Large Red Oak

[sawwood]

Labor Day Weekend JR and Oldsaw plus me Sawwood whent
to pick up a red oak tree that JR found. I had looked at it befor
we whent to git it and i told JR we would need his son skid
steer to load it. Saterday we all meet at the place and started
to cut it up. We got 3 8' logs from this tree and they are 33"
across. Will JR son skid steer wouldn't pick it up so Oldsaw
brought out his Alsaken mill with the big stihl on it. We
squared up the logs so the skid steed could handle them but
still needed one of the helpers to stand on the back of the
skid steed for weight. I had my camera there and here are some of the photos to show .

Sawwood


Here is OldSaw gitting the big stihl ready to go.


OldSaw stihl all most didn't make the cut.


JR son skidsteed trying to lift the red oak log.


OldSaw with the Alasken to square up the log and cut
down on some of the weight.


Here is one of the logs squared and Jim moving it to the
trailer.


here is Jim trying to move the log befor we cut it and this was
as high as he could lift it.

[Gilman]

You have a mill sawwood?

I like how the photos told a story.  Great post ;)

[TN_man]

I second that comment, great job!
We also use the drive-by method of forestry to land alot of our logs :D

[sawwood]

Thanks guys for the comments. No i don't have a mill yet.
JR has the mill a norwood lumber mate. I help him load
and cut what he finds then he cut what i have. sort of a
help me help you.

 Sawwood

[Norm]

That's a great story Sawwood, thanks for showing us, seems we got a look at the elusive Oldsaw too. ;)

[Gilman]

Is Oldsaw under the witness protection program?  He does a good job of hiding his face.  :D  

Oh  :, if he is, maybe you should answer, "no."   ;D

[oldsaw]

At least you got a good shot of my back and the top of my head.  Quitcher complainin...Besides, Electric Al can vouch for the fact that I'm not all that elusive.

He also didn't tell you the "amusing" story of the day.  When I got deeper into the cut bucking that log I kneeled down a bit and a frog poked it's head out of a little knothole.  Seems he wasn't too happy since the bar was cutting about 2-3" behind his backside.  When we moved the log, he spent the next half hour or so riding on the skidsteer.

Lessons learned: 2x4s make really bad guide boards for an Alaskan.  I wasn't planning on using it there so we had to scavange a bit.  Since we were more concerned with cutting weight on the logs than making them pretty, it didn't really matter.  Like I told JR, "Let the Norwood find straight".

Also, make sure your gas is fresh.  My 066 hasn't been a hard starter since I got it.  Not an easy start either, but it doesn't put up much of a fight.  I realized at the end of the day that the gas was a lot older than I thought it was that morning.  The "fat picture" was of me fighting with it first thing that morning.

Outside of that, it was a real fun "boys day out".  We spent waaaay more time on this oak than we had planned.  It was supposed to be a "buck and load" thing.  Sawwood still has a walnut out on JR's farm that is about as big as this one too.  But JR has a big caterpillar with a bucket out there....it won't have any problems with the walnut, or these big oak logs.  Which is good, since big logs with small equipment isn't all it's cracked up to be.  And that was a big skidsteer loader.

I may just have to post a picture of myself to make you guys happy.  But be warned, I have a face made for radio.

[Gilman]

 ;)