We take grade off each side as we go, then square up for beam or timber or wide siding from the center. However, we do cypress and are more concerned with grade than width. There’s good fortune in logs like this and you might be mildly surprised to find out how easy they are to come by.How many of you rotate your logs 180 degrees after the opening cut? We had to increase our footage per day and this seems the fastest way.įor production, flipping 180 degrees is the way to go. Rolling up a log like this will stress the winch, the mill, the truck that powers the winch, and you! Be careful but don’t shy away from your curiosity. You don’t want a reputation for selling “pretty unstable wood”. Take the time to dry it properly after slabbing. Not just pretty wood and not just stable wood, but “pretty stable wood”. Therefore, it is still fun for me and yes, I salvage what many throw away and I even take the time to mill small craft batches of hardwood for the discerning woodworker. My cost to mill, dry and cut to spec: $930.00 (this includes my regular hourly cut rate) and totals come out to just about $26 a board foot. Slabs, bowl blanks, knife scales, pen blanks, turkey call blanks, and a few dowels. The log above and pictured to the right produced approximately 330 board feet of hardwood that (when dried and cut to stock) provided a profit of over $8K. A 48″ steel handled LogRite Cant Hook does a very good job holding and rolling big ugly logs like this. If you think humping a log like this up ramps is hard! Try sliding that log down the deck 2″! It’s times like this when you learn the true value of a decent tool. Nothing worse than going through all that trouble and find out you are inches from being able to run the bandsaw completely through. Straighten it as it climbs the ramps so it ends up in the deck on a desirable cutting position. Be careful, be methodical and be careful (i said twice for good reason). #Sawing logs freeThe last thing you want is to put yourself in a compromising position like on the business side of an ugly log that if/when it breaks free of the winch will crush you with every once of weight that makes it what it is. Not so much for ugly bent logs and this is where patience and experience helps. You simply winch the log up the ramps and onto the deck. They were a little weak for this task but they held up. I also had 2 ramps constructed of 2×3 steel tubing. There are pros and cons to mounting like this but it works for me. It’s dangerous enough winching up these ugly logs, I don’t want to have to worry about my equipment getting damaged and others getting hurt on it, too.Īs you can see, I had a winch made for the deck and had it welded to the outside rail. The guys at the yard offered to do it with their front-end loader but I’m a little particular with heavy machinery around the sawmill unless its absolutely necessary. I was by myself but used everything I had available to get it decked. #Sawing logs portableGetting that log onto the deck of my Hudson 30″ 23HP Portable Mill (2008) was a trick. There’s also a large crotch which produced highly-figured wood slabs of approximately 26″ in width. The log above is a soft Maple infiltrated with Ambrosia beetles and it produced some of the most high-contrast ambrosia pattern I’ve ever seen. Saves them time and money and costs me time and makes me money (hopefully). I get the wood and they don’t have to supervise burning it. My agreement is that when these large logs show up, let me bring my Portable Sawmill to the site, cut it up and haul it away. It’s simple and conducted on a hand-shake. I have an agreement with the local landfill. I would work on salvaging it another way. But it was entwined within the power lines and best left for the “professionals” to handle. I knew where it came from because I had my eyes on this tree for some time. The log pictured above was found at the county landfill. Be mindful of the metal in these bad boys. I learned early that the Gods have hidden the beauty deep within the ugly log and unless you’re willing to work for it, you’ll never find it. In fact, I’ll take the ugliest, twisted, most malformed and bent atrocities over a perfectly straight log any day of the week, and turn high-figured lumber six ways from Sunday. I’ve never been one to shy away from an ugly log.
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