Urban logging. Anyone do it?

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One problem, is that it has cracked a bit at the ends as it has dried. Should you age it, or seal it to prevent this happening?

The amish had it down to where their mortises would shrink around the tenons and their barns would tighten up over time.

I'd accept the cracking as part of the personality.

I agree that end-grain cracking is part of the character of rustic furniture. You need a very controlled atmosphere to prevent it from happening. one of the reasons that timer is sawn as thin as possible, and they only want straight logs.

The old-country timber-framers who worked with oak and other hard woods wrote that they were to hard to work when dried, and the shrinkage that Jim mentions was an asset.
 
The mention of tenoning and mortising brought this old book I found online to mind. It is copyrighted 1914. Check out the section on saw filing and using the grindstone to sharpen chisels and tools, as well as the tenoning and mortising chapter. I love reading old books that describe how artisans did it in the old days.

Pretty cool stuff:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20763/20763-h/20763-h.htm
 
Is that the monon trail? Looks familiar.

I'm a sensitive arborist, quite proud of the fact, and my treecare business thrives even in this depressed economy. I've been called names and told I'm flat out stupid for using canola oil as bar lube in a chainsaw. However, the science proves otherwise, I'm 9 + years into it, still doing just fine, saws are running strong, all 4 seasons, no downsides, just benefit. A lot of pro saw users are changing over without any problems. However, there's the larger crowd that won't change simply because change is change and change scares the crap out of a lot of people. All I can do is bring the information to the front, let the community make their own choices and not lose sleep over it.


Heh, heh. Thanks, MD. I thought the treehouse was a cool idea, too. The creative / artsy fartsy part of me is perpetually inspired. The science side is uniquely trained and talented. The business side of me is dumb as dirt sometimes.

This thread is titled 'Urban Logging', though more accurately it's Urban Wood Reutilization. There is no 'Logging' in the urban forest, just making use of logs or wood, or selling the occasional premium log that is gotten.

For me, the GOAL is to recycle the wood, to somehow use it in the best way possible and never have anything go into a landfill or have to be driven any real distance to be gotten rid of. This mindset has more than paid for the 'losses' and on a day-to-day basis I ride the wave where being 'green' pays off in the form of money-in-pocket.

Here's a couple pictures of what I consider my most successful log utilization to date. If I can bear it, I might share the least successful, even though it was the coolest and most interesting thing I've ever done.

Hold for a second, this picture is one of my failures. This site is a neighborhood entrance onto a rail trail, where an old railroad track was taken out and turned into public hike/bike/rollerblade trail through the city.


I work in this neighborhood and am part of the volunteers that maintain this entrance, an easy gig for me as all they need is chips once or twice a year. However, one day I got inspired and decided the best way to reutilize a surfaced-off log was to donate it to the site of this entrance. That way the public has a place to sit, rest, put on or take off their skates, whatever. You see it in the background.

attachment.php


It was an 'anonymous donation', I went in after dark, towed the log down the trail with my truck and the arch, placed it appropriately and then I silently bailed. This shot was taken a week later as the people in the hood who knew me, knew who did this deed. It was like, who else would have?
I took the shot because the question kept coming up, "How did you get it there?" With this image, I save having to voice a thousand words.

Anyway, the public loved it. The city was furious from what I got from someone on the 'inside'. It was not formally OK'd by the city so they came and took it away. I would have removed it had they just asked. It was a really nice log and I'd sunk quite a bit of time and work into it up to this point. In fact, I bought the tractor arch specifically for this tree and for big logs thereafter so that big logs could be moved efficiently.

Another good deed and the subsequent punishment.
 
Anyone want to buy a gently used Hugo Arch? Mine still has thee mold nubs on the tires :laugh:

Since i married and moved I've not had the work i bought it for.
 
I guess the tree company I work for is a minority. We have a yard full of "saw logs". We call up a logging company and they come load up their tri-axle. All we have to do is call. I don't know what we get paid though, I would imagine we take a little less considering the risk of metal.

That's the way it was in Wisconsin with my first job in tree care. Boss would save all he could for a month or two and then have them picked up by a mill. He also had his firewood mill on conveyors, so we would save most anything down to about 3 inches. Could have easily been some of the bigger mounds of cut firewood I have ever seen, by the end of summer.
 
Was that up north? The local mills will not take anything from a residential company in MKE. A couple of guys here have a relationship with an Antigo mill that will cream off winter logs. They upgraded a few years ago and need to get as many loads as possible to keep up, at least last year...
 
When I saw the "Urban Logging" thread, I was thinking along a different line. Many times I have seen vacant wooded parcels adjacent to strip malls or subdivisions (urban?) that needed clearing in order to build the next Kohl's or another subdivision or some apartments. Here a land clearing contractor would decend on the site with thousands of horsepower in the way of whole tree chippers, D-8's with stingers for stump removal, Hydro-Axes for heavy brushing and massive tracked stump grinders. When they were all done, all you could see was a huge pile of chips (if they didn't chip it directly into a semi-trailer) and a PILE OF LOGS ready to take to the mill.

As a side note, two of our local tree services slab some of the better wood at about 2-3", plane it, router in their names and assemble benches for placement in front of any interested business as a service with some advertising to boot.

Also we have a wood burning power plant within 50 miles that will accept chipped material, don't know if they pay or not.
 
Was that up north? The local mills will not take anything from a residential company in MKE. A couple of guys here have a relationship with an Antigo mill that will cream off winter logs. They upgraded a few years ago and need to get as many loads as possible to keep up, at least last year...

No, around Cambridge, WI...not far from Lake Geneva, but at 30-35 mph there and back, it made for one LONG commute every morning. Don't know who it was that came to pick the logs up...was just a grunt then, too.
 
When I saw the "Urban Logging" thread, I was thinking along a different line. Many times I have seen vacant wooded parcels adjacent to strip malls or subdivisions (urban?) that needed clearing in order to build the next Kohl's or another subdivision or some apartments.

It could mean that. Or a city-owned lot where storm-downed trees logs are stored. Or individual arborists (or whomever) pulling primo logs instead of whacking them into firewood. The route we've taken, though, is of reclamation of specific site logs within the urban forest and what's been done with them.

Here's a reference book with some of the exact things we're talking about in this thread.

attachment.php
 
I do that every day :laugh: Some of my clients I will drive 100 miles or more in a day.

Been alot of places, but have never had to go 30-35 in the country like in WI. That is the main reason I left that job...one hour commute each way at no more than 35 mph gave me more long days than I needed at the time. No 9-5 then, no 9-5 now. Just need the 4 hours to sleep a couple to sit and eat.
 
My experience has been that the sawmills won't touch "yard" trees. Too many clotheslines, birdhouses, hammocks, dog runs, ect. for them to even risk trashing a blade. I have found however that the port-a-mill guys are a little more flexible. Our wood either goes through the chipper, or through the splitter.

When we are delivered a "yard tree" we get out the metal detector.

If is sings the Marines Hymn or the national anthem....it is firewood.

I hate chiseling out nails, insulators, spikes, fencing, one customer brought me a couple of large juniper/cedar from a camping area. We knew there would be dozens of bullets. He bought two blades in advance. And I milled the logs...into mantels. Full of bullet holes and half bullets!!

Made nice mantels!!!

Kevin
 
Just finished working on a Mahogany tree today...HO kept a nice 10' log I managed to get down in one piece, probably only 1' diameter...good size for 17 yr old tree!!
Its nice when a HO wants to keep good wood instead of seeing it turn into chips or firewood, or go to the dump.
 
No, around Cambridge, WI...not far from Lake Geneva, but at 30-35 mph there and back, it made for one LONG commute every morning. Don't know who it was that came to pick the logs up...was just a grunt then, too.

Cambridge is close to Madison then Geneva...FWIW

Though I know what you're talking about. I am in the St. Martins area of Franklin and around 5 min from the freeway, I can take the I or US 45 and am 45 min to an hour from almost anywhere. There are a few times a day when the "rush minute" cycles to back things up, it can add 15-20 min to any drive.
 
When I started this thread I was thinking of specialty woods, such as they use in cabinet making or moldings. I have been learning a lot on Urban logging in general. A long time ago I work for a guy who had a portable mill. It was like a big band saw. They had a contract with the forest dept. and each spring he would go in to balch redwood forest and remove falling branches and mill them and did pretty well.(not urban logging,but the mill was perfect for a urban situation.
We had a old wood worker here locally, who recently passed away. Sam Maloof. Great old guy. We still do tree work for his estate. If we came across some thing special we would drop it off at his shop. He had several apprentices who would come from all over the world to work with him. One of his rocking chairs could sell for over 100,000.00(he made a friends of mines little girl a rocking horse)Google Sam Maloof if you want to see some work from a master. There is a video of him and movie star Renee Russo on u tube meeting(we do her trees also)and talking woodworking. Pretty cool. He'll be missed. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/arts/design/27maloof.html
 
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I guess you mean the house in my picture!! I guess it does look like a sugar cube!

It's not my house, but the home of the St. George's Historical Society and is 300+ years old.
Typical Bermudian architecture, walls made of limestone block sawn by hand from the hills. Mortar in those days was made with whale oil.
The roof is how we catch rainwater for drinking...design and construction methods are laregely still used to this day, lapped limestone slates over a wood frame, plastered and painted.

That house is lovely and cool inside, before the days of air conditioning, houses would have been sited and built to make the best use of prevailing breezes to keep and airflow throughout. However in the winter when its cold outside (relatively!!), it can be chilly and damp, hence the fireplaces. The big fireplace is in the kitchen...no Whirlpool ranges in those days!

St. George's is our historic World Heritage Site...I live down this way!

The palms were leaning towards the house and over the roof, any one coconut would smash straight through the roof, not to mention the equally old houses not far away that would be targets for flying nuts in a storm! Oh yes and the stay wire for the electricity pole was like 4" from one trunk. Liability and repair costs were the deciding factors in the bye-bye for the coconut palms!
 
Very cool Bermie. It truly looks like paradise where you live.

Also enjoyed the article on Sam Maloof Beast. It's hard to imagine the amount knowledge lost when a craftsman such as Sam Maloof passes on. In the mass production society we live in today, does anyone even do mortise and tenion joints anymore? I've been reading Clifford Ashly's Book of Knots recently and have often thought of all the knowledge that is lost with modern advancements and when one generation is replaced by another. Even as younger climbers and newer tools and techniques replace older, I wonder if there will even be a place for old school climbers in the future. Kind of reminds me of a lyric in an old ELO tune...

"You're sailing softly through the sun
in a broken stone age dawn.
You fly so high".
 

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