Spent the last few days milling

[aquan8tor]

Whats up folks....
spent the last couple days milling, then today making a couple trips back & forth from the farm to home.... I need to rent a trailer for the remaining slabs.


Here are the first few pics: I don't know why the first one is so hazy; maybe condensation from going to the HOT OUTSIDE from the air conditioned truck.

getting ready; using the aluminum guide boards from the ripsaw, but I wanted to keep the slabs as wide as possible, so I used the CSM. Boy does it take a lot longer!!!

here's the finished white oak boards, roughly 14" of heartwood, then a few inches of sapwood.

another white oak log, about 24" on the big end

 

[woodshop]

Great job... got any pics of the csm or Ripsaw in action? Are you going to trim all the bark off before you sticker? Just curious. How did you get the logs?

 

[aquan8tor]

More pics

I got it stuck trying to skid it back to the barn last winter; it was so wet and warm then that I couldn't get traction with all the mud in the ruts.


I hit quite a few snags when cutting up this one; I'll submit more pics when I get the majority of the slabs home; Again, a tacoma is a little light for logging, and can't hold too much.....The bearings in the rear end just got replaced.

first cut; showing the first snag, a nail no doubt used to hold a "No Trespassing" sign. I can swear that the sign didn't work.

third cut; more snags. Don't know what this is from; probably a fence--I didn't bother to dig this out. I'm going to leave it in for a rustic table, maybe bookmatch the entire top. I left my camera at the house for the last few slabs, which were the most interesting. Man, I wished I had a 12V grinder. Sure goes slow after you hit metal!! It didn't do that much damage to the chain, however. No breaks like with Aggie's water oak slabbing.

This little guy was trying to bite at my shoestrings from the ruts in the road! I had to help him out and put him in the creek. Sorry there's nothing for scale; He's only about 5" long.

 

[aquan8tor]

Hey there woodshop, No pics of me in action; I was by myself for the trip; with PPE, of course; full gamut of chainsaw gloves, chaps, steel toe boots, long pants, (no shirt, I have to admit--it was too damn hot), goggles, earplugs, and forest helmet/shield/muffs.
The logs were from a white oak I cut over the winter; beaver had girdled the tree a few years ago, well before I had a CSM.


Here's the fun ones: a black cherry about 24". I don't have pics of the full stash of logs, but the full tally was 4 slabs 10/4 by 9' long, roughly 14-18" of pink heartwood per slab, one 8/4 and one 6/4 that was a fair amount narrower, about 10" of heartwood.
Also, 6x 7' long slabs 8/4 by about 15-17" of heartwood, unfortunately a fair bit of that was rotten in the middle; I'll end up with about 6" wide from either side of the rot. Sorry, I forgot the camera for that one, and I didn't have the energy to unstack the heavy boards for that one.


Here goes:first log, up the hill with the lewis winch

second log, at the edge of the hill, about to get up over....

Here's what happened when I wasn't paying attention to the winch. I was trying to get a SWEET crotch section all the way (100' +) up, and couldn't keep the spool feeding right. I'm going to have to take it to a machinist. Keeping it spooling up right is a hell of a lot harder than you might think without a guide to keep it feeding on the spool evenly. I tried using the truck to gently pull out the snagged cable from the spool; that's what broke the cable.

I felt a little better when I got the top off the first log: beautiful figure.

Second really figured slab, after this they were clear...

That's it for now; I'll have to post more pics this weekend when I get a trailer to get the rest.

 

[aquan8tor]

Forgot to address the bark question: I'm definitely removing it all before stickering; I had hoped the bark spud I ordered would be here before I went up to the farm, but it came in the mail this afternoon. I'll get pics of the stack when I get it stickered tomorrow afternoon. I'm off to work now, unfortunately. No rest for the weary. Did I mention that I absolutely HATE working nights?? Oh well, Ihave to remember that its just for another couple maybe three years while i'm in school. I just know it can't be good for me to keep pushing myself, but I sure can't stand sitting idle and just doing nothing but sleep all day. I'd rather be tired and get something done!@!!@

 

[aggiewoodbutchr]

Pics??

For some reason the pics after the first post aren't loading on my end.


Looks like you got to have some fun.

 

[BobR]

For some reason the pics after the first post aren't loading on my end

Mine either!

 

[aquan8tor]

I don't know what's up with the pics. They're fine on my end; maybe a site problem? ?????my PC knowledge is limited.

 

[BobR]

I will have to use my imagination.

For those who are smarter than I (most of the forum) the post shows a small square box containing a red "x" indicating the location of an image. Right clicking on this and selecting properties provides a URL for the attachment. However, there is no way of getting at this.

At the end of the first post there is a small box showing the name and size of the attached .jpg images. This is missing from the subsequent posts.

Guess that it is just one of those things

 

[BobL]

Mine either!

Or mine!

 

[woodshop]

Got pics in your original post, but none any of the other following posts. Check where you parked them to see if they are still there.
btw, even though you are alone milling, you can always stop in the middle of the log and step away to take a few picks of your setup etc.

 

[aquan8tor]

I just uploaded them to the site, then used the insert IMG button thing. They show up on mine. OH well. Looks like I'm going to do it over again....



Here goes with what should have been the second posting's pics,in order:

 

[aquan8tor]

now for the pics of the cherry, again in order they should've appeared. BTW, I realized what I did. I uploaded them, then instead of closing the manage attatchment window after posting, I removed them from the window instead of closing it and opening another attatchment window. DOH.

I have to open a new window to do the sixth pic....

 

[aquan8tor]

the last cherry pic, and a closeup of that slab...

 

[aquan8tor]

Here's a couple other pics of what I deal with up there....firewood poachers. The remnants of a couple trees cut WAY off the road by the power co., and taken before I had a chance to get up there. I spoke w/ railroad and power co. folks, and have a pretty good idea who did it. You have to know the property to know where it is.

 

[aquan8tor]

Sometimes the people are brazen enough to cut dead trees along the property line, even around other property, where there is NO WAY one could mistake the tree as public, or as their own......bastards. I even found one of our "KEEP OUT" signs on a tree that was cut....when still green. It was next to the house of some folks that aren't allowed on the property any more. They did it just to be A$$monkeys...
The kicker is that I'm sure that no one in the family would've minded if they'd asked if they could use it. Taking without asking is stealing no matter whether the person finds out about it or not, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[BobR]

Thanks for reuploading the images. I would have missed seeing that nice cherry. Shame we don't have that over here.

 

[woodshop]

Thanks for reuploading the images. I would have missed seeing that nice cherry. Shame we don't have that over here.

Same here, thanks for re-uploading all that, interesting pics. But Bob, you folks have some trees down there woodworkers would die for up here. Works both ways.

Yup, that looks like typical US east coast Appalachian mixed hardwood/softwood forest. If I moved anywhere else I would miss that more than probably anything else. I need to get me one of those hand winches you have a pic off. I move most logs by hand with a floor jack and cant hook, but there have been times when going to the trouble of setting up a winch would have been helpful. I always enjoy seeing pics of newly milled cherry with it's black pitch pockets and interesting grain patterns. I sell about the same amount of cherry items as oak at shows... redcedar probably third. Cherry is king however... everybody knows the distinctive reddish color. Biggest problem from a woodworking perspective other than finding large clear cherry boards, is matching the color when using multiple boards in a piece. Also, as cherry ages it darkens, and some cherry darkens faster than others which takes away from the piece.

As for people stealing trees for firewood... happens a lot in parts of rural PA also and unless you catch them in the act, too expensive to prosecute and prove they did it. Even if you catch them in the act it's usually not worth the cost of prosecuting unless its a very valuable tree or they are cutting acres of your woods.

 

[aquan8tor]

Thanks Woodshop. The lewis winch is great, BTW, even though I FD it up. I wish that it had a rotating guide inlet, like a baitcasting reel. It's pretty hard to keep that cable loading evenly even with a pair of heavy gloves on. I pinched the $H(T outta myself trying. I have to say though, with the big saw on there, it didn't even flinch when dragging the logs way across the woods, then up the steep 45-60 deg. slope. I have a cant hook & definitely keep the jack around after seeing your posts, but I couldn't have milled this one down the hill in the thick of things. You're right though, setting it up is a PITA. I had to move it three times when moving those 2 logs to get a straight pull.

 

[olyman]

aqua--you told of why the cable broke-----go check out some other winches--my small 2000 lb has a sheet metal spring piece that goes all the way across the spool--may be able to get one to fit yours-----and keeps the cable wound on properly--cable laid on top of cable--crosswise---is what makes it fray and eventually break--and even if it doesnt fray--the bending weakens it-------