Looked Good Until The Last Pass

[Rhodemont]

I have been milling white oak timbers to build a post and beam garage / barn.  I am finally replacing the decrepit one that was supposed to go 30 years ago.  Had one more 6x6 to complete the 12 footers that are needed.  Set up the last 12ft log and started milling it.  Had a final pass taking a 2x6 from the cant to finish off the 6x6 with the pith right up the center.  All looked good until I flipped the 2x6 off.  About 4 feet of the 6x6 was completely riddled with ant holes.  Still ended up with an 8 footer but how disappointing. Going to have to fell another WO to compete the list. 

[taylorsmissbeehaven]

I hate it when that happens. Sometimes mother nature wins!! Cut a good one and get a few extra boards. Then you might be ahead....for a few minutes, Brian

[JoshNZ]

Any time you are counting on a log to yeild X no. of boards you can bet you will run into a problem lol.

I put logs that are in the way on the mill to saw them into something and they seem to give up board after board then someone comes and asks for something specific, I say yep I think I have one log that'll work... It never works.

[Crossroads]

Any time you are counting on a log to yeild X no. of boards you can bet you will run into a problem lol.

I put logs that are in the way on the mill to saw them into something and they seem to give up board after board then someone comes and asks for something specific, I say yep I think I have one log that'll work... It never works.

Ain't that the truth! I butchered (3} 32' Doug fir logs a couple weeks ago trying to get (2) 2 1/4x14x14' bang boards for a dump truck box. I ended up with (4) that I could sell and a pile of designer firewood 

[Don P]

 :D That's a fact. We were trying to saw a pair of 60' 12x12's a few years ago. We were 2 days into felling, staging and on the 3rd side of one when it opened up a rot hole you could lay your arm in... bad day!

[rjwoelk]

I needed a 8x14 x 24 ft long beam for the shop second story. Had one 25nft long, got onto it all nice and then hit a lighting strike I think, ended up with 6 ft of 8x14 usable timber.

[Magicman]

If you need something special, don't wait until the last log to saw it.

Recently my customer needed a 38' 6" X 8X12 timber.  Before any logs were sawn, I looked at and measured 25 logs and there were only 5 possible candidates.  Thankfully the best of the 5 produced the needed timber so were were then free to proceed to the cut list.  One of the remaining 4 had serious unseen rot, one had a knot/fork on the underside, and the other 3 had crook so the timber would have had wain.

Lesson; get the cut list first.  smiley_contract_point

[Jim_Rogers]

Lesson; get the cut list first.  smiley_contract_point

And cut the longest and largest first. 
If they don't pan out, then they can be cut back to smaller shorter pieces.
Jim Rogers

[longtime lurker]

This game is all about the average.

I actually get nervous when I've had too many good logs in a row, like load after load of them, just because I've learnt that when the pendulum swings hard to one side you've got a hiding coming for ya when it swings back.