Planer tells the tale

[Wlmedley]

I've had my sawmill around four or five years now and I've got lumber squirreled away that's either as old as my mill up to freshly cut. Been trying to improve a little in my sawing every time I use the saw. Just looking at the lumber I couldn't tell a lot of difference between when I first started up until now except I now know a lot more about reading the log to get the best lumber and a lot of other things I mostly learned from this forum. I bought a planer last fall and found out how much my lumber has improved. I have been planing some boards that I cut about a year ago and found that they cleaned up pretty easily and I usually could get them cleaned up by taking about 1/16" on each side.Sometimes a little more but not much. I pulled one out today which was probably cut shortly after I got my mill and thought I was going to wear my little planer out before it cleaned up.Luckily I don't have very much of that older lumber left but I've learned that if you want to see how good the lumber is that you're cutting try running it through a planer. 

[Digger Don]

That's how I discovered how much I still have to learn. I suspect set-works of some sort would be helpful, but I don't see that in the near future.

[SawyerTed]

Using your own lumber teaches a sawyer a lot.  

Planing, jointing and ripping to width lets us know just how rough (or not) our lumber is.  

[YellowHammer]

We get lots of new customers that come in and say "I bought some wood from such and such sawmill, and their boards looked OK until I got them home and planed them, then I saw they were garbage.  Do you plane your wood?"

Me: "Yup, every board, and welcome to Hobby Hardwood."

[customsawyer]

I had well over 10 million bf sawed when I bought my kiln and planer. With that much experience, I thought I was a pretty good sawyer. I've said it many times. If you want to know how good of a sawyer you are, buy a kiln and planer. 

[Resonator]

Yup, a jointer and surface planer can cover over a multitude of sins.
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Rather than wear out my planer, I'll pick out any dried boards that really don't make the grade and rip those into stickers. I always need more stickers, and I still get use out of the lumber I went through all the work to produce.

[Wlmedley]

I failed to mention that one of the reasons I don't have a lot of that lumber left that I sawed shortly after getting my mill is that I used some building my sawmill shed and a few other small projects. I also stacked some that wasn't stickered properly and dried like a washboard. Some that was cut with pith split crooked like a dogs hind leg and some that was so thick and thin a blind man could tell it. When cleaning out my shed this so called lumber either went in my firewood shed or the burn pile. I still have to throw some away from time to time but at least now I know when it's no good before I go to the trouble of stacking it.

[barbender]

I knew the first time that I jammed a planer up on a thick spot around a knot, that I had a lot more to learn😁

This principle is true in all endeavors. For instance, in the woods, the more experience that you have in all aspects of timber harvest, the better you will be at any particular job and understand how your role affects the whole operation. 

If a processor operator has never had to pick up the wood he's cut, he won't understand what he's doing to frustrate the forwarder operator. And the forwarder operator might not understand how aggravating his piles are to work with, if he's never drove truck and had to load out of them.

[LeftFinger]

It's when you start out planing 5/4 and suddenly find a use for 1/2"

[barbender]

😂😂😂

[SwampDonkey]

What a lovely journey of hard labour it is from tattered and battered to smoothed over.    Congratulations on now making fine lumber. 

[SawyerTed]

A good friend bought some lumber from an estate sale.  He sorted out some 14-16" wide poplar lumber from the piles that he wanted planed. 

It was cupped and twisted.  Once it was planed about the middle 2/3 was usable.  The ends tapered like propellers. 

He said, "I should've gotten my boards from you.  You don't cut lumber that's twists like that."

"That you've ever seen," I said. 

It's unusual that 100% of a rough cut stack of lumber doesn't have some cull material after drying. 

The attentive sawyer looks at the cull material to determine if it was him or the wood that caused it.