Yet More Beach Cherry, and Some Elm Too

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Daninvan

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Down to the beach with a milling buddy, the city crew set up another piece of cherry for me, as well as the piece of elm that I was eying last week. The cherry is the trunk from an ornamental flowering cherry that was a city tree in a park or boulevard. Got there about 9, it was a pretty foggy day. Cold too, the van had ice on the windshield which for some reason I had a terrible time getting rid of. A put the handwarmers in the gloves day, at least for a fair weather miller like me!

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As we worked at it, the fog gradually dissipated. It was quite a sight to first see the tops of the mountains peeking out of the fog, then the ships in the harbour, then more and more of the mountains. A guy meditating in the cold there on the lower left of the picture.

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By the time we were done, there was just a touch of fog/haze left.

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The milling worked out very well, with minimal chainsaw issues for a change. Thought we had hit a nail at one point, but happily it was a false alarm. The elm was a bit shorter than I had recalled from when I first saw it, I was able to trim it to 30" long and mill it 90 degrees to the usual milling direction. Tons of noodles produced when cutting that way! Wound up with 13 or 14 slabs by the end of it, I never did a final count. Though they are not long, the wood is beautiful and I am happy with them.

The cherry was hiding some very nice burl action in the last two cuts, my friend who is a turmer was delighted to take those pieces home.

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We did not leave much behind this time, just skin and bones.

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Afterwards I went and scouted out the big woodpile that has been accumulating for a while, I marked three more similar cherries, a plum log, and another piece of elm, even bigger than the one we cut today! I hope to get to that next week, will probably use the 60" bar. With the four cherries that I have milled recently, and the additional three I marked, and two others also waiting for me, I will have nine cherry logs this year. If each slab is very roughly 25 bf (4'x2'x3"), with 5 slabs from each log, and 9 logs, I am looking at close to 1000 bf of cherry this year! Actualy, it's a shame that they are being cut down, but at least I feel better that they are not wasted.
 
Fog effects are some of my favorite weather. Thanks for posting up the pics. Another great day of milling in Vancouver. Yer spoilin us Dan.

Old Blue
Punitive taxation for all!! In.....................
Kali-bone-ya
 
That's pretty amazing wood. In these parts, that cherry would have been ground into mulch. Downright criminal to waste good wood like that. Thanks for posting. I always enjoy your picture postcards.
 
Somehow I missed posting the picture of the pile of slabs we wound up with. The cherry slabs are the lighter coloured ones.

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When you have short slabs like that, do you lose much to splitting while drying?
 
When you have short slabs like that, do you lose much to splitting while drying?

It really depends on the wood. I have found that elm is actually reasonably well behaved, while the cherry does tend to split and warp a bit more during the drying process.

I don't find that shorter slabs tend to split more than longer slabs, but with the shorter slabs, it can be a problem to have a usable length remaining after cutting off any splits. I generally cut the slabs up for furniture, so it is usually possible to work around the splits by cutting the slab lengthwise into boards, but obviously still better if there are no splits!
 
I bet that table there gets plenty of use! Why didn't I think to get one? Such a small thing as that to keep the 'necessary stuff' from becoming 'sawdust searching'.....

The topics you post are some of the first I go looking for in this section of the forum, I truly am jealous of the 'trophy slabs' you get to carry home with you!







Scott (gonna go sit in the corner an' pout now) B
 

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