20” Doug fir power poles

[busenitzcww]

There's a huge powerline that come by my place and I talked to the crew who is replacing these and they said they were cutting these things into chunks amd throwing them in the dumpster. I know a lot of people say don't mess with power poles but some of these are just too nice to throw away. Not sure what I'm going to do with it all as they said they have several more semi loads they'll bring me. Thinking of building a sawmill shed but not sure if I can use any of this for a free span truss over my loading side. 
These poles are over 100' tall but most of them are cut in half or smaller.

 

 

 

   

[Al_Smith]

I have a similar story .A group of brothers I know were all IBEW lineman working out of Detroit MI .They had access to an unlimited amount of butt ends of 90 and 100 foot western red cedar poles .These are untreated poles .
Every Friday night for about 3 or 4 maybe 6 months they hauled two trailers overloaded the 120 miles south down I-75 loaded with massive pole butts .They sawed cedar lumber for a couple of years from those things and paid for a small Woodmizer with much left over for their time .Nice looking lumber  too .

[dogone]

     Not fir but cedar. I am just starting about 200 cedar poles. Just taking 30 feet out of the middle for timbers and boards. About 8 feet of butt is cresote and top 15 feet has quite a taper. The linemen have totally removed all metal. 
      Best part is price: free!

[busenitzcww]

    Not fir but cedar. I am just starting about 200 cedar poles. Just taking 30 feet out of the middle for timbers and boards. About 8 feet of butt is cresote and top 15 feet has quite a taper. The linemen have totally removed all metal.
     Best part is price: free!

Do they treat the cedar too? These post are 30 years old according to the tag. The bottom is definitely treated but we cut the a top section and it didn't look/smell funny.

[47sawdust]

Read the previous posts below.
I think they would saw fine. I would definitely wear a respirator. Cedar or D.F. sawdust is caustic.

[boonesyard]

I have sawed and still saw a fair share of WRC and Dougfir highline poles. Built just about our whole sawmill shed from them, some very nice lumber. We saw the non creasote portions and always wear a respirator, have not hit a piece of metal yet (other than bullets) in 10,000+ bf.  

[dogone]

    Not fir but cedar. I am just starting about 200 cedar poles. Just taking 30 feet out of the middle for timbers and boards. About 8 feet of butt is cresote and top 15 feet has quite a taper. The linemen have totally removed all metal.
     Best part is price: free!

Do they treat the cedar too? These post are 30 years old according to the tag. The bottom is definitely treated but we cut the a top section and it didn't look/smell funny.

The cedar is only treated on butt.Posts are about 30 years old. They were replaced with double steel pylons so no sawmilling next time replaced.

[tacks Y]

Are you sure the treatment just did not settle to the bottom over their life time? I had some sawed before I got my mill. The big high line got taken by others ahead of me.

[Al_Smith]

It's not power poles but sawn RR cross ties .Around 40 years ago about 25 miles of the bankrupt Erie RR was sold off .A company from Indiana bought it and salvaged  the tracks, ties ballast etc . .The tracks had all been retied about three years previously  .This company had some of the ties cut into planks they sold some place for bull and buffalo corals . Talk about heavy planks, croesoted oak ,about like lead .I have no idea how it was sawn or with what .I bought some of the lesser grades of ties for I think 3 bucks a pop .At this age I doubt I could even handle those things these days .I did also  buy 300 plus tons of ballast rock  for $1.25 a ton and hauled it all with an old ford F-600 at 7 tons a trip  .That truck was brand new in 1957 .I was brand new in 1948 myself .

[farmfromkansas]

I have found that poles make a terrific platform to store round bales on.  Just lay 2 poles down, about 2' oc apart, and make a row of round bales on top.  The bales stay dry on the bottom, don't pick up the smell of dirt.  Have had no trouble with varmints under, although a neighbor cat stayed down there about a week and caught a lot of mice.

[Al_Smith]

It was nearly 60 years ago my dad landed some class 4 cedar telephone poles ,about 8"--10" on the butt end .Maybe 30 feet long .We built a shed on the barn to store his 26 foot Owens wooden cabin cruiser .The boat is long gone and now full of firewood for my niece who now has the home place .Those untreated poles are as solid as the day when I was 15 years old we put them in the ground .
I remember burning the scrap ends of those cedar poles in the fire place .Talk about snap ,crackle , pop  .Easy to split though .Cut them to length with an old Clinton chainsaw that came over on the Mayflower .

[caveman]

We've about sworn off sawing poles but a fellow contacted me this morning who has a few semi trailer loads of transmission poles.  I told him he is responsible for removing all metal from his half of the logs/poles and that he is responsible for blades that hit metal he misses.  I also suggested that he buck off any treated areas of the poles as those will not be sawn by us.

When John and I bought our lt-28 years ago, our first paying job was sawing transmission poles.  We sawed 4800 bf and went through nine blades in a day and a half.  We were younger, stronger and more ambitious then but now we have hydraulics and a diesel.

Occasionally we'll saw stuff on halves.  I think we can come out on this with these by sawing and selling beams/timbers.  I think they are western cedar but not sure.  Are any west coasters or others knowledgeable willing to identify by the pics?


 

 

[Larry]

Six feet above the ground line there will be a brand know as the "birthmark".  Most times the brand has lots of information.  The year the pole was born, species, type of treatment, and selling company.  Its not standard between all companies so there may be more or less info and sometimes the treatment along with species are coded.

[caveman]

Thank you, Larry.