, thru the week, we have a bunch of rain in the forecast. :( Hope you have a clear week ahead. I got some sawing I need to do, but I been working on the camp. Nothing but siding. Takes a lot of time when you hanging it by yourself.

[Magicman]

Yup, beginning Tuesday we are predicted 50% + every day.   :-\

[grouch]

Thanks for reading grouch.  :P  We all, including you can claim ownership of this thread.

Gabby had a small whack of ERC ready for our start this morning.
[...snip...]

Magicman, you had a stroke of genius starting this thread. There's an amazing diversity of trees, logs, lumber and sawyers packed in here.

Once again I'm jealous of your ERC. They grow like weeds and blackberries around here so folks take them for granted and mow 'em down. There are hardly any decent sized ones on my place. Hickory is another species that's scarce on my little 30 acres -- the previous owner (nearly 40 years ago) preferred it over all others for wood heat.

{Sigh} Now I've been side-tracked from page 75 by a link to your "Cabin Addition" thread. Can you slow down a day or two and give me a chance to catch up?!?

[woodcat47]

Yesterday I put the Bois D'Arc limb that's been in the grass for a couple of months on mine and cut three 2" crotched slabs 5' long and a few oddball pieces [weirdly bent limb]. Got them on the drying sawhorses now.

 

[fishfighter]

Now that is sweet looking. Does it stay that color once it dries?

[Magicman]

Magicman, you had a stroke of genius starting this thread. There's an amazing diversity of trees, logs, lumber and sawyers packed in here.

Nope, no genius.  There was no intent whatsoever of starting a thread that would be so long lived and is now very high on the Forestry Forum lists of threads with the most posts (3rd) as well as the most views (4th).

I pictured what I would start the next year sawing and invited others to share their upcoming sawing jobs.  That is why I said that you could also claim ownership because the thread is no longer mine.  It belong to everyone that wants to share an interesting or unique day's work, or maybe even an ordinary or boring day's work.  We all get those too.

woodcat47, those slabs are stunning.  fishfighter, without being sealed they will oxidize and gradually turn a dark orange and even brown color.

[WDH]

Yes Sir, they will brown out. 

[cutterboy]

Hi all. I started sawing white birch today. Yesterday I cut one down and carried out the logs along with some firewood.


 


 
The first log on the mill was a real banana.


 
but the other three were better.


 
The butt log had a lot of flare which I trimmed off and it had some center rot which was a concern.


 
Back to the banana log. I decided to cut the whole log into two inch slabs for benches, tables, etc.


 


 
Next was the butt log. I got some very nice lumber from it and as you can see, the rot did not go very far up.


 


 


 
That log gave me some nice boards and got my drying stack started.


 


 

Those two logs were all I got done today because my daughter and sil came over with my grand daughters. :laugh: Spending time with those two little girls is one of the few things I enjoy more than sawing lumber, so the mill got a rest. But grampa didn't. :D :D :D

All the best....Cutter

[Jim_Rogers]

Friday we finished an order of red oak trailer planks. As we were milling these we made some 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 x 8' tree stakes for my customer who plants a lot of new tree saplings.
Here they are on the trailer:



 

Here is the entire order at the customer's yard:



 

Jim Rogers

PS. No sawing today, but we unloaded some maple logs to be sawn on Monday.
We spent the rest of the day at the cemetery installing foundations for head stones and one veteran marker:



 

Thomas is no relation that I know of. We will add a flag at his site tomorrow.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Sawed about 600 bf of walnut for customer today. First time I have seen the distinct green tint appear as soon as the lumber hits the air. I guess what I sawed before was older and drier. Client is real excited and a pleasure to work with. His birthday was today and he is 68. I bucked some small cherry and anchorsealed it today before leaving. Will saw them and a few poplar logs tomorrow. Some of the cherry are only 4'-5' long and 6" in diameter. Will just cut them into cants and he will resaw them as needed on his big shop bandsaw.

   He loves the mill. Won't be surprised if he buys one in the future,

[Magicman]

First time I have seen the distinct green tint appear as soon as the lumber hits the air.

Congratulations, yes we are very fortunate to witness that green color which quickly fades.

I'll be back to sawing ERC tomorrow.

[WDH]

WV,

Cherry is the absolute worst wood that I have ever sawed for pith cracking.  Unfortunately, in my experience from a woodworking perspective, a 6" cherry log is an exercise in futility.  It will be almost all juvenile wood.  My customers won't buy boards that are badly pith cracked.  With a log that small, I bet every single board pith cracks bad, and the cant will crack and split such that you can only get small pieces out of it.  You might want to warn your customer. 

[Seavee]

Milled 1040bf of longleaf pine yesterday for a customer.  He was very happy with the final product.

[WV Sawmiller]

WV,

Cherry is the absolute worst wood that I have ever sawed for pith cracking.  Unfortunately, in my experience from a woodworking perspective, a 6" cherry log is an exercise in futility.  It will be almost all juvenile wood.  My customers won't buy boards that are badly pith cracked.  With a log that small, I bet every single board pith cracks bad, and the cant will crack and split such that you can only get small pieces out of it.  You might want to warn your customer. 

WDH,

   Thanks for the reminder. I will tell the customer. He may be able to get table legs and thick pieces out of them. In any case it won't be very expensive as hourly rate for that kind of work, only a few pieces and won't take long to square 4 sides on a short section. He has one real pretty butt log and a couple of other fairly straight 8' pieces.

    I agree cherry is bad. Not sure ash is not as bad or worse. I try to seal them as soon as I buck them to length. We sealed these yesterday when we cut them and I agreed to sell the customer a gallon of anchorseal. I may start doing more of that as few of my customers can justify buying a 5 gallon bucket so I can sell a quart or gallon and still break even or make a little bit while helping them at the same time.

[Magicman]

Longleaf is some purdy stuff.   ;)

My ERC sawing is going as planned.


 
The Wood-Mizer hand tong and Logrite Mill Special are perfect for handling these small logs.


 
I have mentioned edging the slabs.  We have accumulated quite a trailer load of edged slabs that the customer will use in his hunting cabin build.   

[WV Sawmiller]

   Continued sawing for same customer today. Started with about 500 bf of poplar then sawed a couple hundred feet of cherry with more to finish tomorrow. Slow going because of extra services provided but enjoying the time. Will finish sawing the remaining small cherry into cants and short boards tomorrow if the weather permits. Did get a couple pictures of the green tinted walnut from yesterday. Then the poplar turned blue as soon as we cut into it and cut an old poplar log at the end of the day with red tints. its like a rainbow out there.


 


 

[derhntr]

Cut 7 each 6-8 inch oaks for stickers for 2100 Bdft of nice oak logs.That I will be cutting this week  Don't get much board footage cutting stickers  :-\ Also had a 16 inch maple that I suspected might have some spalt in it. Don't know if it was spalted or not but did find deck screws on the slab cut and wrecked the blade. We threw it in the fire wood pile. 

[scully]

Wish I could figure out the picture posting thing a bit better . I sawed one heck of a wirlnut over the weekend . I have gotten the green tint often . I have also received bad chemical burns from it . But in any case wallmutt is fun to saw .

[sandsawmill14]

i still sawing syp 4x6s so nothing worthy of a pic :-\  got to saw 2 more loads (630 per load) for sure before i get something different. i make a decent living commercial sawing but it gets boring some times when you have to saw 3 or 4 tt loads of something before you can change to something different