Brmorgan
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I've been thinking of making some small wood boxes to hold the fishing flies that I've tied and I thought that Juniper would make a perfect wood for that. I'm not sure if the strong scent would affect the usability of the flies though - the wood would either probably have to be sealed on the inside, or just used for displaying. Anyway I went out for a drive with my uncle today to see if I could round up a decent tree for a trial run. Here's what I came home with:
I know, some of you guys in the southwestern States might scoff at it, but any juniper over 8" up here is a rarity. The largest log is about 5' long by 8" at one end and 6" at the other. I was going to mill the works up tonight on my bandsaw sled mill, but after trying in vain for an hour to get it to track the rip blade, I discovered that the cast aluminum housing of the band tensioner and tracking assembly is pretty much crumbling away along its pivot points so the wheel wouldn't stay straight. Cheap POS Chinese :censored: casting! I don't think it was designed to withstand the tension necessary for a 3/4" X 104" band. Gotta call Ridgid tomorrow for a new one I guess. I'm going to see if I can talk my way into a replacement for free, but if not it'll be about $20.
So since that wasn't going to work, I cut the log on the left in the photo into 2 18" pieces and one just under a foot. I squared two sides of these with the 041AVS and proceeded to mill them down with the tablesaw. This is what I ended up with:
Actually I did have four more pieces that I forgot about before I took that picture, so I had a little more than what's shown there. Everything's between 4-6" wide and all 3/4" thick except for a couple "leftovers" that are random thickness.
Got a couple nice fairly-bookmatched pieces too:
And even some really nice figured grain:
Though keep in mind that's a closeup of about a 2.5" X 3" area adjacent to a big knot. Still would make for a really nice tool handle or kitchen utensil of some sort.
I know, some of you guys in the southwestern States might scoff at it, but any juniper over 8" up here is a rarity. The largest log is about 5' long by 8" at one end and 6" at the other. I was going to mill the works up tonight on my bandsaw sled mill, but after trying in vain for an hour to get it to track the rip blade, I discovered that the cast aluminum housing of the band tensioner and tracking assembly is pretty much crumbling away along its pivot points so the wheel wouldn't stay straight. Cheap POS Chinese :censored: casting! I don't think it was designed to withstand the tension necessary for a 3/4" X 104" band. Gotta call Ridgid tomorrow for a new one I guess. I'm going to see if I can talk my way into a replacement for free, but if not it'll be about $20.
So since that wasn't going to work, I cut the log on the left in the photo into 2 18" pieces and one just under a foot. I squared two sides of these with the 041AVS and proceeded to mill them down with the tablesaw. This is what I ended up with:
Actually I did have four more pieces that I forgot about before I took that picture, so I had a little more than what's shown there. Everything's between 4-6" wide and all 3/4" thick except for a couple "leftovers" that are random thickness.
Got a couple nice fairly-bookmatched pieces too:
And even some really nice figured grain:
Though keep in mind that's a closeup of about a 2.5" X 3" area adjacent to a big knot. Still would make for a really nice tool handle or kitchen utensil of some sort.
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