What are you making with your milled wood?

[Pjohnson]

Anyone in northwest wisconsin have any slabs and beams to sell at a somewhat reasonable price.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

"GeneralKayoss - I'm pretty sure that's Silver Maple you have. The earlier stuff you milled looks a bit too far gone - lots of punky stuff there, but the later stuff looks great!"

That brings up an interesting question--with the advent of two part resin like I used on the beech, is that as critical for finishing as it used to be? If the figure comes up looking good after sanding, do punky sections matter as much anymore?

I've been going back and forth on this on where I use resin in my work and where I don't. Part of me likes trying to be more of a traditionalist, part of me likes doing creative enhancements. The beech with resin finish looks good, I have to admit. I haven't liked resin coverings of any sort on semi-rot in darker woods. But light wood with spalting, resin finishes seem to work okay. This spalted cedar elm table that had lots of light rot that I did years ago from the first wood I milled here in Texas came out nice. I filled the holes and cracks with black epoxy and then sanded it out clean and finished with water based polyurethane. Have stayed away from glossy resin finishes or any type of glossy poly finishes but sometimes glossy looks good. I tend toward simple natural oil and wax for deep rich hardwoods and water based poly for whiter hardwoods because it keeps them white and doesn't yellow them at all. Then there's the traditionalist part of me that thinks that "plasticizing" wood with resin is a bad thing, even though I use it a lot for crack fills and inlays. Guess it all comes down to if punky looks punky or not after sanding - if it looks great but is structurally weak no reason not to coat it with resin and call it good.

 

[lwmibc]

I've been going back and forth on this on where I use resin in my work and where I don't. Part of me likes trying to be more of a traditionalist, part of me likes doing creative enhancements. The beech with resin finish looks good, I have to admit. I haven't liked resin coverings of any sort on semi-rot in darker woods. But light wood with spalting, resin finishes seem to work okay. This spalted cedar elm table that had lots of light rot that I did years ago from the first wood I milled here in Texas came out nice. I filled the holes and cracks with black epoxy and then sanded it out clean and finished with water based polyurethane. Have stayed away from glossy resin finishes or any type of glossy poly finishes but sometimes glossy looks good. I tend toward simple natural oil and wax for deep rich hardwoods and water based poly for whiter hardwoods because it keeps them white and doesn't yellow them at all. Then there's the traditionalist part of me that thinks that "plasticizing" wood with resin is a bad thing, even though I use it a lot for crack fills and inlays. Guess it all comes down to if punky looks punky or not after sanding - if it looks great but is structurally weak no reason not to coat it with resin and call it good.

I can appreciate that answer--I'm a retired geologist and don't like to see painted rocks.

The resin finish for the beech was my choice because it was going to be a dining table used a thousand times a year, and I needed to learn something new.

This is the new home for that table; I think it will 'go with the decor'. Here we used what I'm sure you'd like as a traditional finish. A professional log-finishing specialist is doing both inside and outside finishing, and he sure is doing a spectacular job. (Not cheap though, a real tooth-gritter for someone who's been a do-it-yourself guy all his life.)

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

This is the new home for that table; I think it will 'go with the decor'. Here we used what I'm sure you'd like as a traditional finish. A professional log-finishing specialist is doing both inside and outside finishing, and he sure is doing a spectacular job. (Not cheap though, a real tooth-gritter for someone who's been a do-it-yourself guy all his life.)

Beautiful house! Yeah, good log finishing guys aren't cheap, I worked for a log home guy in Tahoe a bit a few decades back. Lot of work to do right, I think I was mostly doing some kind of acid washing grunt work cleaning up all the logs. Hope to build a house in the next couple years, would like to do as much as possible myself, but I know there's going to be some tooth gritting anywhere I pay contractor's rates for things outside my wheelhouse.

 

[unclemoustache]

"GeneralKayoss - I'm pretty sure that's Silver Maple you have. The earlier stuff you milled looks a bit too far gone - lots of punky stuff there, but the later stuff looks great!"

That brings up an interesting question--with the advent of two part resin like I used on the beech, is that as critical for finishing as it used to be? If the figure comes up looking good after sanding, do punky sections matter as much anymore? Also, I've seen some talented people carve out punky sections and fill them with resin in a way that even enhanced the appearance of the final product.

Now if that wasn't enough to stimulate carrying on and sanding those planks down (we're waiting to see what they look like)--here's a close-up of a 12" X 20" section of the beech I lucked out on; it's the close end of the center plank in the table images I posted earlier in this thread. There are no reflections except of one overhead light in the lower right of the image, that's all figure in the wood under the resin. I sanded down to 400, then just a bit of 1000.

Good point. I did some work on a bit of wood that was a bit punky.
In fact, my next post will show something that I normally would have used Rubio on, but went with poly because it would soak in and harden everything up.
Epoxy would be even better, I would think.

 

[unclemoustache]

Walnut junk boards with a hickory branch.
Poly on everything.

 

[unclemoustache]

Finished assembling this today for my Father in Law.
Oak. Not fully dry. Will seal it next year

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Walnut junk boards with a hickory branch.
Poly on everything.

You use water based or oil based poly? I got kind of addicted to water base for a harder clearer finish and cleanup ease, but sometimes when you want color to pop a bit more, oil based is better. Plus it builds up a little better, where water based you want to keep super thin. If you want to build up at all though above the surface, epoxy is definitely the way to go. Most people are buying whatever's the cheapest 1:1 epoxies out there though, not having worked that much with it. I've used epoxy since the 80's for surfboards and some for boats and have always regarded 1:1 epoxy as not worth using. Always 2:1 or I was even using a 3:1 super nice thin casting resin for a bit that Resin Research makes. Anyway, epoxy pioneer in the surfboard industry who used to shape my surfboards, Greg Loehr, pioneered a lot of top quality UV-resistant epoxies with his company Resin Research and I've only ever used his resin because it's predictable and always does exactly what it's supposed to. Haven't had that consistency with cheaper epoxies. Plus cheap stuff tends to yellow a lot when exposed to any sunlight.

 

[GeneralKayoss]

Has anyone ever worked with pecan? Specifically drying it? How's the warping/checking/crowning/etc?

I've already milled one 8' x 24" pecan log into 2.5 inch slabs. Tomorrow I'm going to mill another 8' x 30" log from the same tree. I really don't want to go thicker than 2.5" because of how heavy it will be to move around.

 

[Maineland]

Does sawing building materials count?

A home for my mill... and other things in the back lean to.

 

[djg james]

For those of you with mills or even CSMs, have you ever sawn Red Elm? I ran into a nice log when I visited the log yard today. No camera with me, so pic will be tomorrow. I fell in love with the grain when I was at the mill. Had some dried boards that I picked up there but they weren't dry straight. I think it would be easy to saw, softwood, but if I remember, it was twisty when drying. Anyone have experience with it?

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Has anyone ever worked with pecan? Specifically drying it? How's the warping/checking/crowning/etc?

Not bad. More dimensionally stable than most oaks. This is a 2 year old stack I think I Anchor Sealed the ends on. Pretty good results considering I never kept after retightening the straps. All pretty straight but for the top piece with some light crowning, but only cause I didn't keep after it. Surprisingly little checking - may be the difference between a really well sealed end and a latex painted end. But I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on Anchor Seal again.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

For those of you with mills or even CSMs, have you ever sawn Red Elm? I ran into a nice log when I visited the log yard today. No camera with me, so pic will be tomorrow. I fell in love with the grain when I was at the mill. Had some dried boards that I picked up there but they weren't dry straight. I think it would be easy to saw, softwood, but if I remember, it was twisty when drying. Anyone have experience with it?

Haven't worked it myself, but love all the elms, and think they're some of the most beautiful and underrated wood there is. The ultra hard Texas elm is one of my favorites. Love the caramel colors of American elm slabs I've seen. Red elm is same dimensional stability as pecan. Not the best, but about like white oak and better than most other oaks. Things get a bad rap for being twisty because most people don't take care to dry wood right. Some wood is worse than others, but everything twists unless you stack and strap it right and keep after retightening the straps all the time. Wood with the worst reputation has come out great and straight when I've dried it right.

 

[djg james]

Haven't worked it myself, but love all the elms, and think they're some of the most beautiful and underrated wood there is. The ultra hard Texas elm is one of my favorites. Love the caramel colors of American elm slabs I've seen. Red elm is same dimensional stability as pecan. Not the best, but about like white oak and better than most other oaks. Things get a bad rap for being twisty because most people don't take care to dry wood right. Some wood is worse than others, but everything twists unless you stack and strap it right and keep after retightening the straps all the time. Wood with the worst reputation has come out great and straight when I've dried it right.

Yes, the sawyer cut a lot of stall wood and it went right into the lumber racks, where I got my pieces. No stickering.

 

[GeneralKayoss]

Not bad. More dimensionally stable than most oaks. This is a 2 year old stack I think I Anchor Sealed the ends on. Pretty good results considering I never kept after retightening the straps. All pretty straight but for the top piece with some light crowning, but only cause I didn't keep after it. Surprisingly little checking - may be the difference between a really well sealed end and a latex painted end. But I couldn't bring myself to spend the money on Anchor Seal again.

Ok cool, I have read it likes to tear out while surfacing! How thick/wide are those slabs you have there? I decided to go round 2 with the pecan again now that I made an oiler, this log tomorrow is going to completely max my mill out. My muscles too (about a 2,000lb log) lol

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Ok cool, I have read it likes to tear out while surfacing! How thick/wide are those slabs you have there? I decided to go round 2 with the pecan again now that I made an oiler, this log tomorrow is going to completely max my mill out. My muscles too (about a 2,000lb log) lol

I keep reading that kind of thing on Wood Database about workability of some woods. But it's true of any of the more extreme hardwoods. Dull blades cause tear out, and really hard woods dull blades quickly. I've planed and sanded some pecan, and no tearout issues. Wood Database talks about some open pored woods like cedar elm having a coarse texture and in fact it sands out like glass. So I take a lot of that stuff with a grain of salt, and only pay attention to the dimensional stability and hardness numbers so I know what to expect from certain woods. Those slabs are 30"+ on the widest ones, and probably 2 1/4" thick. They're short, so I could keep them thicker for small coffee tables. When doing 6-8' dining table slabs in dense hardwood, the common 9/4 milling cut makes no sense to me. It's way too heavy to build any full size table from. You don't want anything more than 6/4 in the end most of the time. And you can't resaw 9/4 in half and get anything thick enough to be much use. So 8/4 or even 7/4 makes sense. Sometimes I'll mill 3-3.5" if it's under 6' so I can resaw it in half a year later. Unbelievably heavy slabs to move, though. A wet pecan slab 6' x 3"' x 30" will weigh at least 225 lbs. An 8' x 2" x 30" pecan slab is still going to weigh at least 200 lbs. This is how I got a bunch of crazy heavy 9' white oak slabs across a backyard and thru a gate.

 

[GeneralKayoss]

I keep reading that kind of thing on Wood Database about workability of some woods. But it's true of any of the more extreme hardwoods. Dull blades cause tear out, and really hard woods dull blades quickly.

This is very true. I've never worked specifically with pecan before. I've worked with mostly cherry, teak, maple and oak. I've looked around on wood database and was a bit disappointed in the lack of information and pictures.

When doing 6-8' dining table slabs in dense hardwood, the common 9/4 milling cut makes no sense to me. It's way too heavy to build any full size table from. You don't want anything more than 6/4 in the end most of the time. And you can't resaw 9/4 in half and get anything thick enough to be much use. So 8/4 or even 7/4 makes sense. Sometimes I'll mill 3-3.5" if it's under 6' so I can resaw it in half a year later.

That all makes good sense! You've been super helpful to me over the last few weeks, I appreciate you sharing your milling knowledge with me!

Unbelievably heavy slabs to move, though. A wet pecan slab 6' x 3"' x 30" will weigh at least 225 lbs. An 8' x 2" x 30" pecan slab is still going to weigh at least 200 lbs. This is how I got a bunch of crazy heavy 9' white oak slabs across a backyard and thru a gate.

Tell me about it! I thought those 24" 8' slabs were going to break my back lol. I may just mill these 8/4. My line of thinking had been that the wider stuff needs to be milled thicker simply because you might have to remove more material when surfacing. You take a 30" slab and a 20" slab, give them the same rate or degree of cup or twist. You'd have to remove more material from the 30" slab to get it flat than the 20" slab, right?

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

My line of thinking had been that the wider stuff needs to be milled thicker simply because you might have to remove more material when surfacing. You take a 30" slab and a 20" slab, give them the same rate or degree of cup or twist. You'd have to remove more material from the 30" slab to get it flat than the 20" slab, right?

That's very true. Twist in wide slabs is annoying because you have to take so much wood out to level them. That's why my highest value wide slabs I try to take care now I make sure I dry them straight as possible. Learned by experience that otherwise I end up doing ten times as much work in the end for a lesser product.

 

[benz66]

For those of you with mills or even CSMs, have you ever sawn Red Elm? I ran into a nice log when I visited the log yard today. No camera with me, so pic will be tomorrow. I fell in love with the grain when I was at the mill. Had some dried boards that I picked up there but they weren't dry straight. I think it would be easy to saw, softwood, but if I remember, it was twisty when drying. Anyone have experience with it?

I ran across some in the barn lumber my grandfather had sawed 100 years ago. It was all dusty and I thought it was oak. When I planed it along with all the other oak boards, I didn't know what it was. Beautiful, straight clear grain 1x6s, reddish brown color. I ended up using it for door jambs with Red Oak door stops and casing. None to be found after Dutch Elm disease went through in the 50s/60s. It works similar to oak IMHO.

 

[GeneralKayoss]

That's very true. Twist in wide slabs is annoying because you have to take so much wood out to level them. That's why my highest value wide slabs I try to take care now I make sure I dry them straight as possible. Learned by experience that otherwise I end up doing ten times as much work in the end for a lesser product.

Its on like Donkey Kong