Daninvan
ArboristSite Operative
Finally finally finally got down to the city log dump at the beach the other day. A friend had his eyes on some large horse chestnut (similar to buckeye) rounds that had been there since last fall.
An 8 AM rendezvous was arranged, and just as I was about to leave the house I received a text from one of my friends that the road to the area was closed due to repaving! But not to worry, he was going around the other way (there are only two ways in to this area). So I hopped in my car and headed 'the other way', only to discover that that was being repaved as well. In fact access to the area was closed for 3 days due to repaving!
Fortunately a quick call into one of the city guys resulted in us being escorted past the paving crew to the chainsawing area. So it seemed we were on our way!
Rather than slabs we were going to mill a few cookies. As it was roughly 41x50" I had to bring my 60" bar with the home made mill on it. Fortunately whoever originally cut it, left a pretty flat top surface. So it was easy to attach our guide board.
At this point I discovered that while packing up everything for today's chainsawing, somehow I had manage to forget to pack the 'chain'! Embarrassing, but fortunately I don't live very far away, so a quick trip home and back, complicated by the paving, and I had chain in hand.
We got the chain on and I gave it a sharpening, then we got right to cutting. The first cut might look a bit tippy with such a wide bar and a narrow guide board, but it went quite well. Horse chestnut is not a very hard wood, but it sure cut easily even at 40+" wide. I'd like to flatter my chain sharpening skills, but I'm pretty sure that cross cutting a soft wood is way easier than ripping, even if the chain is filed for ripping.
So in fairly short order we had cut out two cookies about 3" thick each. The colour and pattern were pretty nice. My friend was happy. Here they are, along with the top piece and the bottom piece.
Of course, these things rarely go 100% smoothly. On our last cut we hit a couple of nails. Could definitely feel them, but the wood was so soft that we were able to finish the cut, albeit a little more slowly.
So my friend took the two pieces home and set them aside to dry for a couple years. I am a bit fearful for them, they will of course crack as they dry, and the log was already cracked before we peeled the slabs off. There was also some ring shake too, which will complicate things as they dry. He may not wind up with much in the end!
Anyways it was nice as always to get out to the beach and do a bit of milling. We were lucky weather wise too, it did not rain on us.
The usual assortment of curious onlookers stopped by to chat and let their dogs pee on our work! Because of the paving several city workers who were around also came by to take a look.
I think the total 'saw in the log' time was probably under ten minutes for the day, although we were there for about 4 hours. So there is room to improve in the efficiency department!
Anyways, it definitely seems as though the glory days of milling at the beach are over. I have hinted at this before. The city has greatly reduced the amount of wood going to the dump, although I really don't know where it is being redirected to. And the residents of the multi (multi multi) million dollar homes on the cliff above the milling area are letting their feelings be known. And finally, I have so much wood that I will likely never use it, and am already out of storage space for more. So it is likely that this will be my last milling expedition to the beach. I will probably sell off my mills and saws over the next few months.
Thank you to all who have posted encouragement and kind comments in response to my previous posts.
Dan
An 8 AM rendezvous was arranged, and just as I was about to leave the house I received a text from one of my friends that the road to the area was closed due to repaving! But not to worry, he was going around the other way (there are only two ways in to this area). So I hopped in my car and headed 'the other way', only to discover that that was being repaved as well. In fact access to the area was closed for 3 days due to repaving!
Fortunately a quick call into one of the city guys resulted in us being escorted past the paving crew to the chainsawing area. So it seemed we were on our way!
Rather than slabs we were going to mill a few cookies. As it was roughly 41x50" I had to bring my 60" bar with the home made mill on it. Fortunately whoever originally cut it, left a pretty flat top surface. So it was easy to attach our guide board.
At this point I discovered that while packing up everything for today's chainsawing, somehow I had manage to forget to pack the 'chain'! Embarrassing, but fortunately I don't live very far away, so a quick trip home and back, complicated by the paving, and I had chain in hand.
We got the chain on and I gave it a sharpening, then we got right to cutting. The first cut might look a bit tippy with such a wide bar and a narrow guide board, but it went quite well. Horse chestnut is not a very hard wood, but it sure cut easily even at 40+" wide. I'd like to flatter my chain sharpening skills, but I'm pretty sure that cross cutting a soft wood is way easier than ripping, even if the chain is filed for ripping.
So in fairly short order we had cut out two cookies about 3" thick each. The colour and pattern were pretty nice. My friend was happy. Here they are, along with the top piece and the bottom piece.
Of course, these things rarely go 100% smoothly. On our last cut we hit a couple of nails. Could definitely feel them, but the wood was so soft that we were able to finish the cut, albeit a little more slowly.
So my friend took the two pieces home and set them aside to dry for a couple years. I am a bit fearful for them, they will of course crack as they dry, and the log was already cracked before we peeled the slabs off. There was also some ring shake too, which will complicate things as they dry. He may not wind up with much in the end!
Anyways it was nice as always to get out to the beach and do a bit of milling. We were lucky weather wise too, it did not rain on us.
The usual assortment of curious onlookers stopped by to chat and let their dogs pee on our work! Because of the paving several city workers who were around also came by to take a look.
I think the total 'saw in the log' time was probably under ten minutes for the day, although we were there for about 4 hours. So there is room to improve in the efficiency department!
Anyways, it definitely seems as though the glory days of milling at the beach are over. I have hinted at this before. The city has greatly reduced the amount of wood going to the dump, although I really don't know where it is being redirected to. And the residents of the multi (multi multi) million dollar homes on the cliff above the milling area are letting their feelings be known. And finally, I have so much wood that I will likely never use it, and am already out of storage space for more. So it is likely that this will be my last milling expedition to the beach. I will probably sell off my mills and saws over the next few months.
Thank you to all who have posted encouragement and kind comments in response to my previous posts.
Dan
