Mom Pocock did the honours of pouring a fine Ontario sparkling white wine on the second cross bunk.
May the milling gods be pleased with this sacrifice! After some adjustments, I finally got underway with the first hemlock polewood.
The first task was to build the supports for the 8 ft. air-drying station.
Scaredy deer makes a visit to the milling area to see what all the fuss is about.
The 4x6 'mudsill' beam is placed on the air-drying station. A wood structure must first be built on which to place cut lumber for air-drying.
In between each layer of drying wood on an air-drying stack, small lengths of wood called 'stickers' are placed to allow air to flow which, over the course of several months, will draw the moisture out of the wet wood.
Classy red oak stickers 'cause I'm, like, a class guy.
Mom Pocock tries her hand at peeling a red oak log.
There's no shortage of sawdust.
Wow! You are in the zone, Buddy!
ReplyDeleteSo what's it like seeing your tree turned in to beautiful lumber? What are you going to do with all that premium red oak?
Maybe you should mill your way west - set up shop and mill some logs for cash - move on to the next town - mill a few logs - you'd be out here in no time!
Well, there's a few thousand dollars I have to throw at my newly acquired truck before I could make this mill truly portable. Then again, I could just hook-up the 'ole EcoRocket, eh?
ReplyDeleteSquaring four sides of a log into a 'cant' is a starnge experience. It's a power wield for sure. ZIIIIP and a whole side of a log is gone. In a way it's a bit anti-climatic because there's so much to do in preparation of that moment. Finding a straight tree in the woods that should come down due to my forest management prescription, cutting it down, cutting off the branches, cutting it to lengths, clearing a path to it though the forest for ATV access, hooking it up to the ATV, skidding the log to the mill, unhooking the log at the log landing, rolling it up, onto the mill, positioning the log on the mill, securing the log on the mill....
And most of the trees in Deerwood aren't even small sawlog size (greater than 12 inch diameter). Most are polewood (11 inches) or less. Each of the four 'filtch' side cuts takes off 2 to 3 inches of the log's diameter. So a 11 inch polewood log when cut into a cant becomes a 7x7 cant. When you consider that only 50% of a tree is hauled out of the forest after limbing, and another, say 25% of the tree is cut-off's it can get a little dishearting to be honest. All of that time and effort for a few boards. Then I start all over again.
It's a good thing to collect all of the logs at the landing beside the mill, then just do a big day of milling, so I'm not just running all over the place.
The best milling is with large and straight logs. You cannot believe how much waste occurs when the log is even slightly crooked. They're hard to roll and set on the mill. They're three times the effort and you get 50% of the wood. So, when I look at a potential sawlog in the forest, I stick my head at the base of the tree trunk and look up. It better be straight, or it isn't worth the effort.
Long comment....
The red oak, will be used - along with some pine and hemlock - as office roof cross 'purlins' onto which I hope to nail the pine shakes this fall. I'm in a bit of a rush to cut this lumber now so it'll mostly be dry for nailing up in the fall.