Old growth Douglas Fir

[redbeard]

Looked at a possible job to take down a snag, luckily its only 40' high not like the brother next to it which is a good 120'. Its a healthy 4' across with lots of pitch pockets ( rock hard old pitch hard on blades) If its a saw log customer wants wide slabs for a future table out of the butt  and beams out of the upper part of log. So I will need FF member Steve Geshcwend to assist me with his slabber on his Brand X mill. Its in a pretty open area no danger of hitting anything except maybe the water that would be a bit more work getting it off the beach. ;D

[backwoods sawyer]

Some of them old fir logs will pop clean apart when you slab them and open up the pitch seams.
If you can get it to hold together there should be some interesting grain pattern in there. Once it is on the ground you will have a better look at the log.

[logwalker]

I have cut a few of those here on San Juan Island. I would expect the quality to be well down the scale. But maybe I am wrong on this one. We slabbed ours also and some of them just fell apart with large checks and pitch pockets. Good Luck, Joe

[Brucer]

I was offered one like that to saw up -- not as big in diameter, but the tree had been topped about 24' up.

I found the top 1/3 was pretty much rotten -- flat top = water collecting and not evaporating quickly enough.

The bottom appeared to be pretty sound, but someone had obviously built a tree house in it. Someone had also been practicing "nailing". After pulling out 80-plus nails the metal detector was still sounding like a geiger counter. I abandoned the job before the log even left the property, so I never did find out if the bottom wood was OK.

[SwampDonkey]

Looks like there is a story behind that stub, with all those rock cairns around it.

[sgschwend]

Well, if Redbeard gets it I will slab it.  With our wet weather the other NW folks probably have hit it on the head, the top will be likely be bad. 

The customer may want the tree sawn since it comes from a family place.  Hopefully they will pass on any tree house or other metal use there.

[captain_crunch]

All I can say from liveing in Oregon is good luck Old timers left trees like that because they did not get paied fer culls

[Ianab]

All I can say from liveing in Oregon is good luck Old timers left trees like that because they did not get paied fer culls

Probably true, but what was a cull back then could be treasure now.

A few years back Lucas were demoing their chainsaw slabber at the Ag Fieldays, with a big hunk of old Kauri pine that had been left in the bush 70 or so years ago. It was the last log, with the top end starting to branch out, so it was a "cull" back then. But the wood was still sound, in spite of laying on the ground for 70 odd years, and they sliced it up into 2" thick table slabs that they were selling for $1,000 a piece. They sold them all.

Once the thing is on the ground and you can see what's inside you will have a better idea if it's trash or treasure.

Ian

[SwampDonkey]

Back in the mid 90's we were doing forest surveys in the Queen Charlotte Islands for growth and yield in "juvenile" stands. This one site was logged in the 40's and the hill side had lots of 5-6 foot diameter red cedar logs lying about. The sap wood was rotten in for about 4" and the rest was sound wood and smelled like you just cut it when we chopped into them. These were in rain forest.  I don't know what recovery you could expect from them, as there probably was rotten pockets here and there.

[redbeard]

 







took down the big fir it was heavy and although there is pitch rings it has enough potetial to get some nice parts. I delivered the logs to steve Geschwends brand X swing mill with slabber so there will be another chapter to story. This tree is 300 plus years old maybe steve will count the rings for us.

[sigidi]

Looks like a good sound log  8) ;D 8) ;D

[logwalker]

The problem I run into is that pitch never stops flowing. Is the a solution out there?

[SwampDonkey]

Kiln to set the pitch.  ;D

[GAmillworker]

Yes, we kiln dry heart pine for the same reason.  We run it up to 135-140 for a couple hours depending on how many bdft we have in the kiln.  It flows like honey at first then crystalizes.

[Magicman]

Steve's eyes may glaze over when he sees it.   

[logwalker]

It isn't easy to kiln a 4" slab. What then?

[Ianab]

It isn't easy to kiln a 4" slab. What then?

You can air dry it, then give it a quick bake in the kiln for a day.

Once it's dry it's pretty much impossible to damage, even with a wrong kiln schedule.

Once you get it warm enough the lighter compounds in the pitch evaporate, and leave the heavier ones that set solid.

Ian

[sgschwend]

Some pics of the first log.  The sap rings are a problem, but the customer knows they are there.








The center part will produce 5- 3" thick slabs





Here are 2X8 & 3X8 VG parts from the top and bottom 1/3

[Burlkraft]

Nice!  ;D ;D

[Magicman]

Thanks for the pictures Steve.  I was anxious to see what was inside of the big log.  Did your "helper" show up  ???

[WDH]

You would not think that a douglas fir would have that kind of color and character.

[Magicman]

I guess that with a 300+ year old DF, one could expect some character.  If it only could talk, there would be some stories.     At least it can "live" on now as some beautiful wood work.

[sgschwend]

Here is an image of the stacked slabs, Redbeard will post some others.  Redbeard is in the background.

Note the slabs separated along the included pitch lines:

[redbeard]

 

It was a good early morning job helping steve with the slabing project. The Brand X mill with the Lucas slabber sure makes cutting wide a breeze. Although these were very heavy slabs and cutting through the pitch rings was a strain on the teeth. But Steve got er done.





Steves off road military fork lift is really nice especially the side shift sure makes staking your piles nice n neat.

[Magicman]

Nice job guys.   

It would be worth it just to get to operate that big honking fork lift.