Whatcha Sawin' 2020 ??

[longtime lurker]

Darwin Stringybark. Eucalyptus tetrodonta.  They're just about always straight, and come with big inspection windows in the ends but.... cuts a good board outside the pipe.

new mill will be a custom job... Everything off the shelf that can do I what I want is too slow (lack of teeth for want of horsepower for want of steel) and everything with enough horsepower wont like these logs.... I'm radial sawing them, recovery is through the roof compared to conventional patterns.Twin saw with a 50 HP 3 phase to each saw and some serious hydraulics for turning and clamping etc

[Nebraska]

They resemble   the butts of the new utility poles going in on the line south of our place.  They show up pre debarked??

[caveman]

John and I sawed some laurel oak for the son of a retired teacher friend yesterday.  One of the logs was quite large but be managed.  We are becoming spoiled with the hydraulics and the setworks.  I used the tractor to slide the log up to the mill's lifting arms.  The mill had no trouble loading it.  The customer also purchased some Ipe that used to part of Disney World's Thunder Mountain RR.  He wanted some of them resawn.  Last time I did them on the table saw but these were flat enough to do on the mill, which saved some time.  We cut them down to a little over 6' before resawing.

We gained a little extra width capacity by placing stickers underneath the cant and moving it closer to the mast.  There are times when a wide head mill would be useful.


 

We spent a little over three hours sawing this load but that included discussion with the customer trying to determine what he needed.  We sawed some 26" wide 8/4 boards that were nice but the customer wanted them cut down to 6" wide.  We followed MM's advice and gave the customer what he asked for.
 

 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvdu6ac9_yY     Wide laurel oak.
re-sawing Ipe from Disney World - YouTube    Resawing Ipe
Planing Disney’s Thunder Mountain RR wood - YouTube   Planing short piece of weathered Ipe

[KenMac]

A guy about 4 miles from me saws RR ties for Disney World. They ship logs from Africa to him and he saws and does other processing or shaping and ships them to Disney. Quite lucrative deal from what I gather. I don't like the guy, so I don't know other details about his deal.

[caveman]

Disney spends a lot of money but they charge a lot for entrance into their parks.  Personally, I would rather go fishing, walk in the woods or do just about anything besides standing in line in 100° heat at a theme park.

[longtime lurker]

They resemble   the butts of the new utility poles going in on the line south of our place.  They show up pre debarked??

yeah, any long enough go for poles, but the bulk of them grade out on excessive pipe, leave the bottom half in the bush and the rest scrapes in as a sawlog.
Bark off is... well bark on helps with moisture retention which helps with recovery (these wont rot in a billion years unless standing in water, and no grubs want to eat them) but... it's messy with it falling off all the way through the haulage system and there is a cumulative weight thing when freight is in bulk.... its all done in tonnes so a tonne of bark costs as much to ship as a tonne of log.

Bark weight on one log isn't that much but yanno... over a full load it does add up.



Wasn't there someone posting the other day about fishing and sawing making for happiness. Does a set line off the bow door count? :D :D :D

[Bruno of NH]

Kyle
I'm with you
I'd rather watch paint dry
Than wait in one big line all day.

[DWyatt]

Had a busy Labor Day weekend and got to sneak in some sawing. All White pine that a neighbor took down to build a new pole barn. He was going to burn everything, but offered me the logs and I gladly took them since I very rarely see pine around here big enough to saw. Largest log was 15" small end and the average was probably closer to 10". I now understand how you guys that cut pine all the time get the high bf/hr and huge amount of bf out of a blade. I only went through 3 blades, one of which committed suicide by taking a whack at the backstops : : :

Day 1 & 2 of sawing between family functions. 2x4x8', 2x4x10', 2x6x10', 5/8x7x10' (lap siding boards), and misc 4/4 stuff.


 

Day 3 of sawing 2x6x10', more siding boards, and mainly misc 4/4 stuff, got it done just before the rain.


 

I put pictures of the slab piles of Facebook and someone came and got all of it within 15 minutes for $40 8)


 



 

Can you follow the maze of the broken blade?


 

26 logs total for the weekend which was a lot of work by myself, but that pine was a joy to saw and it is likely the last time I will see any worth sawing. I didn't get a final tally on the bf, but I am assuming somewhere around 1600-1800 bf. Now if I could find someone to get it all stacked and sticked :D

[Magicman]

I say congratulation on your successful sawing event.  That is a very nice whack of lumber and getting rid of the slab/flitch pile was a bonus.  You did good!! 

[hopm]

I say congratulation on your successful sawing event.  That is a very nice whack of lumber and getting rid of the slab/flitch pile was a bonus.  You did good!!  

Getting rid of the slab pile is an event worthy of celebration!!!!

[WDH]

I have sawn a wide variety of species, but one that I never sawn is Southern magnolia, Magnolia grandiflora.  I suspect that those of you that are glacial bound and not from the deep South have not sawn much of it either.  You mainly see it planted as an ornamental in landscapes and yards, but it is a native species in the South and can be found growing wild.  It can get quite large on the right site.  The Georgia champion is 5 and a half feet in diameter. 

A Forester friend of mine working in South Georgia just North of the Florida line was harvesting a tract in Brooks County and called me to tell me that there were some big magnolia logs on the tract.  Of course I was fired up about getting some of the logs.  It was 120 miles away, so I made a road trip and the logger loaded my trailer with 5 nice logs.  He had a set of portable scales so that we were able to weigh each log.  The logs were 17.5 to 18.5 feet long. 



 

Here are the five logs on the trailer.



 

The first log on the mill shows a little heartwood, but not much.  I was hoping for more heartwood as in magnolia it can be striking. 



 

I sawed the largest one, which was 30" on the butt, today in 9/4 slabs.  Magnolia has an interesting feature in the wood in that the growth ring at the end of each year is terminated with a band of parenchyma cells called terminal parenchyma.  Parenchyma cells are not water conducting cells but living cells that store sugars and stuff.  This band of terminal parenchyma shows up as a somewhat dark band at the growth ring boundary, almost like a light pencil line, that can be seen on the end grain.  Other magnolia species have this feature, and even yellow poplar, which is in the Magnolia family, has terminal parenchyma.  What sets Southern magnolia apart to a degree is that often there is a double band of terminal parenchyma at the growth ring boundary.  This creates an interesting "grain" on the flatsawn surface where the darker terminal parenchyma is easily seen.  Here is a pic that shows how this terminal band of parenchyma stands out. 



 

While there was not a lot of heartwood in this log, there was just enough to liven up two 21" wide 9/4 slabs.  Notice how the sapwood is almost white, providing a very nice contrast with the dark heartwood. 



 

The pics are of the butt half of the largest log (the largest log weighed 3650 pounds) that I cut in into two 8'9" pieces.  I also sawed the other half so this 17.5' log yielded 468 bf of 9/4 slabs. 

[caveman]

Nice magnolias,Danny.  We have only sawn one southern magnolia and it had no heartwood.  The place that sells a lot of our wood had wood from one with a big heart and the slabs from  it sold for a lot of money.

[WV Sawmiller]

Danny,

   Nice wood. I am pleased you found one that big that was still solid. I grew up in NW Fla north of Pensacola and we had a lot of wild magnolias and also Sweet Bay which is a real close cousin and they tended to be hollow by the time they got much size on them. They grew in real wet areas along intermittent streams and drainage areas. The only magnolia I have sawn up here has been cucumber tree.

[cutterboy]

I have a magnolia tree in my yard that is my wife's pride and joy. I've never cared for it....it makes a mess when the pedals fall. However, now I see some value in it. I wonder how upset she would be if it went missing. Hmmm.....

[WDH]

It might be a tad hard to miss . 

[tule peak timber]

WDH, Really nice looking wood. What a table that would make with the flames in the middle. Yahoo.. 8)

 

[Banjo picker]

Glad you show that Danny.  I have several logs that I got off two fairly good sized ones that I have been pondering what to do with them.  One comment I remember someone making was that the wood was uninteresting.  Tim

[WDH]

It is a lot like poplar.  It is very clean and light colored, so it becomes an alternative to maple to those who want a wood that is "not dark".  Sap poplar and maple are the two lightest colored woods that I usually have on hand so this will be another alternative. 

Tule, that is a beautiful island, and that is what I envision with the two big flame slabs.  Hopefully they won't crack at the pith too bad. 

[Magicman]

Yup, I sawed SYP framing lumber today....



but it was from two 20' logs and 18 pecker poles.  (Two 20's were bucked to 10' so it actually became 20 logs total.)


 
The 20's became 2X8's & 2X6's (one 18') and the 10's became 2X4's & a few 1X4's.  (Scrap stuff in the back of trailer)  No scale because this was a minimum sawing rate job.  I started sawing at 7:45 and finished at 12:00.

Weather permitting my next sawing job is scheduled for Tuesday sawing SYP, Oak, & Poplar.

[Larry]

This morning it was cool and foggy, perfect day to run the mill.  First up was a few red oak tornado salvage logs trucked in from an interesting place known as Hog Scald Hollar on Beaver Lake Ar.  It's interesting because a lot of folks like to skinny dip.....

Once the red oak was finished I got back to slabbing walnut.  Over a hundred sawn so far this week and I still have more logs for tomorrow.





I'm almost exclusively using Kasco 1-1/2 .050 7 degree bands.  They are by far the smoothest cutting bands I've ever used.  In the above picture my feed slowed a little going through the 32" wide crotch and you can see a couple of marks.  Once out of the crotch no blade marks at all and its very smooth.  Really a happy Kasco customer.





When I unloaded this log my customer/logger was going to saw off the branch stub.  I told him to leave it and I would remove it once on the mill if it wouldn't clear the guides.  I was able to position the log so I had plenty of clearance.  I think it adds a lot of character $$$$ to the slab and he should sell two together for a bookmatch.  It was 30" at the big end.

[SpaceBus]

Do you guys have any recommendations for a non-marring cant hook? I have a Woodchuck Dual which is great for bucking firewood, but I don't like that sometimes It laves indentations on the cant face. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I can't see how a cant hook would work without hooking into the wood. That is how they are designed to work.  All I know to do is try to hook on the edge that will be edged off later. If you want to protect a sawed surface you will either have to flip it by hand or use a strap or something that does not bite into the wood. 

[SpaceBus]

  I can't see how a cant hook would work without hooking into the wood. That is how they are designed to work.  All I know to do is try to hook on the edge that will be edged off later. If you want to protect a sawed surface you will either have to flip it by hand or use a strap or something that does not bite into the wood.

I try to flip by hand, but I've recently been sawing larger logs and they required the hook. I guess I'll try and keep it close to the ends since I cut logs a bit over what I need. 

[Magicman]

I just go the very end of the cant.

Here is an idea for a "Possible Won't Hook" that was pitched a few years ago:  LINK

[Patrick NC]

Sometimes I wrap a nylon tow strap around the cant  a couple times and lift up with the loader on my tractor. It will roll the cant  without damage if you go easy. A little slow, but it works. I guess you could rig up a winch above the mill somehow and do the same thing without having to fetch a loader each time you want to flip the cant