Not Quite Beach Milling . . .

[Daninvan]

I have not been down to my usual beach milling site since it reopened a couple months ago for the winter. I did however manage to score some beech from a lot in town that was being redeveloped. Based on the leaf colour I would say it was a copper beech, although the wood looks identical to 'regular' beech.

Some of the biggest hardwood tree trunks in town are beech. It seems to grow relatively fast here, and some of them in town are probably around 100 years old. I figure this one probably dates from the late 1930's as that is when this area was developed. Here is the piece I milled, it was the bottom section of the trunk.



I used a 2x8 as a guideboard, and milled the first cut with my Granberg mill on a 36" bar.


After that I had to switch to my homebrewed mill on a 60" bar. Was using a Husky 3120 as a powerhead. You can see another piece of the trunk in the background. I had to let that one go into the dumpster and get hauled away, what a waste.


I peeled three slabs out of it (not including the first waney one) and they were looking good. The log was about 4' long, it took a tank of gas per pass once I go into the thicker part of it.


It was over 48" wide as I got close to the middle of the log. I wound up having to trim off some protrusions in order to get the mill down the log.


Also, the slabs at roughly 48" square by 3 1/2" thick were totally unmanageable by one person, that is, me. I had to call for help to get the first three slabs moved. After that, there was a big ugly knot (figures!), so what I did was first do a vertical cut down the middle of the slab, so that when the mill was done I would have two slabs per cut that I could actually manage one at a time.


So the first day I milled up just over half the log, a total of five slabs, two of which I had cut in half. A nice haul and by far the biggest amount of beech I had ever milled.

 

[buzz sawyer]

Nice looking wood, glad you saved it.

 

[discounthunter]

whatta beech!

 

[Daninvan]

A couple days later I went back with my buddy who is an amazing turner. With the two of us we did not need to rip the boards vertically in order to move them. We peeled off three slabs, but you can see that the big ugly knot problem got bigger and uglier.


However since he was just looking for bowl blanks he was able to cut around them and still get several 14"+ sized blanks. From the three slabs we cut that day he got 22 good solid blanks. With the slabs I had cut a few days before, we got quite a nice haul in total. Here they are stacked up temporarily.


I had cut up a pretty wide piece of elm a few years ago using the 60" bar. I dubbed those slabs 'death elm' since cutting and moving that thing almost killed me!


This beech was close, but I think since it was a bit shorter it was not so unwieldy, heavy, and deathly. Definitely want to have two people on the big bar.

I hope to be back to the beach in the next week or two. If so I will post some more pics.

Dan

 

[cre10]

That's awesome!

 

[BobL]

Good to see you posting again Dan.
Great looking wood there too.

 

[john taliaferro]

That is gonna make some nice pieces ,better get it baged or anchored sealed quick though .

 

[2treeornot2tree]

I milled some beech last year. Let it sit a month or two and kiln dried it. It twisted like a mother.

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[Daninvan]

Thanks guys!

I milled some beech last year. Let it sit a month or two and kiln dried it. It twisted like a mother.

I have milled up a couple smaller beech logs in the past and also found that there was quite a bit of movement as they dried. The last beech I milled before the big one in this thread, I did not bother to kiln dry it, I just let the pieces dry outside for two years, then moved them into the shop where they have been sitting for 'a while'.

I now have the slab ends anchorsealed and the pieces stacked in a sheltered area. I will leave them there for at least two and maybe even three years.

My turner buddy has already rough turned his blanks, they are now sitting in the heavy paper bags which are used for city leaf collection here. He only lost a couple to cracks, and said many of them had nice figure in them. I think he lets them sit there in the paper bags for several months at least before he does the final turning on them. He said that they were so wet while he was rough turning them that the water was spraying onto the ceiling of his shop and dripping down onto his neck!