Milling Around A Rotted Center

[Sawyer Rob]

Well, today i milled the "top" log, from the tree my friend gave me a few days ago... Here it is on the mill,

Now, i've been accused of "never" telling about anything breaking on my sawmill, and actually, nothing has....until yesterday... lol Well, here it is folks! I broke the handle on the valve that is on the water bottle!

Lucky for me some time ago, i ordered the small "inline" water valve from Norwood, and they sent me the one in the pict. by mistake! When i emailed them about it, they told me to keep it, and then sent me the right one too! So, i had the part to fix my water tank before i got started today! (THANKYOU Norwood!)

Anyway, i looked the log over, and tried to figure how out to get started, as this top log had a hollow spot in the small end. Once i made that decision, i took a slab and a flitch off and turned the log 90*. The problem is, with the log turned 90*, it was sitting on a knob that held the log in such a way, i didn't like it, so i turned it 90* more!

And took another slab and a couple more flitches... Here you can see the rotted hollow center of the tree, the trick is, to work around it getting the MAX amount of lumber as you do...

So, i took flitches untill i ended up with a 12" wide log...

Then once again, turning the log 90*, and taking the slab off,

And 2x12's until i got down to the rotted center,

And here's what that center looked like!

 

[Sawyer Rob]

So i turned the cant 180*, edged all the flitches, and took off boards to get the cant to 6 inches wide. Now with the cant at 6 inches wide, i turned it, and took 2x6's off the cant until i was done!

You can see the 2x6's on the top of this pile of lumber that includes ALL of the lumber from the whole tree! You can also see three 2x6's are shorter, and that's because i chainsawed off the hollow end of the cant when i could no longer get "longer" lumber from it.

Sooo, now with that done, it was time to get all of the lumber on "stickers". As you can see, there's some REALLY nice lumber in the pile!

And here it is, nicely stacked right next to my pile of walnut, that i'll be adding to SOON!

Well, that's it for this tree, now on to the next adventure! lol

Rob

 

[mtngun]

I like your Norwood. Thanks for the detailed description of your milling process -- it might come in handy if I ever get a bandmill.

Are you going to put end sealer on those boards ?

 

[BobL]

Nice work - thanks for posting the pics!

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I like your Norwood. Thanks for the detailed description of your milling process -- it might come in handy if I ever get a bandmill.

Are you going to put end sealer on those boards ?

NO. First off, i rarely put end sealer on logs to be sawn into construction lumber, but most of all, the guy that took the tree down, sawed out the logs 6 to 8 inches over length. So, i will beable to saw off any end checking, that is "if" there is any.

BTW, there's a low hr'ed Norwood LM 2000 forsale on the Norwood forum... so, there ya go!

Rob

 

[lumberinspector]

Thanks for the pics!

Nice little mill.

 

[SilverBox]

Good pics, nice write up..