Red Oak

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Daninvan

ArboristSite Operative
Joined
Oct 31, 2005
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Location
Vancouver BC
A fellow got in touch with me about an oak tree the city was going to be taking down on his street. The city had told him they would have a crew there to take it down on Friday at 8 AM, and that he could have all the wood he wanted from it. I agreed I would mill it for him and that we would split the wood.

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Told him to check with the city crew when they arrived to find out what time they expected to finish falling it, and I would get over there when they were done. He called me and told me they figured 6 hours, so would not be done until 2 PM. So we had to reschedule for Monday. In spite of all the milling I have done, I have never actually cut down a tree so I had no idea how long it took!

Monday turned out to be a great day for milling. The owner had put a sign up on Friday evening to 'claim' the wood, as people were coming by and trying to take it almost immediately after the city crew left on Friday.
Red Oak Milling I.jpg

We decided to trim it and just slab the trunk. My bowl turning buddy could not join me otherwise we probably would have taken something from the larger branches. So first step was to get a guide board on the trunk. I also had to trim the butt end down a bit for thickness, as the log was wider than the 30" max that my mill can handle.
Red Oak Milling II.JPG

Peeled off a couple of slabs and all was going well. The saw was cutting nicely, the neighbours were not complaining, it wasn't raining - the perfect milling day in the city!
Red Oak Milling IV.JPG

Lots of sawdust!! Some tarps helped simplify the clean up a bit. Took off a few more slabs, had to stop and sharpen a couple of times. The chain is getting a bit old, I really need to spend a bit of time on it. Anyways, the slabs were all looking good.
Red Oak Milling VII.JPG

Then, a nail! Luckily the damage was minimal.
Red Oak Milling VIII.JPG

Wound up with 7 slabs, 2 1/2" thick and just over 6 feet long and max of 30 inches wide. Trying to lift these was a good reminder to be careful with my back.
Red Oak Milling XII.JPG

Red Oak Milling XIII.JPG

A great day overall. Did have some trouble with one of the 3120's though. It ran fine for a while then became very difficult to start. So it is into the shop now for a tune up. Hopefully next week can get down to the beach!
 
We have oak all over the place down here and none of it looks that nice. Must be the slower growth up there or something. Love your posts Dan.
 
I have some 394's I use for the same thing. One developed a problem where it wouldn't hot start. Somewhat of an issue when you're halfway through a log like that one. I searched here and found a thread describing the same problem. There wasn't an absolute (mechanical) solution, but one guy said he switched from 50 to 40:1, and his problem got better. I'll be finding out if that works with mine in a few days. Otherwise, I'm blaming the coil.
 
Curt,

Interesting on the ratio being an issue. I have not seen the thread you refer to. Let me know if that works for you. I use 50:1 these days.
 
A fellow got in touch with me about an oak tree the city was going to be taking down on his street. The city had told him they would have a crew there to take it down on Friday at 8 AM, and that he could have all the wood he wanted from it. I agreed I would mill it for him and that we would split the wood.




Then, a nail! Luckily the damage was minimal.
View attachment 538756

Wound up with 7 slabs, 2 1/2" thick and just over 6 feet long and max of 30 inches wide. Trying to lift these was a good reminder to be careful with my back.
View attachment 538757

View attachment 538758

A great day overall. Did have some trouble with one of the 3120's though. It ran fine for a while then became very difficult to start. So it is into the shop now for a tune up. Hopefully next week can get down to the beach!
Hope those 2 1/2" boards dry well. I've got 3 narrower ,longer ,but lil thicker quarter sawn white oak if they avoid split city will b work bench tops. Have any plans for boards so large? Nice job.
 
Yes I was also glad to only hit one nail. Of course no nails at all would have been better! But the damage was fairly minimal, I've hit other nails and objects like rocks that were a lot tougher on the saw than this one was. Definitely a risk in these urban trees, but overall I would have to say I have been pretty fortunate with all the city trees I have milled over the years. I'd SWAG 10 or 15% of them I hit something?

No specific plans for the one piece I took from all this. It has a good shape and dimensions to make a typical slab table. I will let it dry for a couple years and see what I am working with before I make any decisions on it. I chose this piece specifically as some of the other pieces which were more quartersawn than this one appeared likely to crack.

Dan
 

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