Cedar Logs

[woodshop]

LOL, I actually thought about Woodshop when I took this baby down last night. It does seem a shame to use them for a trailer bed but It is light, weather resistant and pretty tough stuff, which makes it a real good candidate. Besides I have more where this came from, the other log is a Monster. I have four more in one of the hay fields that my FIL wants me to remove, they arent this big but they are still nice ones.

...thought I felt my ears ringing this past weekend

I had the pleasure of walking my oldest of three daughters down the isle on Sat, so been a busy weekend with friends and family popping in and out from all parts of the country, wasn't around much to jump online for very long at a time. The firstborn is always special... I was OK walking her in, but then when the minister asked who gives this woman to be wed, and I said her mother and I do, and I handed her to her soon to be husband, then she discreetly leaned towards me and whispered "I love you daddy"... of course I lost it then... as would any other Daddy. Was a nice wedding.

Hey... ceder makes great decking for a trailer, go for it. It's the lightest stuff around that also resists rot and decay to a degree, and thus every pound less decking means a pound more you can haul on that trailer. As I stated in another post, redcedar WILL rot though eventually. If you can take the extra weight, black locust or even better, osage orange does not... for all practical purposes, osage does not rot in that application at all... ever... and would probably outlast that trailer. It is pretty heavy stuff though.

NICE cedar log... we get them like that up here once in a great while depending on where grown etc, but usually not that large and check free. I understand cedar grows much bigger and better down your direction. Even in So MD where I lived for a while they had lots of huge cedars like that, and in some areas, pure stands of it 40-50 miles down below Washington DC area.

Great pics dusty, thanks for posting... yes my mouth is watering looking at them. Hey... water under the bridge

 

[TNMIKE]

Nice logs

Those are nice BIG cedar logs Terry. I have a few like that but I hate to cut them. The majority of what I have are in the 6 to 10 inch range. Good work.

 

[dustytools]

...thought I felt my ears ringing this past weekend

I had the pleasure of walking my oldest of three daughters down the isle on Sat, so been a busy weekend with friends and family popping in and out from all parts of the country, wasn't around much to jump online for very long at a time. The firstborn is always special... I was OK walking her in, but then when the minister asked who gives this woman to be wed, and I said her mother and I do, and I handed her to her soon to be husband, then she discreetly leaned towards me and whispered "I love you daddy"... of course I lost it then... as would any other Daddy. Was a nice wedding.

Hey... ceder makes great decking for a trailer, go for it. It's the lightest stuff around that also resists rot and decay to a degree, and thus every pound less decking means a pound more you can haul on that trailer. As I stated in another post, redcedar WILL rot though eventually. If you can take the extra weight, black locust or even better, osage orange does not... for all practical purposes, osage does not rot in that application at all... ever... and would probably outlast that trailer. It is pretty heavy stuff though.

NICE cedar log... we get them like that up here once in a great while depending on where grown etc, but usually not that large and check free. I understand cedar grows much bigger and better down your direction. Even in So MD where I lived for a while they had lots of huge cedars like that, and in some areas, pure stands of it 40-50 miles down below Washington DC area.

Great pics dusty, thanks for posting... yes my mouth is watering looking at them. Hey... water under the bridge

Congratulations on the new Son-in-law. I agree that the Locust would have been better but they arent that big on our farm due to them being harvested for firewood for the last several years. I figured that a good spraying of diesel fuel once a year or so would help to keep the Cedar protected.

 

[dustytools]

Those are nice BIG cedar logs Terry. I have a few like that but I hate to cut them. The majority of what I have are in the 6 to 10 inch range. Good work.

The majority of our Cedars are around 6-10" here too. I wonder how big they will be in the next ten to fifteen years? I dont know how much truth there is to it but someone once told me that if you keep the lower limbs trimmed off that they will fill out quicker.

 

[woodshop]

The majority of our Cedars are around 6-10" here too. I wonder how big they will be in the next ten to fifteen years? I dont know how much truth there is to it but someone once told me that if you keep the lower limbs trimmed off that they will fill out quicker.

Actually, from what I know about trees, trimming limbs will not necessarily make the tree put on larger growth rings (which is of course how the tree grows in diameter). As for how big... in So MD, old redcedars that were allowed to grow often got 36 in in dia, and some larger. Those big ones were usually yard or barn trees or ones stuck out in the middle or a field though, with huge thick branches. The redcedars that grew in the woods, often in almost pure stands, with all that competition grew straighter and taller with few lower limbs, but put on diameter growth slowly.

I rarely buy wood since I mill so much and as of yet don't use 5% of what I mill, but redcedar I don't have a lot of, maybe 150ft left, and I do use it in the woodshop for some product, so sooner or later I'll have to take a weekend and head south to a sawmill and pick up a load again. Last time I checked into it (several years ago) I could get dry stuff for about $2.25 a bd ft if I got couple hundred feet. I think if I went right to a small rural sawmill in MD or VA I could get it right off the saw cheaper than that.

 

[Backwoods]

I keep all my young trees trimmed up as far as I can with a ladder. But keep in mind that always, always, leave at least the top 1/3 of the tree with branches as that is most of the photosynthesis happens. I start when they are young and every year or so trim them a little higher.

 

[TNMIKE]

I dont about them filling out

It would be easy enough to try it. I do know that a big cedar like the one you have is old. I had a state forester tell me that one of my big ones was at least 100 years old.

 

[TNMIKE]

Cedar rot

Yes cedar will rot. I have fence posts on my farm that I know have been there at least 50 years and are still sound. I have others that have been in the ground ten years and have rotted down to the heart wood and fallen over. I have noticed the same thing with locust. Locust use to be THE thing for posts in WNC. Their use has declined because they just dont last like they use to.

 

[dustytools]

Yes cedar will rot. I have fence posts on my farm that I know have been there at least 50 years and are still sound. I have others that have been in the ground ten years and have rotted down to the heart wood and fallen over. I have noticed the same thing with locust. Locust use to be THE thing for posts in WNC. Their use has declined because they just dont last like they use to.

Ive been noticing the same thing with the Cedar and Locust posts here too Mike. Some seem to last a good while when others of the same species only last a few years. Hedge-Apple on the other hand is said to be the best wood for post material and will last for what seems like forever.

 

[nametrux]

Post rot

I think the old farmers almanac listed the moon phases to use when setting posts so they lasted longer. Wonder if that works with steel T posts?

 

[woodshop]

Ive been noticing the same thing with the Cedar and Locust posts here too Mike. Some seem to last a good while when others of the same species only last a few years. Hedge-Apple on the other hand is said to be the best wood for post material and will last for what seems like forever.

I pulled some black locust posts out of the ground last year that were we figured about 50 years old. The tops of the posts had deteriorated from cracking and weathering, and even started to rot away at some places, but the part of the post buried in the mud below ground was still as solid as ever. You could even see the clean lines of the ax marks made by whomever back then to put a point on the post before pounding the roughly 4 inch dia posts into the ground. They were pounded in about 2 1/2 feet deep.

Osage orange (hedge apple) does hold the title as THE most rot resistant native species grown in N America.

 

[dustytools]

I pulled some black locust posts out of the ground last year that were we figured about 50 years old. The tops of the posts had deteriorated from cracking and weathering, and even started to rot away at some places, but the part of the post buried in the mud below ground was still as solid as ever. You could even see the clean lines of the ax marks made by whomever back then to put a point on the post before pounding the roughly 4 inch dia posts into the ground. They were pounded in about 2 1/2 feet deep.

Osage orange (hedge apple) does hold the title as THE most rot resistant native species grown in N America.

Agreed! Osage also has a very high (maybe one of the highest?) BTU rating when it comes to heating with firewood.

 

[Trigger-Time]

It seems that cedar's grown in poor soil have more heart wood
and less sap wood and will last much longer as post than, cedars
that have grown in good soil. Slower growing, have more rings
per inch so I guess thats why they last longer.

 

[rayvil01]

I'm surprised to hear Locust outlasting Cedar in fenceposts. That's interesting. My experiences with Locust were not that great. Ten years or so was it. Never tried Osage Orange. Nice wood. Super firewood.

Congrats Woodshop.

 

[woodshop]

I'm surprised to hear Locust outlasting Cedar in fenceposts. That's interesting. My experiences with Locust were not that great. Ten years or so was it. Never tried Osage Orange. Nice wood. Super firewood.

Congrats Woodshop.

There are apparently varying degrees of rot resistance within the same species depending on what minerals are in the soil where the tree grew and also how fast the tree grew etc. Thus some locust is more rot resistant than others, same with cedar and osage I assume. Also, there are several kinds of locust here on the east coast, and only black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) is all that rot resistant. Honeylocust for example is not.

 

[TNMIKE]

Ive gotta try that moon phase idea

Maybe thats the key to it.

 

[dustytools]

I started milling the other log today. I didnt get any further than squaring up the cant because my wife got home from work and wanted to do a little work in the garden. Ill hopefully get a chance to slice it up tomorrow and will post some more pics then. Thanks for looking. View attachment 72272

View attachment 72273

View attachment 72274

 

[RAS323]

Nice looking boards, Dusty!!

 

[dustytools]

I finished up the larger log this morning. I got these six 7/4X12"X9' boards out of it. I promise that this will be the last of the boring Cedar milling pictures for a while,LOL. Thanks for looking. Almost forgot to note that it was what I would consider a perfect day for milling. About 65 degrees with a nice breeze blowing in just the right direction. View attachment 72320

View attachment 72321

 

[woodshop]

... I promise that this will be the last of the boring Cedar milling pictures for a while...

Thanks Dusty... NO pics of milled cedar boards or any other are ever "boring" to us. That's why we keep logging on here. I for one love redcedar, it's up there in my top 5 woods to mill and work with in the shop. When I run redcedar through my machines, even though most are hooked to a dust collector, the whole shop smells like a cedar closet.