Wish I'd have taken a photo...

[twoclones]

This week I had some guys from the wood carving club over to 'help' me carve a bench for their club fundraiser raffle. One of them brought a piece of black walnut asking if I could mill it so he could make a bench. This thing was a 4 1/2' long, half round log, which had been in the weather so long it looked like a railroad tie. Uuuugly I had my doubts about getting nice wood out of it.

I ran a grinder down one side to remove grit and gunk then set the flat side down on my Woodmizer. It took a bit of shimming to secure it... When finally ready, I dropped the mill to 1" and took a cut. (the 1" plank is offal and rest is product) WOW! The exposed wood was like a really dark chocolate with narrow streaks of red and hardly any of the lighter sapwood. It was gorgeous

Never judge a log by it's cover?

 

[huskymac]

Congrats!

It really is a crap shoot some times. Glad it was such a good score!

I just got home from milling a Cedar I found on craigslist. Not nearly so lucky.:bang:

2ft at the butt and 9 ft long. My guess is about 50% of it was punky. Ill likely end up with 9 boards about 6 inches wide. Not a total loss but that log sure looked promising before I put a saw to it.