06-23-2020, 09:16 PM
Much of mine comes from logs I mill and dry. Last week my arborist friend asked if I wanted some logs from a fairly large white oak that a wind storm a couple of weeks ago had felled. Of course, thank you. The tree had miraculously fallen between a small camp and some out buildings that face out onto beautiful Lake Ontario.
He loaded the logs onto a trailer using a Bobcat to lift one end.
And then picked up the other end with the bucket and pushed it aboard,
The boss drove them to my house and dumped them on my yard.
I got me log dolly to move them out to my mill - and promptly broke the 2000 lb winch, even though I use a double line arrangement. These logs are 28 -29" diameter and should weigh around 2300 lbs each, but the winch couldn't handle it. Hmm, now what. I could have brought my mill to the logs, but I decided to quarter the log freehand with my chainsaw instead. That was a bit of a chore but it was a lot easier to move those quarters afterwards, after I bought a new winch for the log dolly.
The quarters pulled up the ramps to my mill w/o much trouble after I figured out how to rig them. I recently upgraded to an electric winch and it's a big step up over the manual winch because I can help guide the log onto the mill while operating the winch with the remote.
I forgot to mention - I discovered that the white oak is really a red oak when I started quartering. Oh well, I like red oak, too, but it was still a bit of a disappointment. But it was free so I won't complain.
You'll note that I have the quarter stood up on the edge of the pie edge. This is one of the two ways to cut rift/quarter sawn lumber. After I took off the peak of the pie to get below the sapwood, I took a couple of cuts.
You get beautiful rift sawn grain here.
Then I rotated the cant to put the cut surface on the deck and repeated the process.
The closer you get to the centerline the more the grain changes from rift to quarter sawn.
And the two cuts right around the centerline are truly quarter sawn and, as you will see, red oak has a fair amount of ray fleck, too.
This board is 12" wide and will give a nice 10" board after removing the sapwood.
The other way of cutting quarters into rift/quarter sawn lumber is to cut parallel with the two faces, one after the other. With this method the heartwood always has a square edge so there's less waste compared to the pie method.
That log yielded something close to 300 BF.
I have an idea on how to pick up the other log with my 2000 lb winch and am going to try that before going to the effort of quartering it. Stay tuned; I'll report back how it went.
John
He loaded the logs onto a trailer using a Bobcat to lift one end.
And then picked up the other end with the bucket and pushed it aboard,
The boss drove them to my house and dumped them on my yard.
I got me log dolly to move them out to my mill - and promptly broke the 2000 lb winch, even though I use a double line arrangement. These logs are 28 -29" diameter and should weigh around 2300 lbs each, but the winch couldn't handle it. Hmm, now what. I could have brought my mill to the logs, but I decided to quarter the log freehand with my chainsaw instead. That was a bit of a chore but it was a lot easier to move those quarters afterwards, after I bought a new winch for the log dolly.
The quarters pulled up the ramps to my mill w/o much trouble after I figured out how to rig them. I recently upgraded to an electric winch and it's a big step up over the manual winch because I can help guide the log onto the mill while operating the winch with the remote.
I forgot to mention - I discovered that the white oak is really a red oak when I started quartering. Oh well, I like red oak, too, but it was still a bit of a disappointment. But it was free so I won't complain.
You'll note that I have the quarter stood up on the edge of the pie edge. This is one of the two ways to cut rift/quarter sawn lumber. After I took off the peak of the pie to get below the sapwood, I took a couple of cuts.
You get beautiful rift sawn grain here.
Then I rotated the cant to put the cut surface on the deck and repeated the process.
The closer you get to the centerline the more the grain changes from rift to quarter sawn.
And the two cuts right around the centerline are truly quarter sawn and, as you will see, red oak has a fair amount of ray fleck, too.
This board is 12" wide and will give a nice 10" board after removing the sapwood.
The other way of cutting quarters into rift/quarter sawn lumber is to cut parallel with the two faces, one after the other. With this method the heartwood always has a square edge so there's less waste compared to the pie method.
That log yielded something close to 300 BF.
I have an idea on how to pick up the other log with my 2000 lb winch and am going to try that before going to the effort of quartering it. Stay tuned; I'll report back how it went.
John