Whatcha Sawin' 2025 ??

[chep]

Pics

[Magicman]

Hackberry is in the Elm family which as spiral grain.  It can present a challenge drying flat but it is very purdy stuff:




I have no idea what the customer did with this nor how it turned out.

[beenthere]

Hackberry grain is usually straight, but can have interlocked grain (like elm) which makes it harder to split. Spiral grain is a bit different in characteristics than interlocked grain. But may cause drying frustration.

hackberry grain

American elm grain

[Magicman]

Thanks for the grain correction beenthere.    Hackberry is not a species that I often saw.

My phone is still occasionally ringing (one today) but there are no customers ready.  There are 9 on the schedule.

[Resonator]

"If money grew on Hackberry trees, if time wasn't such a luxury, if love was lovesick over me...
 that'd be alright."  (Old Alan Jackson song).

[TimW]

I didn't saw these, but a friend from Church found them in a barn he is tearing down.  To me, they look like wood to go around steel posts.  It is some holes are about 2.5" and some are oval at 3x2.5".  Do you think they are worth anything?  He would love to sell them as he is between jobs.  The posts are super lite.  Guess I need to cut an end off a little to see it the wood will tell what it is.

[Resonator]

My guess would be wooden water pipes, commonly used in the 1800's in cities for buried water lines. Sections are still occasionally found in the dirt when streets are dug up to put in new utilities.

[Magicman]

Wooden water pipes?



Here are pictures of a section of wooden water pipe that is on display.  Looks like it had some sort of bands holding it together.

[TimW]

That makes sense.  Especially some of the ends are concave/convex to fit together and kinda lock better.

[doc henderson]

someone had posted a historic site where they showed a video of a young guy in period dress drilling out wooden pipes...  It was not boring at all!  

[jb616]

A friend of mine is a landscaper / excavator and he says he digs them up all the time. He had a few at his shop when I was there last time. They look like mini oak barrels. 

[TimW]

someone had posted a historic site where they showed a video of a young guy in period dress drilling out wooden pipes...  It was not boring at all! 

Doc, you're not boring either. I'd like to see that video.

[doc henderson]

OK!

Boring Wooden Pipes and Hand Pumps

[Resonator]

I've seen pictures of both, the kind made from a log with a hole bored through the center, and the banded staves type. The bigger mains tended to be built with the staves and bands.
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When I was a young kid we took a tour of hydro-electric plant near me on the Wisconsin river. When they had constructed it in 1938, it was built in location separate from main river channel. They piped in river water through 2 huge diameter, 1325' long wooden pipes called "penstocks", built like a barrel with staves and bands. They leaked so much in the later years, they were replaced with steel pipes in 2018.

[TimW]

Thanks Doc!  I'll share it with my friend.

[Old Greenhorn]

So I have been slowly picking away at all the dead trees I have to take down since that danged gypsy moth killed most of my beautiful red oaks and a few others. The 30MPH winds took out a neighbors small hard maple that whacked my fence yet again. I cut some of that up today and while out in the swamp I did another survey of the work I need to do yet. A winter or so ago I big EWP got snapped off from another neighbors property and took out a hard wood on my side but left a 20' or so stem. I ignored it figuring I would whack it when the time was right and I had a saw in my hands. Since the entire top was gone, it was just a stick, but I noticed now that the tree is covered in green stuff. I figured a vine had worked up it and I walked over to see if it was poison ivy. Turns out there is no vine, it's all epicormic sprouting, up the entire stick. Now This isn't a common tree for me so I did some research.


I think this is Tupelo, which I hear is a nice wood. I was just going to make this into firewood, the log is about 12" (or will soon be), but from what I read, it makes nice wood.
 Does anybody have experience with this they can share , or maybe look at the leaves and tell me if it's another wood? I know it's a small log, but if it's nice wood and dries well, maybe I can make something nice with it that's different from my normal fare of common woods.

[Magicman]

My tomorrow's sawing fizzled on the runway.  I have pictures of the trees before removal and the butt and second cut on three trees would have easily been over 1Mbf and would have made his cut list.  They only left him the three butt logs.  He drove down from Chattanooga this afternoon and we were to saw tomorrow morning.  When he saw the logs he immediately sent me pictures and gave me a call.  He was big time disappointed but also thinking that somehow he had let me down.  I had to explain to him that no way was I driving 62 miles, charging him $124 for travel & setup, and then sawing only 540 bf and charging him for sawing the minimum of 1Mbf.  Nope, ain't happening.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, it was a LOT better that he called you and layed it out in real terms. That would have made for a bad day if he didn't say anything. Relationships are everything in this business. I understand his feelings, he must have been pretty ticked off and I don't blame him one bit.


I am surprised nobody jumped on that log ID. I thought @caveman would have rattled it off the top of his head. I might take that tree down today if it doesn't get too hot too soon.

[Magicman]

My tomorrow's sawing fizzled on the runway.  I have pictures of the trees before removal and the butt and second cut on three trees would have easily been over 1Mbf and would have made his cut list.  They only left him the three logs.

Here are the trees marked for removal, and the three logs that they left.  I estimate 540bf in those 3 logs so if he had gotten all of the logs, he would have had close enough to 1Mbf to justify the travel & sawing cost which would have been $572.

[Old Greenhorn]

Ain't nothin' wrong with those logs! They would have gone fast and easy (sap notwithstanding). It's a shame he didn't get the second and maybe 3rd log from those stems, looks like good clean stuff. I bet he has a talk with the guy doing his cutting, I sure would.

[Magicman]

I did not necessarily need the work but I chose to travel that distance more as a favor to him because there are NO sawyers in his area and he really needed the lumber.  He had told me that the butt on the largest tree was 24" which was how I was estimating his bf.  He was not there and I am wondering if maybe the butt cuts, etc. were stolen.  I am seeing only one log from the larger tree and two from the next larger tree.  I am not seeing any hinges on any logs. ??  My opinion is that he got screwed over. 

[Old Greenhorn]

I am of the same mind. What a shame.