More Oak Milling

[hautions11]

I am almost finished with the original oak I was milling and a neighbor had one oak log he had saved after he saw me milling at my friends cabin. He left this 8' length and blocked it up. He wanted a little lumber and I could have the balance. I got my chains sharpened to a 10 degree angle similar to Bailey's. They cut really nice. This log had been laying around for several years and I was worried it was really rotten. The first couple of inches were bad but the balance was Ok. I never seem to see the live tree. but this tree was near the point of the lake and I looked at the rest of the oaks down there and they were all whites. Maybe that explains why this log held up so well. My 084, 32" bar, I needed a 36" and my RM chain with a 10 degree angle.

The Set up

First cut

Opening the log

Closer look

First Board

Second cut

White oak leaves from the other trees

 

[hautions11]

More milling

Third cut

Fourth cut

Closer look

The start of some rays

Tommorow morning I will get back over there and get 5-6 boards with a lot of rays in them. I am cutting 28" wide. The log had a lot of dirt in the outer edges. I will trim a little more off the far side to square up the log and get it to fit in my 28" cut limit. More pics in the AM. Enjoy!!!

 

[casey v]

Hey Hautions11,

Nice wood. Wish we had stuff like that on the West Coast. I am just a novice myself, so take no offence, but the tops of the two rails in the first pic don't look parellel with one another. Do the boards come out with a "twist" milled into them, or is it just an optical illusions on my end?

Keep sending the pics, love to see what others do.

Mike

 

[hautions11]

Twist

Mike,

The set-up on the first cut is trying to even out the log. From the top of the 2 X 4 to the center of the log is different at each end, due to the taper in the log. I spread the 2 X 4's out on the one end to get them to miss the big knot and stay at the correct height. It is a little optical illusion as well, when I look back at the picture. That first cut is very important on a big uneven log like the one I was cutting. Ther is a little judgement that enters in to play. I have only done a few logs myself, so I am hardly an expert, but the boards are comming out really nice. I am not usually concerned with wasting a little wood to get a good clean start. Good question!

 

[stonykill]

looks nice. Must be great having that 084 for these big logs. Its funny how the trees come your way when someone knows you can mill, even tho they seem sceptical untill they see the chainsaw mill in action.:rockn:

 

[woodshop]

looks nice. Must be great having that 084 for these big logs. Its funny how the trees come your way when someone knows you can mill, even tho they seem sceptical untill they see the chainsaw mill in action.:rockn:

Nice pics hautions... for what it's worth, that log does look more like a white oak than a red oak, from the pics posted. I too get a little fancy when setting up my guides, so as to account for taper if any on my first slabbing cuts. That way you do get the best looking quartersawn since the rays are all on the same page. As for stony's comment about logs "coming your way" when people know you mill, understatement. I've got some poplar that raisedbywolves offered me that I still need to get, and a HUGE white oak somebody gave me. So many trees, so little time.

 

[hautions11]

White Vs Red

Woodshop, why do you say white Vs Red by looking at the log???????????????

 

[hautions11]

More Boards

Five more nice slabs this morning. I think I have solved the red Vs white oak question. If I remember Woodshop says white oak has much bigger rays then quartersawn red. These boards show large 2-3 inch long rays in some areas. Woodshop, any confirmation on that?

Two Boards near the center of the log,

A close-up of some of the figure

Enjoy the pics, I sure enjoyed taking them.

 

[woodshop]

Woodshop, why do you say white Vs Red by looking at the log???????????????

The bark looks more like white oak than red... white oak tends to have kindof a flaky almost papery bark, especially on younger parts of the tree. Red oak, while there are many variations, tends to have more of what looks like plates, with furrows, sometimes even deep furrows between the plates. The pics don't show the bark all that well I know... and you said it had been down a while, but just my first impression tells me it looks more like white than red oak bark.

 

[woodshop]

Five more nice slabs this morning. I think I have solved the red Vs white oak question. If I remember Woodshop says white oak has much bigger rays then quartersawn red. These boards show large 2-3 inch long rays in some areas. Woodshop, any confirmation on that?

Actually I was referring to the width of the rays. Rays grow from center of tree, pith outward towards the bark 90 degrees from the rest of the grain which is growing up and down the tree. In general white oak has wider width rays than red, which often then make for some striking figure. In those boards above you posted, the width looks like a good half inch or more maybe? As for the LENGTH of the rays, that depends more on the exact orientation of the cut through the log. True quartersawing, where your saw "line" looking from end of log, is going from outer bark to center pith, as long as you also saw along the same plane end to end, gets you the longest rays, since you are kindof sawing through the center of that ray if you will, with your saw. You come pretty close in some of those pics above... nice looking boards. Of course, most of the time those rays, while growing from pith outward, don't grow in perfectly strait lines from the center outward, thus its hard to get a board with the length of the ray going across the whole width of the board. I don't think it would look as nice even if it did and you could though... it would then look like zebra stripes, nice neat stripes across the width of the board.

Pretty boards. Nice

 

[aggiewoodbutchr]

Nice lumber there. I got my 084 back so I'll be throwing a few pics of my own up here soon.

 

[Adkpk]

I agree, nice lumber there. I like the old wood as opposed to a newly cut tree.