the best kind of free wood

[BlueRider]

I had a neighbor show up at my door step this afternoon wanting to know if I wanted a big chunk of sycamore. I followed him down the street to his house to take a look and it turned out to be a 5' long section of a limb and somewhat oval in cross section measuring 24" one way and 36" the other. He had just dropped the tree and the trunk was hollow and went to a company thet makes treehouses. The log was on his trailer so we backed it into my front yard and rolled it off.

How much better does it get than that? Free wood delivered to me to mill at my leisure and within reach of the fridge.

I am trying to decide which way to mill the log parallel to how it was growing will get me more quarter/rift grain which is the showy figure in sycamore. the bark is really gnarly and twisted so the typical grain pattern my not even be there. milling in the opoisite way would give less quartered figure but wider boards and if the grain is all gnarled and twisted a 36" wide board with showy figure would have value as a table top.

It was too dark for pics by the time we got it off the trailer but I will post a pic tomorrow to see what others might think.

 

[Brmorgan]

I'm inclined to agree - cut wide and hope for some good table stock. I'm thinking that there would be a lot more tension on the wood in the narrow direction and warping would be more of a problem, but branch wood can be a crapshoot no matter what, so it's hard to say. Too bad he didn't have another section, even if it was smaller, to do a couple test cuts on. Of course, you could always wait until after your first two squaring cuts are made to decide - then you might be able to tell what the grain will look like each way.

 

[woodshop]

Well I suppose because of the utter nonsense in that “other” thread that refuses to die… the words free and tree can get one in trouble these days. However, that is truly a free tree if I ever saw one… delivered to your door no less. Careful how you start slicing that monster though, sycamore can have some drop dead gorgeous ray fleck, similar to maple, but the rays are even larger. It has to be cut right though. I'd try and slice at least some of it as pure quarter sawn as you can to try and get some of that ray fleck figure if you can. Those huge slabs folks mill for tables have their place, but if you cut them thick enough to do the job they are very heavy and hard to handle as well as can be hard to dry. Then, few people have the shop to be able to clean/flatten them up right. Then you have to build the trestle or other type of table out of it. They are truly a niche item. Not saying you couldn’t do it though. I have a huge natural edge 3 inch thick 4 x 5 slab of apple cut diagonally from a huge trunk waiting to be a trestle table in the kitchen one day.

 

[GLOBOTREE]

Free wood in the Hood

You are one lucky man, I was so happy to hear the news of your neighbours decision to give you some free wood. It doesn't get much better than this for sure. I am so excited that I will be telling my cousin about this most excellent arrangement. He is totally for the whole concept of free wood and lives to get as much of it as possible. I have seen the silly old fool slice a log of birds eye into firewood, because he has to do things with his own wood that noone else would do. I didn't quite catch what you were doing when you heard the rap at the door that brought the news of the free wood. I think that is relevant in the world of free wood, they say if you touch wood at the right moment you can have some kind of luck, but this most excellent luck is news that needs to spread and by the way, this hollow tree that went to a treehouse place, now was that sold? or donated? either way the entire sycamore tree story must live on! AWESOME MAN! TOTALLY

 

[Backwood]

Good deal. Like woodshop says sycamore does need to be cut almost perfectly quatersawn to get the best looking rays .

I was leaving a job this afternoon with a load of firewood from the limbs of a free tree ( 40" poplar , got 3 14' cuts before the first knot ) when I pulled out of his drive way I hear "POP POP POP POP " got out and looked and saw 5 out of 6 of my wheel studs just snapped called wrecker , last stud broke before truck was halfway on the rollback but got lucky and did no body damage. On the way home the wrecker driver told me he had 6 huge red oak trees in a field I could have free. The only thing near them was a dog pen. The lord works in mysterious ways huh

 

[woodshop]

...On the way home the wrecker driver told me he had 6 huge red oak trees in a field I could have free....

...once again it seems that the words "free" and "trees" can sometimes actually be used together and make sense. Amazing ain't it? Who woulda thought...

Nice snag there Backwood. Hope they have some meat in them for you.

 

[Backwood]

The job I was at today had a 40" poplar and a 30" oak. The owners offered them to me for free and I told them I wouldnt cut them because they were to close to things for me to cut. I told them about an arborist that would give them a good deal putting them on the ground. They get a better deal getting the trees gone because they only had to pay to drop them , arborist made money and I got almost 3000 bf for free.

 

[Backwoods]

The last time I got ahold of three free Sycamore trees from a tree service, I brought in a self-loader log truck converted to a flat bed truck. I picked up the lower section of the best log out of all the trees and set in the back of a firewood cutters truck that was taking all the limbs.

Why would I do that?

Simple the tree trimmers put a big old under cut and back cut, right in the middle of the best wood in the tree. That one log would have paid the rent on the self-loader if it had been cut where I would have cut it. They were a new tree service in town at that time. I work a lot closer with them now. Nevertheless, it was free wood already loaded for the firewood cutter.

I got a call about a “free tree” yesterday and went and took a look at it. Good sized Black walnut. I can get three short logs 6’ in the 18” – 28” range and several smaller vertical limbs. He was not liking the price that the tree trimmers quoted him either so I will have to wait and see if he does decide to take it down. I offered him fifty bucks for the logs I if I can pull in beside the logs and mill the logs up on site. It makes it easier for me that way. I also gave him the name of a couple more tree trimmers that work a little cheaper.

 

[aquan8tor]

Well, I fell victim to the political trolling on the other thread. Free and trees do come together quite often for a lot of people. Nice score on the walnuts, and the sycamore for that matter. I've had more wood thrown at me lately than I have time or energy for. I wish I could take a week or two off work (30+hrs/week) and nursing school (20++ hours/week)and get a few 1000 BF of oak.... A classmate had a 48" oak fall on her property, and a friend has a standing dead oak 24" ++ straight for 40'. Plus, I've been turning bowls like mad in every bit of spare time to earn some $$$$ for the expensive medical books. I'm hoping I get some time off over christmas break!

 

[woodshop]

Well, I fell victim to the political trolling on the other thread. Free and trees do come together quite often for a lot of people.

...of course it does. Do some unscrupulous or shortsided people not willing to pay a professional to take down their trees instead stick a "free trees" sign up in the hopes that somebody else will drop them and take them away for "free" regardless of whether they have the right equipment or skill? Of course they do. Does that mean EVERY listing or offer that includes the words "free" and "tree" together describes that scenario? Of course not. So happens almost ALL the trees I mill are "free trees". FREE FREE FREE... TREES TREES TREES!!! By the time they are "free" to ME, most are already either blown down or dropped by a professional. Even though I know how (I was a logger in another life) I don't drop a tree unless it's a cake walk... no buildings, no power lines even close. Not worth the risk. Once they are on the ground it's often then a win win situation. The homeowner gets a smaller bill from the tree guy because it didn't include the cost of removing the main trunk... the homeowner still gets that tree trunk out of his/her yard for "free" and I get hundreds of bd ft of "free" wood.

... I wish I could take a week or two off work (30+hrs/week) and nursing school (20++ hours/week)and get a few 1000 BF of oak.... A classmate had a 48" oak fall on her property, and a friend has a standing dead oak 24" ++ straight for 40'.

...you and me both. I turn down many offers for trees because of lack of weekends to mill them. I try and take the creme de le creme stuff like a nice cherry or walnut, hate to see them turned in to firewood or worse.

As for your making product to sell to pay for medical books for school... with fortitude and attitude like that you will go far. Keep up the hard work, it will pay off later... but you already know that.

Bluerider can't wait to see some of that sycamore milled up. Don't think the bugs will do to much anymore this year now that it's cold (in Northern US states anyway), but sycamore, like beech and some others seem to get full of bugs real quick if it's warm. I lost a nice beech log once years ago because I let it set all summer before I got to it. By that time it was full of beetles.

 

[BlueRider]

Bluerider can't wait to see some of that sycamore milled up. Don't think the bugs will do to much anymore this year now that it's cold (in Northern US states anyway), but sycamore, like beech and some others seem to get full of bugs real quick if it's warm. I lost a nice beech log once years ago because I let it set all summer before I got to it. By that time it was full of beetles.[/QUOTE]

I had to toss out some sycamore a couple of weeks ago that I had milled two years ago. it was a real shame as it had some patches of birdseye figure, something I have never seen in sycamore before. I knew it had some bugs but didn't get rid of the few slabs that had them when I milled it and the bugs spread through the whole stack so thoughly that I didn't even think abot trying to save so much as a chop stick size piece. I did manage to accedentaly put a short secton of a slab in my shop as I unloaded the wood from milling it and it turned out to not have any bugs. it also has some of the birds eye fugure so when i get around to using it I post a pic here

here is a pic of the end of the log as it sits in my front yard. I am not overly optimistic on getting much of the classic ray fleck figure due to the wild looking bark. I am also thinking it will likely move more than just a little based on my past experiance with sycamore as well as the look of the bark on this log. If I had a way to move the slabs I would mill it at 4" just to try and minimize the warping as it dries and then resaw it once it is dry. I'll be milling it is a few weeks and I'll post some pics of what I find inside.

I should probably add that this is California sycamore and on the large ones the bottom of the trunk often has this type of bark but higher up the bark transitions to the classic smooth scalely bark. This is one of the few that I have ever seen that has the rough bark extending up to include any limbs

 

[aquan8tor]

Nice piece of wood. Looks like it'll be very pink on the inside. In the second pic it looks almost like it grew around a fence---there's a vertical line that would've been straight across the trunk--like a section of wire or similar. I'm sure you already know this,but check it with a metal detector first! I hit a BIG piece of steel in a 5' white oak crotch last winter & ripped off 3 cutters from a 42" chain. The center was punky anyway so it made natural edge bowl blanks and firewood. Your sycamore should be gorgeous. Keep the pics coming!



EDIT: Just re-read your post, and its a limb, not the main trunk. The picture must be just playing tricks on my eyes. Happy milling.

 

[Backwood]

Well I suppose because of the utter nonsense in that “other” thread that refuses to die… the words free and tree can get one in trouble these days. .

It is funny that when I mention they need to up the offer to cover gas and beer it goes quiet

 

[Meadow Beaver]

The way I see it any wood is good free wood.