Daninvan
ArboristSite Operative
Thursday was the only day this week that I could get away and do some milling at the city-run log dump at the beach. However, rain was called for on both Wednesday and on Thursday, and I am getting a bit soft I suppose, so I was prepared to call it off if there was more than just a drizzle happening this morning. Despite it raining pretty hard last evening around dinner, today was another near-gorgeous day. Was milling in just a tee shirt, not even needing my jacket to keep warm.
I was in a bit of a rush today though as I did have to be downtown for a lunch at 12:30, which meant I had to be pulling out of the log dump by about 11:30. So I was not a diligent as I usually am with the pictures. I did manage to capture the sun on the light clouds over downtown as I arrived.
The plan today was a Port Orford log which had showed up late last week. The city guys had kindly identified it as Port Orford and set it aside for me. These guys are unbelievably great, I can't enough about how good they are to me and the woodcutters at the dump.
In general the woodpile has been shrinking as of late. The city has been getting dumpsters brought down at a somewhat expedited rate lately in anticipation of cleaning the area up by the end of May when summer more or less starts, and they also have a deal with a beachcomber who booms the pulp logs and hauls them away. The pile is probably well under 25% of what it was earlier this winter, and what is left is total crap.
The log we were interested in was about 15' long, which is too big for us. So, the city guys cut it into two for us, then used the loader to dip the pieces in the water to get rid of most of the sand that had accumulated on the bark, then set them up at an angle on some logs so we could use gravity to help us mill. More great service!
We peeled 5 2.5" thick slabs off each of the two pieces. My original intent was to mill one in half down the pith, then flip each piece 90 degrees and mill again. Then we could get all qs pieces from those four quarters. But due to the fact I had never done that before and was tight on time in the end we just milled the log through and through as usual.
Due to the knots and some rot we found we left a bit more scrap than we normally do. But once again someone was scrounging in our scrap pile before we were even gone!
One of the logs was also kind of buggy, not pinhole bugs like the birch I picked up last week, but larger caterpillar sized pale bugs in the cambium and some into the sapwood as well. Some of them I cut out before loading the wood up, but I will need to go back over what I brought home and cut the edges off most of the pieces I think in order to get rid of the bugs.
I was in a bit of a rush today though as I did have to be downtown for a lunch at 12:30, which meant I had to be pulling out of the log dump by about 11:30. So I was not a diligent as I usually am with the pictures. I did manage to capture the sun on the light clouds over downtown as I arrived.
The plan today was a Port Orford log which had showed up late last week. The city guys had kindly identified it as Port Orford and set it aside for me. These guys are unbelievably great, I can't enough about how good they are to me and the woodcutters at the dump.
In general the woodpile has been shrinking as of late. The city has been getting dumpsters brought down at a somewhat expedited rate lately in anticipation of cleaning the area up by the end of May when summer more or less starts, and they also have a deal with a beachcomber who booms the pulp logs and hauls them away. The pile is probably well under 25% of what it was earlier this winter, and what is left is total crap.
The log we were interested in was about 15' long, which is too big for us. So, the city guys cut it into two for us, then used the loader to dip the pieces in the water to get rid of most of the sand that had accumulated on the bark, then set them up at an angle on some logs so we could use gravity to help us mill. More great service!
We peeled 5 2.5" thick slabs off each of the two pieces. My original intent was to mill one in half down the pith, then flip each piece 90 degrees and mill again. Then we could get all qs pieces from those four quarters. But due to the fact I had never done that before and was tight on time in the end we just milled the log through and through as usual.
Due to the knots and some rot we found we left a bit more scrap than we normally do. But once again someone was scrounging in our scrap pile before we were even gone!
One of the logs was also kind of buggy, not pinhole bugs like the birch I picked up last week, but larger caterpillar sized pale bugs in the cambium and some into the sapwood as well. Some of them I cut out before loading the wood up, but I will need to go back over what I brought home and cut the edges off most of the pieces I think in order to get rid of the bugs.
