For those of you who have previously enjoyed some of what I have contributed here on the #hive platform, this may not be the first time you have seen this picture. If you are a new follower, welcome aboard. Trees, with all of their grandeur, capture my interest like nothing else, almost. πππΉπΉ Those hearts and roses are for you @farm-mom.
From the early years of climbing trees as a kid to the present day, my appreciation for this renewable resource, #sustanibility, has only become more of a passion as time ticks by.
Before you read any further, I'm all about #sustainability, and as a family, we have cared for our little piece of heaven, our property in Upstate NY like it is one of our own. We have planted many more trees than we have felled. Managing our forest properly, with the greatest of care, has and will always be a top priority
Admiring wood, building homes with wood, designing and constructing furniture and cabinets with wood, warming our home with wood, cultivating fruit trees, managing our little plot of forest, growing veneer grade lumber on two different plots of land on our property, owning a kiln and kiln drying many different hardwoods, and milling wood are how I spend my time hobbitizing.
Oh, I almost forgot, I also spend a considerable amount of my time going around hugging trees.
If you so choose to join me, I will show you how I refashion one of #amazingnature's gifts to mankind, the tree, into some spectacular pieces of lumber. I find this entire process to be intoxicating.
So here we go. This is the family sawmill. It has been back in New Jersey for a while, and just recently I trailered it to our home in NY. Having dropped some trees for firewood, I put aside some bolts of lumber that were perfect for milling, good size, and nice and straight. I had also collected many other rounds for the past several years and was very excited to have the family sawmill on the property.
We purchased this mill back in 2012. It was brand new at the time. It is a bandsaw mill that has the capability to cut bolts of lumber with a maximum diameter of 32", that's a big tree. We can mill bolts up to 12 feet in length.
Extensions for the rail system can be purchased at a rather hefty price. Each additional 4-foot length runs about $1,200. We've never had a need to mill any timber over 12 feet, especially at that cost. All of the bolts are hoisted onto the deck of the mill using the cable system and steel ramps you see in this picture.
With the way the gearbox is designed it takes many turns of the handles to get the log to the deck. Some of the bolts we have milled have pushed the boundaries as far as size goes, with some bolts weighing upwards of 2,500 lbs. When we mill lumber back in Jersey, most often it's a least a two-man operation, more times than not, three guys man the operation. On many occasions, I have milled with all three of my boys, that's when we can really pump out the board footage.
On a good day, with a crew of four, we can usually expect to mill about 1,000 board feet.
What's a board foot you ask, or maybe you don't give a hoot but in case you're interested it is a piece of wood that measures 1-inch thick x 12-inches long x 12-inches wide.
Getting the bolt to the deck with one person just requires going back and forth between handles, it takes a little more time but is totally doable. The most difficult part of milling solo is dogging the bolt to the deck, which simply means securing the log.
On one side of the bolt of lumber, you have two of these. The first step is to push the bolt against these stanchions.
On the opposite side of the log are the dogs. The dogs must be pushed into the log securely and then the handle you see in this photo is pushed down. This gets a little tricky as the 1,000-pound mass wants to roll around on the deck. As you dog down one side of the bolt, the other side wants to push away from the stanchion. Usually, it will take a few times going back and forth until the bolt is properly secured. The last thing you want to happen is for the log to move at all while running the blade through the wood. π’π’
With the first log in place, I was excited to use the family mill for the first time in over a year.
Look at that beauty, it should produce some beautiful lumber. The tree you see on the deck is a Hard Maple. This type of lumber is a favorite of many custom cabinet builders. A board foot of Hard Maple goes for about $12.00.
Many times, positioning the saw for the first cut is critical. You want to maximize the lumber milled from each bolt.
As I laid the blade into the wood and the shavings started to pour out, I felt my heart start to race a little.
With the first pass made, I knew that some quality hardwood would be garnered from this bolt.
A nice level cut, and with a few more sides to square off, I could already see the finished product
Having three sides milled, I left the one side as it was. By taking slabs of lumber from the bolt, with one side left natural, you end up with what is referred to as live-edge. Live edge pieces of lumber are used for fireplace mantels, furniture, tables, and bar tops. These slabs are most often cut to thicknesses of 8/4 and 12/4, which are slabs two and three inches in width. We also cut some 4/4 or one-inch slabs for interior moldings, free-floating shelving, signs, and many other decorative projects.
Here are some of the pieces I milled that day.
Some of the slabs I left live edge on one side, others I left live edge on both sides. Most of the 4/4 lumber I milled in a typical fashion. squaring off both sides.
By around 4:00 Pm I had cut upwards of 200 board feet, not bad swinging solo.
The slabs that you see in this pic have been numbered. The reason for this is so that they can be identified as coming from the same bolt and in the same order in which they were cut. Book matching is simply laying consecutive pieces of milled lumber right next to each other while flipping the other piece. This creates a mirrored effect known as book-matching. Book-matched tables and bar tops are gorgeous.
The slabs I have numbered for book-matching were all cut at 8/4.
With daylight dwindling, I still needed to sticker all of the lumber. I had built the platform a week earlier and placed it on its foundation that morning.
The entire platform must be set LEVEL and SQUARE. this will guarantee that as the lumber dries it doesn't twist. I put down the 8/4 first as it will take longer to dry. Air-dried lumber dries at the rate of 1 inch of thickness per year. I'll see these pieces in 2022. All quality hardwoods must be dried to between 7% - 9% water content. Our kiln can dry 4,000 board feet of lumber in around 30 days, depending on the species of wood.
The next step in stacking the wood is to place wooden stickers between each layer of lumber. This allows the air to dry the wood on all four sides. Without doing this, the lumber will mold.
After getting all of the 8/4 stickered, the 4/4 was stacked.
I got a better look at some of the slabs as I was stickering them. You would have to agree with me, the stuff is beautiful.
In this picture, you can see where an insect has invaded the interior of the tree. I'm always amazed when I find a piece of lumber like this, wondering how the hell that bug made its way into the tree.
The discoloration you see around the hole created by the insect comes when the insect secretes juices while eating, causing a fungal discoloration. This type of lumber is of high value due to these imperfections. It will usually fetch double the price per board foot than lumber in perfect condition.
This type of lumber is called Ambrosia, or Wormy Maple. It usually occurs in soft-maple, but also occurs in hard-maple.
After a long satisfying day, the last piece to this puzzle was to put weight on the pile of lumber.
This helps to ensure that the boards don't cup or twist as they dry.
Now that you are all pumped up about milling, I sure could use a hand in the future! I plan on doing a few posts on the lumber I mill. I have saved some really special pieces to mill very soon. To some, waiting for the wood to air dry for two years seems like a long time, but with the way time flies, it won't be long before I'm doing a post about a project that I did, using some of this wood.
Just one last thing before you go, that's if you're still around. Some of the wood I will be milling in the near future has been planned for five years. Maybe not as long-term of a goal as my buddy @dandays, but a significant amount of time. The bolts of wood up next to be mill were dropped five years ago. The reason for waiting so long was to give the wood time to decay.
If you like wood, you can't miss the milling of these blots and the spectacular lumber they will produce.
Have a wonderful day, stay safe, and remember there is always a silver lining to every cloud, you just need to look for it.
PEACE
If there's a more informative article out there, show it to me. Damn dude, I wanna build walls now--wait. I don't mean it like that, walls like to divide the dining room from the living room wall out of wood.
The finish cuts in the bed of the truck. You mentioned numbering them for book-matching. I noticed half are I and half are II. Is book-matching its 'pair'? Forgive me, I'm only familiar with one particular tree.
About the nearly 10 year chess move. All it takes is one Queen to say 'the quality of life is so much better on that other board.'
Your pal and my hubby is exceptional. There are no other words to describe this man.
He really pisses me off sometimes, and I let him know it, but he knows me so well ,he just rolls with the punches.
When I grow up, I want to be just like him.
He truly is a wonderful husband, but one better, a caring father who knows no bounds of giving.
To know Bob, is to love Bob.
Good morning buddy, book matching can be done with any species of tree. Usually, I will only keep a record of book-matched lumber that has special characteristics. By book-matching lumber that has special features, it is easy to see the mirrored image across the midline of the lumber. After the wood has dried, one side of the live edge of each piece is squared off and the two pieces of lumber are now married. After joining the two pieces the lumber is run through our planner, sanded with different grit papers, and finished. The finished piece just looks spectacular.
Depending on the width of the piece you want to finish with, many pieces can be alternately turned upside down and it will show the same grain pattern and colors as the previous piece.
The lumber in the bed of my truck is both 4/4 and 8/8, I only book-matched some of the 8/4, those being the ones I have numbered.
I'm not sure you follow me, so one day I guess I'll just have to show you, now that would be very cool!
As much as I tried to follow by reading this twice, I'm a thinkin I'll need a hands-on.
Very cool indeed.
Hands-on, the best way to learn!
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You are amazing, I am already conjuring in my head what we will do with all that beautiful wood.
Hum? sunroom shelves? yup think so. How about my special chair? oh yeah.
I know you love wood projects, don't hesitate to ask, my headspace is on it!
You are the best!!
But you already know that, don't ya.π
That's some really nice wood that you have cut there! It looked like there was a bit of spalting in some of the boards. That can really add some color to normally bland maple.
I always wanted one of those band saw mills back when I was homesteading. I had some nice trees on the property, including a couple of big birch trees.
Of course, I was never able to afford even the smaller bandsaw mills back then. The closest I came was one of those chainsaw powered "Alaskan sawmills". They work for making roughly square timbers from red pine trees.
You've got a good eye @amberyooper, there is some spalting going on. If you like spalted lumber, which is hard not to envy, you'll enjoy my next post about milling. Jjust yesterday I milled several bolts that had some fabulous spalting throughout the entire bolt.
Ya, mills do cost a few bucks, and I feel very fortunate to have been able to purchase ours back in 2012. It is by far one of the best purchases I have ever made.
I've seen those chainsaw mills on different tv shows and they seem to do the job. I can see them being efficient when cutting pine as it is a very softwood, but it would be interesting to see how it would do milling hardwoods.
Thanks for stopping in, and thanks for a reply. Anyone who wants to talk about wood, I'm in.
Have a wonderful day!
Have you run into any birds eye or tiger stripe maple yet with your cutting?
No birds-eye so far but lots of spalted maple. I did get some really nice bolts of white cedar, and that stuff milled up beautiful, with much of it being totally clear.
Loved this about milling wood. Can wait to see the next installment....
Thank you, my friend. Milling wood is so much fun. I even got #farm -mom milling with me, even if it was only for a few minutes. π
Great job
Thanks for stopping in, I'm happy you enjoyed this post.
Your welcome