Reverse Roll Quarter Sawing

[PA_Walnut]

Question, do you dead stack off of the mill, cut and anchor seal and then sticker stack them?  

I'm guessing he will say, "Yes". My process is the same--we've tried stickering right off the mill, but even with 3 people on that end, can't keep up. For me, I like the zen of stacking and stickering...gives me a chance to better scrutinize and/or mark boards.

Yellow, having 20" quarter sawn white oak, is like gold...money in the bank. (as you know). I believe anything over 12" is a rarity. Check out quartersawnoak.com. For high-fleck boards, the price is $4.50/bf for under 8", but $27.20 for 16'+!! Martha wants a new pair of shoes.

So, I wonder what kinda multiplier my curly, wide quarter sawn should demand. (it's 16" or so) 

[scsmith42]

Question, do you dead stack off of the mill, cut and anchor seal and then sticker stack them?  

Yellow, having 20" quarter sawn white oak, is like gold...money in the bank. (as you know). I believe anything over 12" is a rarity. Check out quartersawnoak.com. For high-fleck boards, the price is $4.50/bf for under 8", but $27.20 for 16'+!! Martha wants a new pair of shoes.

So, I wonder what kinda multiplier my curly, wide quarter sawn should demand. (it's 16" or so)  

And I've sold all of the 16+ inchers that we've milled for that price too!

You can't see much ray fleck due to the photo angle but here is a 20" QSWO board.  The biggest challenge with the extremely large logs is that they usually have some defects in them (spalted sapwood, bugs, etc), because few people want to remove a 50"+ oak tree unless they have to.








That looks like some gorgeous QSWO!

For 16" wide, curly QSWO that is kiln dried I'd think that you could net $20. bd ft or more for 5/4.  You have to be prepared to sit on it for a while though until the right customer comes along.  Best to mill a little thicker than normal too.

[WDH]

Seems like it would sell better as 9/4?

[PA_Walnut]

For 16" wide, curly QSWO that is kiln dried I'd think that you could net $20. bd ft or more for 5/4.  You have to be prepared to sit on it for a while though until the right customer comes along.  Best to mill a little thicker than normal too.

I try to saw anything over 12-14" as 5/4. However, often bend the rules for qsawn since its stable.

[scsmith42]

Seems like it would sell better as 9/4?

It might but the drying time is so much longer.  I have not had any problems selling it as 5/4.  Usually folks making either tables, cabinets, or using it for a single panel in a frame and panel door.

[YellowHammer]

Robert, those are beautiful quarter sawn boards. Question, do you dead stack off of the mill, cut and anchor seal and then sticker stack them?  

One more question.  This is for any who do a lot of quarter sawing.  What is the minimum diameter log that you typically quarter saw?

I saw alone most times, and deadstack everything.  With the drag back, roller table and a pallet, I just whittle until the log is gone and I don't want to stop to sticker.  With QS wood, I don't want to lose my rhythm and lose the fleck.   Much like the video 123Maxbars made, at 15:00 minutes or so, I'm pulling the boards back pretty constantly as Customsawyer is doing.    


Also, I don't pre buck long logs that I QS so most every log will be longer than my pallet.  Even though I get a lot of very good logs, such as what made this stack of QS white oak, there are inevitable boards that will have knots.  

Since our standard board length is 8 feet, I don't want to just pack saw this stack and get what I get, as it randomly came off the saw, I want to quickly inspect each board so that the best 8 foot section gets put on the pallet, even if it means I have to spin some boards around.  Then when I pack saw them after sticking, I have an entire pallet of high value, dead clean, no knot, full length 8 footers and pallet of lesser quality, lower value short boards that may have a knot or other defect in them that I can clean up if I have to.  




A 2 foot diameter log is about the smallest I'd quartersaw.

[caveman]

Thank you for your thorough explanation.  John and I have quite a few live oak logs to saw if we ever get enough space to stack more wood.  Some may be candidates for quarter sawing but with a manual mill, that becomes a laborious endeavor.

[boonesyard]

I just read this entire thread, watched all the videos, studied all the pics. WOW, did I learn a lot!! I've got a load of white oak coming in and a fair amount of red and white oak we'll be cutting this year. I cannot wait to try this method of QSing on some of the nicer logs. Thanks YH for your all the wonderful info, what a forum.

[YellowHammer]

Glad to help.  You might practice on some lower value logs before you start whittling on the high dollar ones.  The method works great. I was just dressing some RRQS ambrosia 8/4 sycamore this afternoon and it looked so nice I snapped a picture.  Let me know if we can help or answer questions.



 

[boardmaker]

YH,

That Sycamore looks awesome. 

[boonesyard]

Has anyone tried this on elm?.

[curved-wood]

Is your elm has special wood grain when cut quater saw ? The elm around here (Québec ) has a beautifull grain when flat saw. Very prone to twisting specially those big one that grow in the open field; the grain is twisted like a steel cable, I guess it help for wind resistance.

[boonesyard]

I've never QS elm, thinking about it now would be a waste of time. None of it is very clear and it is really nice looking in flat sawn slabs.

[Darrel]

My experience with quarter sawing elm is limited to the middle cuts when slabbing. In my way of thinking, the flat sawn slabs look much nicer and have more character. 

[kennymcd]

As the most recent newbie to FF, this is my very first input. I just went through this entire thread, watched every video and went through every pic. What I learned about quarter sawn techniques is of huge value. Thanks. But, I do have a challenge that I hope you can steer me in the right direction. I have a sawmill supplier of Sipo Utile in Cameroon, Africa. These logs start at 30 inches and go to 60 inches. I need them only quarter sawn in 12/4 and 8/4 thicknesses. I have sent my guys at the mill over there hand drawn drawings, web pics and even a Frank Miller basic video of quarter sawing. Between the French / English translation and their antique methods of sawing, I am not getting through to them. Does anyone know of a "quarter sawing 101" either video of manual - or even course material somewhere that I can send them to start them off in the right direction? They do have both vertical and horizontal band saws - and lots of manual labor. They seem to be real experienced, and confident - but only in what they know. Please help if you can.

 

[doc henderson]

Kenny welcome to the forum.  it is nice to have friends around the world.  I am not sure of a nice concise video, but someone here will have some info.  Thanks for posting you question.

[WV Sawmiller]

  I have read and re-read this thread a number of times meaning to try it sometime. Well I have a customer on my backlog with some big red oak and he only wants quartersawn lumber so I ran a test case today using a 12' stock RO log I had. It was really a bit small for quarter sawing at 19" SED and it has been down nearly 2 years with very punky sapwood. The pith was a little off center to boot. I made a shallow cut on all 4 sides then cut a 7-1/4" cant off the top, I cut 4- 4/4 boards out of the middle leaving a 5-1/4" cant on the bottom. My camera battery was dead so I stopped sawing, put the battery on charge and went and mowed my grass while topping up the battery. After finishing mowing the yard (about an hour) I had enough battery juice to take a few pictures and resumed sawing.


 One cant ready to saw, 4 center cuts to be edged and another cant on the arms.


 I'm getting some nice fleck but not real wide boards.


 I sawed the first cant and edged the center boards then put this cant on the mill. When I looked at my sharpie lines I realized I had the cant backwards/upside down.


 I reversed it and got my blade about parallel to my sharpie marks (may not can see them here)


 I cut off a pie shape and found the fleck

 When finished I probably had wasted way more than I should. My yield was only 96 bf and that included saving boards down to 3" wide but they were full of fleck. I found edging was harder because I did not have any true 90 degree cuts to stand the flitches vertical. Also I see the throat depth on my LT35 can be a limiting factor on how wide a cant I can cut and resulting boards I will get.

[Den-Den]

As the most recent newbie to FF, this is my very first input. I just went through this entire thread, watched every video and went through every pic. What I learned about quarter sawn techniques is of huge value. Thanks. But, I do have a challenge that I hope you can steer me in the right direction. I have a sawmill supplier of Sipo Utile in Cameroon, Africa. These logs start at 30 inches and go to 60 inches. I need them only quarter sawn in 12/4 and 8/4 thicknesses. I have sent my guys at the mill over there hand drawn drawings, web pics and even a Frank Miller basic video of quarter sawing. Between the French / English translation and their antique methods of sawing, I am not getting through to them. Does anyone know of a "quarter sawing 101" either video of manual - or even course material somewhere that I can send them to start them off in the right direction? They do have both vertical and horizontal band saws - and lots of manual labor. They seem to be real experienced, and confident - but only in what they know. Please help if you can.

 

If these guys are experienced and confident, you are likely taking the wrong approach when telling them HOW to quartersaw.  Would be better to listen to WHY they don't ($$$) and tell them WHY they should ($$$).

[WV Sawmiller]

Kennymcd,

  Are you just buying the lumber or supplying any equipment and training? If you are just buying the lumber I'd quote a price for the quartersawn lumber then reject anything that does not make the grade. Do you have a rep there inspecting the lumber before it is loaded and shipped? I'd suggest that if you are not going over yourself.

  What kind of equipment are they using (Big commercial bandmills or something similar to ours with 26-36 inch cuts). I saw some pretty decent lumber made by free-hand sawing with chainsaws over there. I was in Doaula and our office overlooked the port. I remember huge stacks of logs staged there to ship and remember some where one log completely filled the truck bed. We visited the CAR and on our last day we went to a French run sawmill there. They used a big band mill - bands looked to be at least 12" wide. Are they sawing in Douala. Yaounde, or other locations? Good luck. I sure miss being over there.

[YellowHammer]

WV,
One of the trade off when QSawing is the number of center cut boards that are taken because that detracts from the overall thickness of the remaining cant, which dictates the width of any resulting QS boards.  It’s important to take the pith out, but for a log that size, I would probably limit to 2 center cut boards, and use the extra inches for the cant thickness. This would be the same in any QS technique, as the remaining cant was only 5 1/4” thick, whether it was RR or conventionally split into quarters.  The RR technique can take them at the hypotenuse angle so may yield a couple 6” wide, but they are still not going to be real wide.

The best QS candidate for smaller logs is a very off center pith so that the one side will yield wide boards, although the other side will yield narrower.