Need Advice on Sawing Pecan

Left Coast Chris · May 12, 2007, 12:30:56 AM

We have a neighbor that gave us a pecan tree from his yard so I thought I would attempt to saw it up into lumber. 8) 8) 8) There are three logs 8.5' long with only a small amount of taper and the smallest log averages 18" in diameter, the largest 24" in average diameter. It is a nursery variety that produces commercial nuts.... not sure exactly which commercial variety. Grain appears to be clear and straight little to no limbs.

The darker heart center is supprisinly small in the butt log at about 8" in diameter compared to the 24" total diameter. Lots of sap wood. All three logs have the heart center in the center (not a leaner).

Some questions:

1) Flat saw vs. quarter sawn?

2) Checking charastics? Low cross grain tension strength?

3) Best thickness for low humidity air drying going into summer (assume I will have to tarp inside the barn)

4) Is the lumber of good furnature quality and how much expected loss in drying?

5) Is all this sap wood worth sawing?

Any info is apprecaited................ how did your pecan turn out? :P

WDH · May 12, 2007, 01:01:10 AM

I sawed a pecan log that was 24" on the small end. One log sawed almost 500 feet. Beautiful wood. I quarter sawed it and made wainscott paneling with it. It is remarkably hard wood to machine after drying. I squared the cant which turned out about 18" x 18", then sliced it into three 6" flitches. From that, I sawed the flitches to maximize the amount of quarter and rift sawn lumber. It was mostly all clear lumber (as it was a butt log).

metalspinner · May 12, 2007, 09:17:38 AM

Make sure you give yourself the full thickness'. My pecan moved quite a bit and could barely squeeze out 3/4" out of true 1" boards.

WDH · May 12, 2007, 12:24:55 PM

The potential wood movement is another good reason to quarter saw pecan. It will move less if quarter sawn.

Left Coast Chris · May 12, 2007, 04:12:05 PM

Assuming you guys painted the ends, did you get any spliting? ..... and what time of the year did you air dry?

WDH · May 12, 2007, 08:29:28 PM

I painted the ends and did not get much checking. I sawed the tree in August, so it dried throughout the fall.

Tom · May 12, 2007, 08:38:14 PM

I try to let mine dry throughout the fall too. Then, as soon as they hit the ground, I saw them up into boards. :D

WDH · May 12, 2007, 08:44:26 PM

I sawed up a bunch for Dodgy Loner's Aunt that came from her Father's front yard. Re-incarnated them into paneling for the lower wall of a basement. Got to learn the fine art of sharpening planer knives as a result :D. Dodgy Loner and I had a v-grooving party one weekend ;D.

DanG · May 12, 2007, 11:23:12 PM

Quote from: WDH on May 12, 2007, 08:44:26 PM
Got to learn the fine art of sharpening planer knives as a result :D.

I can bleeve dat! Dat stuff is as hard as Chinese arithmetic!

brdmkr · May 13, 2007, 12:10:26 AM

Pecan is hard! I have taken the advice of others and cut it 5/4 thick. So far, I have been pleased with the way mine has turned out.

Left Coast Chris · May 13, 2007, 12:53:57 AM

Quote from: Tom on May 12, 2007, 08:38:14 PM
I try to let mine dry throughout the fall too. Then, as soon as they hit the ground, I saw them up into boards. :D

Tom..... if they are drying that fast you must be cutting during those forest fires you guys are having eh?........

;D

Since the stuff is so hard..... must take a little longer to dry? I did notice that green pieces are abnormally heavy......(heavy maaaannnnn... as they say here on the left coast)

solidwoods · May 13, 2007, 07:25:11 AM

Qtr saw is nice, or box the heart if you wish.
Limby tops cut into thick.
I mill 1.125" increments on the mill scale to make 4/4.
1" tall stickers every 2'max.
Stack it under roof, never, never tarp a stack of wood.
Pecan is hard to dry, send it to a kiln immediately. Our kiln charges .20bf so it makes no economic sense to "try" to dry it any other way.
It also can get worms in the sap wood easy if barn stored.
jim

DWM II · May 13, 2007, 04:37:13 PM

WDH, do you have any pics of the q-sawed stuff? Were there any ray flecs in the material? I have some pecan to cut starting tomorrow, the customer has been having it all flat sawed for widest possible boards. I didnt know if it would be worth recommending a q-sawing for any of it.

Left Coast Chris · May 13, 2007, 05:39:06 PM

Solidwoods,

We have no hardwood industry here..........only very large softwood mills that will not kiln dry small orders. I have no choice but to air dry. I spary each board with Timbore and stack & sticker in the barn then put a loose tarp with the ends open on it since we only have 10 percent or so humidity here in the summer. Not tarping = disaster in the summer for sensitive hardwoods. I carefully watch for mold and remove the tarp if necessary. Any mold that starts is dead in a day or so at our low humidity.

Sounds like I need to get more serious about finding a way to do a solar kiln. :P

dad2nine · May 13, 2007, 11:11:17 PM

I've cut a little for both pecan and hickory - I can't tell much of a difference between the two. Personally I think the bark is harder than the wood. Whatever you do saw it when it's as green as possible. I managed to saw up a large diameter, hickory log that had set for over a year that yielded 22" wide 5/4 boards and I think that thing about set my blade on fire. Three cuts and it was off to the band sharpener. I used two new Lenox Woodmaster C blades on that log, it was not a a good thing. Now I know better, I charge blade frees along with my normal per BF rate to saw pecan, hickory and persimmon. I would think a debarker may help, but I'm not sure. I poured on the go go juice (Water and Joy dish washing soap), valve wide open but didn't help much. You know your blade is hot when you see steam coming off of it, that's what old hickory logs does to my lil WM. I had to creep the head travel, else the motor would start to bog down. Fresh cut Hickory isn't too bad but it's still hard as you know what.

WDH · May 13, 2007, 11:18:09 PM

DWM II,

Here are a couple of pics that I have previously posted of the quarter sawn pecan. You can see the contrast with the darker heartwood. The ray fleck is inconspicuous as compared to oak or sycamore.

While the ray fleck is not dramatic, I think the overall grain is very pleasing.

DanG · May 13, 2007, 11:31:26 PM

IMHO, Pecan is one of those woods that lends itself well to flat or quarter sawing. It just depends on your personal preference. I happen to like the grain patterns that flat sawing gives you. I don't see all that much difference in the amount of movement, it just moves in different directions. It is gonna move, so cut accordingly. I wouldn't cut less than 5/4.

WDH · May 13, 2007, 11:33:41 PM

In the second pic of my last post, you can see the difference between the flat sawn chair-rail and the quarter sawn panels. I agree with DanG. What is best is what you like best.

DWM II · May 14, 2007, 02:05:14 PM

I like the pics WDH, thanks. This morning I had to throw the butt log off the mill, I broke an operator side outrigger leg

. Gonna fix it this evening and try again tomorrow evening. The customer showed me some dried boards in his shop, the contrast is cool between the sap, heart and black streaks in the heart. Real nice stuff, well worth fighting knotty irregular logs

.

treebucker · May 14, 2007, 06:25:02 PM

I sawed my first pecan about a month ago. I thought I would relate that experience:

We had been set up at a customer site for sevaral months. Early in the job the customer offered us two large pecan logs for free. He even seemed indifferent about us milling them for him (He said he might burn them.). His dad watched us mill on several occasions. He had vast experience with logging, milling and old-time ways. He commented that they traditionally tossed all spalted lumber. It took some explaining on my part to convince him that spalted lumber was now highly valuable. I couldn't, in good conscience, take those logs for free. The client's occupation is remodeling. He knew spalted lumber was used to build high-end furniture and wanted to use it for such. But I suspected he didn't believe it was going to be that valuable.

We cut it all to 5/4s. After I saw how good it looked, I see how those two logs could, if properly handled, turn into a big payback. It was hard to watch so many trophy boards come off the mill. It was not our lumber. And I didn't even have a camera for later reflection. They rivaled the better trophy boards I've seen posted. They ranged from 5" to 16" wide...with the average being around 14". The sapwood was uniformly spalted. The heartwood on the top log had spotty spalting and figure throughout most boards. The butt log, unfortunately, had a large limb in one end that had bark inclusion around it. This caused several boards to break. We pieced them back together and dead-stacked the lot in proper order so the customer could label them (for later book matching) when he stickered it.

Everything went well until we cut the last pecan. We were making wide cuts and hit a small nail without noticing it. It dulled the last of our sharp blades but we managed to finish with what we had. Apparently pecan doesn't stain around nails like other woods.

I kept careful watch for movement during milling as I had heard that pecan is notorious for stress and drying problems. Very little was noticed except a 3/8" cleaning cut I made after I hit that nail (dulling another blade in the process.) It immediately cupped on one end. I concluded (hopefully I'm right) that the spalting had relieved the stresses and it should dry with minimal movement. I explained to the customer that, once they become apparent, he could determine how to cut around any drying defects. This would allow him to produce the maximum number of wide boards and increase the value of the final product. If I'm wrong, the worse that'll happen is that he'll end up with resawing the boards...matching his widths to the random defects. If we cut the boards narrower now then he would still have to resaw around the drying defects and it would result in even narrower boards. Is there a flaw in this philosophy?

BTW - I saw how those logs were stored and I now feel I could reproduce the conditions that led to such uniform spalting in pecan. So now I'm dangerous.

WDH · May 14, 2007, 06:30:26 PM

You could become a Master Pecan Spalter ;D.

treebucker · May 14, 2007, 08:09:15 PM

Quote from: WDH on May 14, 2007, 06:30:26 PM
You could become a Master Pecan Spalter ;D.

:D :D :D

And I could specialize in nut trees. Then I would be known for my spalted (xxx)s. Ok, I would have been censored for that one. ;D

TexasTimbers · May 15, 2007, 08:32:17 AM

treebucker, you said they gave you the two pecans then you said "It was not our lumber."
I don't get it. ???

treebucker · May 15, 2007, 08:49:50 AM

He wasn't very convincing when he said it. Their family and ours have known each other for generations. I felt like he was trying to give away something that held more value than he realized. Had he acknowledge its value in a convincing way, and been more insistent, I might have accepted. But he didn't own me any favors. It just didn't seem right to me to accept something so potentially valuable. Had word leaked out that I sold it for big $$$ (and it would have) I would have been in an uncomfortable situation. I guess a deal could have been worked out but...

TexasTimbers · May 15, 2007, 07:46:23 PM

I have been in similiar situations. I can't sleep very well if I think I stuck it to someone either. The way I have been handling it when someone gives me trees, is coming right out and saying "Thank you I'll take them. But you do realize that these trees have value at least as pulp (if that's the case) and/or as sawlogs and finished lumber (if that's the case)?"
So far I have gotten the same basic answer "That's allright you can have them...."
"I don't want to mess with it..." etc. I said that to a guy recently when he said I could have his cedar and Osage and he said "Happy Birthday."

Actually the way it was presented to me was "I have a bunch of Bois D'Arc and cedar I want to get rid of . . ." Which is not uncommon here. Farmers and ranchers as a general rule hate ERC, Bois D' Arc, Mesquite, and Box Elder.

I understand what you're saying though. I just wanted to give you something to ponder if you run into it again. Once I state my "full disclosure" statement and they still say "Take them" or whatever, then I feel justified.
I don't want to take advantage of someone's ignorance, but I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth either.