Got a few pics this morning after the rain. No cutting today. The large log on top is 22" dia. at the butt, 14" at the top and 18' long. I'll cut it at 8' from the large end because of the taper. A lot of smaller 12" to 14" dia. logs there too.
What are you making with your milled wood?
- Thread starter unclemoustache
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
I'm surprised anyone would say 'not bad' for pecan. I've milled it and regretted most of it. It tends to warp and twist fairly badly unless you have a LOT of weight on it. It's hard on tools and dulls things quickly, and is not easy to work with. Still, it can be pretty stuff, and may be worth your while if you can get some straight pieces out of it at the end.
In fact, I just obtained 4 very large straight pecan logs, and I'm debating whether to just turn them into firewood, even though they are huge and straight. Still, I think I'll slab up a couple of them, weigh them down heavily and strap them as well, tightening them every so often.
Depends on what you're used to I suppose. Nearly every wood I work with is at least as dense and hard as pecan, so it's just another hardwood to me. My blades don't mind it, they have to deal with worse regularly. Mesquite is the only truly stable wood I work with. Everything else seems about equally problematic w twisting, none really much more so than others when strapped, and nothing I haven't been able to control yet with a reasonable amount of care. Did a couple of nice pecan 32" cookie tables last year, haven't done anything with my coffee table slabs yet.
Attachments
That was my understanding about Hickory/Pecan. Hard to get it to dry flat. BUT, I would definitely mill the Pecan logs you have. Just my opinion. I like Hickory/Pecan.
Have you ever milled Red Elm? If so, what is your experience in drying it?
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
So pretty! I managed to "eat" a bullet too. Lol
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
Wow those cookies dried good, not much cracking. Did you treat them with stabilizer? There's a few feet left off each end of those two pecan logs, I might cookie them up. Don't have any cookies yet!
Looking good! Lead is so soft I find chain goes right through it without even noticing sometimes. I've only milled one slug so far, which is pretty good considering this is Texas and all.
Here's maybe where I'm having better luck than some others with some twisty woods - I use four straps on anything 8' or above. Most people don't like to buy a ton of straps and skimp a bit, but you can never use too many. These four packs from NT work well - https://www.northerntool.com/produc...-capacity-14ft-l-polyester-model-9285-5686161I used to think maybe just use a couple super strong beefy ones but better to use a bunch of light capacity ones to spread out the pressure. I don't think weight is as important as just using more straps, unless the weight is evenly distributed.
Actually I didn't even take good care of those cookies I don't think, though I did leave it as a 10" thick round for a long time before I resawed it in half, so that might have limited the cracking a little. Can't remember if I sealed it initially. It had a few pretty good size cracks, but I did gold epoxy on one cookie and black on the other.
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
I've actually been wondering about the straps. Probably best to have one at all 4 stickers like you say! Guess I'll be stopping by Harbor Freight again this weekend so they can try to convince me for the 28th time to pay $300-$400 a year to become a member lol. Though that is a good deal at NT. Let me ask if you've noticed this, I have, among the 1 inch rachet straps anyway. The ones with the gold/yellowish colored steel seem weaker than the ones with the normal silverish colored material. I've had the tabs bend back on multiple of those, while none of the normal colored ones have bent - I've gotten straps from Lowes, Amazon and HF.Looking good! Lead is so soft I find chain goes right through it without even noticing sometimes. I've only milled one slug so far, which is pretty good considering this is Texas and all.
I used to think maybe just use a couple super strong beefy ones but better to use a bunch of light capacity ones to spread out the pressure. I don't think weight is as important as just using more straps, unless the weight is evenly distributed
Also agree with you about straps probably being more important than weight. Unless you have A LOT of weight! 4 1inch straps exert a significant amount of force, probably 3/4 of a ton or so combined.
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
We have very little Elm here in Eastern NC. I'm not even sure what elm grain looks like TBH. But just seeing the rich color in the butts of those logs make me want to mill them!
I figured out with my shop press at some point to try to reverse some twist in some small pieces that you get infinitely more pressure using a press or strapping than you'll ever get stacking dead weight on something, and save your back too. I started getting straps at NT because they seemed a little better deal than the HF ones. I do bend the tabs if I get carried away tightening, so I've learned not to try to crank them down too much. I wish there was something a little stronger that was still reasonably priced. Actually these ones are much better but have to order online. I think I found this type in the store once before. NT sends me catalogs with $5 off $20, $10 off $50, etc, discounts, so they turn out really cheap if I get a few packs. Oh, and ship to store is free on these if you have an NT near you. https://www.northerntool.com/produc...k-1-500-lb-breaking-strength-model-145-322777
I use the 9.99 Husky straps from Home Depot . They are 12 footers not 14 .
The insider club at HF is 29.99 not 3or 4 hundred. I don’t belong because they are over an hour away my son does and he’s saved way more than that on one or two purchases
Pecan is pretty high on the Jenka hardness charts. Not many American species are harder. I've never milled Mesquite, though. How big does that get? I thought it was pretty small stuff.
I mill mostly pin oak, silver maple, ash, cherry, and walnut, but have also milled white oak (as much as I can get!), sugar maple, hackberry, box elder, walnut, hickory, pecan, cherry, hackberry, honeylocust (my favorite!), black locust, mulberry, sweetgum, sycamore, sassafras, tulip, white pine (never again!), and some unknown stuff.
Honeylocust is amazing - that stuff will practically dry flat without any help at all, and is really easy to work with.
Box elder is great with the beautiful red streaks.
Walnut is king, of course. Very stable, very beautiful, great to work with.
Nope. Not that I recall.
Really no problems with Honey Locust? The HL firewood I cut always gets Powder Post Beetles in it's sapwood.
@Coralillo Lo Pro, can you educate me a little? I just bought a small 24" CSM to use with a 24" bar on my Stihl 038 (60 cc saw). Yes, I know it's under powered for most milling, but the logs I'd be milling (occasionally only), would be small 5' - 8' logs in the 14" - 24" dia. range. Plus I would not be cutting flitches (full width) but making a cut or two, and then squaring off the log to get a cant. From there, lumber.
The question is, you promote low pro chain setups. They are 0.050"? Do you need a special sprocket and bar to run lo-pro chains?
Thanks
The question is, you promote low pro chain setups. They are 0.050"? Do you need a special sprocket and bar to run lo-pro chains?
Thanks
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
I was under the impression that was a monthly fee. Per year isn't bad at all!
Current sale on them at HF:
https://www.harborfreight.com/400-l...g-Tie-Downs-4-Pack-63094.html?event_id=182527
The Husky straps look good. The HF ones on sale look good. Lot of good cheap options. I don't like the HF webbing material though, it seems extra cheap and frays easy, the buckles are decent. As dedicated wood slabs straps, the HF ones are likely fine, I just frayed them too easy using them for other purposes. I do prefer any of the ones with the larger rubberized buckles. I kind of like the Huskys being just 12', 14-16' is always way more webbing than I need for a stack.
fleethirte
ArboristSite Member
I don’t want to give a plus for the HF ones but they held a Chevy 400 and transmission just fine on my trailer when I moved.
Huskys are nice!
Pecan is 1800 Janka or so. Mesquite is 2300. Live oak is 2680. Pecan is definitely one of the hardest straight growing large American trees. Mesquite is usually a useless scrubby firewood tree, but you get 15-25" trunks here and there. Doesn't grow straight for more than four feet most of the time though. Twelve foot long 25" trunks are rare jewels some people try to sell for a few thousand dollars. Literally the most stable wood in the world, barely moves or shrinks at all. Once I saw the dimensional stability numbers for walnut, I understood why everyone loves it so much. Not quite as stable as mesquite, but by far the most stable common American hardwood there is.
I've learned hardness ratings are far from absolute, though, and the Janka test is so specialized (pressing an 11mm steel sphere halfway into the wood surface and measuring force required to do so) it's done on a very small sampling of trees. Also they're dry ratings, and some woods change dramatically from wet to dry. An invasive I grew up with in Florida named casuarina we always called "Australian pine" is easy to cut wet and turns to 3300 Janka when dry, near impossible to cut. So milling wood versus working dry wood is also two totally different experiences. What I'm beginning to understand is there are massive variations due to region/climate and tree size not reflected in average Janka ratings. I look at density a bit more now than hardness because density reflects better how hard it will be to mill when green. The south Texas red oak I've milled has confounded me as one of the hardest densest woods I've ever worked. Nothing special anywhere else, not as bad as white oak. But here it's easily on a level with mesquite or harder. I measured some dried red oak I have at 60 lbs/cu ft, nearly live oak density. Texas elm, one of the rock elms, is supposed to be kind of like common red oak for density and hardness, but a massive one I milled here seems at least 1800 Janka and as dense as pecan. So since most of my wood here is mesquite, pecan, red oak, live oak, white oak, or Texas elm, it's all a nightmare on blades. Router leveling slabs is 2-3x as hard to do as most people's experience with leveling. I dull bandsaw blades resawing as quick as blinking. I ran some cypress through my bandsaw the other day and it was so laughably easy I couldn't believe it. Was like, wow, those people who mill softwoods are lucky.
Even walnut would seem like a softwood to me, because ash here seems soft compared to everything else I work.
GeneralKayoss
ArboristSite Operative
Cutting some cookies tomorrow!
Similar threads
