woodshop
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Forgot to throw in pic of the stack of lumber at the end of the couple days. Here it is in the rough. I was running out of daylight at Bowman Farms, so to save time on a couple of the logs I just used the Alaskan to slice into 16/4 and throw that into the van. Then later here at home take off the bark and sapwood freehand with the 365 and use the Ripsaw to finish slicing into 5/4 or 8/4. Here is the stack right from milling before I cleaned up things and did that. The first three stacks are walnut, the last one on the right is cherry I also need to clean up and finish milling before I sticker it all.
Someone asked if I had pics of how I attacked that crotch. No... didn't take any of that this time. Basically I usually freehand a 14 inch wide cant with the 28" bar on either side of the crotch, parallel with the two branches orientation before milling boards from that with the Ripsaw. Yes often you sacrifice some sections of other strait wood in that log to do that, especially when the crotch is not even (two branches are not same dia). But, I find I get the best crotch figure that way. If I mill the crotch perpendicular to the two branches I still get crotch figure, but not as wide, and not always as nice. Again, crotches are a crapshoot. My experience is about half are good, the others have problems. Small sections of rot, or there is a split or small bark voids. Still good wood, and you can fill those voids and do other things though. But the beautiful 8-12 inch wide 3 ft long pure crotch figured board is somewhat elusive. Once in a while you luck out and get one, and then SOME of them dry without too many cracks and you really luck out.
Someone asked if I had pics of how I attacked that crotch. No... didn't take any of that this time. Basically I usually freehand a 14 inch wide cant with the 28" bar on either side of the crotch, parallel with the two branches orientation before milling boards from that with the Ripsaw. Yes often you sacrifice some sections of other strait wood in that log to do that, especially when the crotch is not even (two branches are not same dia). But, I find I get the best crotch figure that way. If I mill the crotch perpendicular to the two branches I still get crotch figure, but not as wide, and not always as nice. Again, crotches are a crapshoot. My experience is about half are good, the others have problems. Small sections of rot, or there is a split or small bark voids. Still good wood, and you can fill those voids and do other things though. But the beautiful 8-12 inch wide 3 ft long pure crotch figured board is somewhat elusive. Once in a while you luck out and get one, and then SOME of them dry without too many cracks and you really luck out.
All jokes aside I know that my a$$ would be dragging after a day of milling that stuff.
