Knowing the night before that Mother Nature was going to provide me with the weather needed to mill, I was up at 1:15 Am. What's a guy supposed to do if he can't sleep, get the heck out of bed and get ready for the day!
Before I get started, I wish I knew how to do that dam thing @dandays does. No, not write those awesome travel posts, and get featured on
but rather that thing he does when he wants the reader to know what he was thinking, but not really, and he puts a line through it. Right, that thing.
If I could do that thing, I would have put that line through the following words, which would have come after, "What's a guy supposed to do if he can't sleep, get the heck out of bed" YOU'RE BURNING DAYLIGHT.
You got it, those last three words that are in caps, I would have put one of those nice straight lines right through the middle of those suckers.
Being that it's still completely dark outside, the burning daylight thing just wouldn't have worked, so I thought it would be cool to do that thing my buddy does, cross the shit out of them.
SORRY, I'll get back to business, my BAD, but just one last thing before I talk about one of my passions, probably not one of yours, if by some chance you have not acquainted yourself with the comeback writer of the year, @dandays, you don't know what you're missing.
Got it, good, here we go!
When the phone rang last week it was my oldest son calling me from New Jersey. He had just gotten several bolts of White Cedar. Much of what we mill back in Jersey comes from different tree service guys that know that if they run across something special, we will gladly take it off of their hands.
It isn't too often we get a chance to acquire cedar logs, white or red, but when we do we jump on them.
What was exciting about getting these bolts is that we had been looking for some White Cedar for some time now. For the past several years our son @ryan313 has been talking about the two of us building a canoe. White Cedar is one of the best woods for a project like this.
Canoes are made of cedar because cedar splits easily into slates and cedar withstands water and slightly swells when wet, closing small gaps.
If you are interested to see what we have in mind, check out this link,
https://www.familyhandyman.com/project/how-to-build-a-canoe/
It has the complete instructions and lumber list needed for constructing a canoe. This will make for a fun project in the future.
The following day, I took a ride back to my old stomping ground and was thrilled to see what he had acquired. The bolts were perfect and I would be able to get enough board feet from the logs for the canoe, and possibly some extra board footage.
It's a good thing that cedar is a very light wood as we loaded them into the bed of my truck by hand.
When I got home, unloading them by myself was not as easy as getting them on the truck, but I managed.
The night before it had rained and the ground around the mill was muddy which made it very slick.
Once again, hay was the answer to that dilemma. Thanks, cousin Lauren, better known as THE EGG LADY.
Being that cedar is a very soft wood, it took only a few hours to mill the five bolts.
By the time I was done, I had enough White Cedar to construct the canoe we had been talking about for a couple of years. All I needed to do was wait for it to air dry. Softwoods dry in about 1/2 the time that it takes hardwoods to dry.
Getting an early start, I was hoping to be able to cut one of the bolts of timber I had cut about five years ago. I had purposely allowed some bolts to lay around decaying. The reason for this is that as the wood decays it takes on colors that otherwise would not occur if the wood was milled shortly after cutting. The key to this is to make sure you don't allow the wood to deteriorate too much. If this occurs you have wasted all of that time, as the lumber produced when milling the decayed wood loses its integrity.
I was hoping to get some colorful pieces of lumber from these partially decayed bolts.
Up first would be the bolt on the left side of this picture. It is a piece of White Ash, and I was hoping I didn't allow it to sit around too long.
By 1:30 Pm I had the first bolt of wood on the bed of the mill, dogged down, and ready to take my first slice.
With the first cut made, I realized that the interior of the bolt was in great condition.
After cleaning the sawdust left behind from the first cut, this is what I saw, wow! At this point, I was all pumped up and couldn't wait to square off the other 3 sides and start milling boards.
Two down two to go.
With three sides milled, the excitement was building. I couldn't flip the bolt and dog it down quick enough to cut the last side!
Ready, set, go, at this point, I knew that the lumber from this bolt, that had been laying around for years, was going to produce some spectacular lumber.
So what do you think?
Was it worth the wait? 👍👍👍
By the end of the day, I had milled 120 board feet of cedar and 160 board feet of the decayed White Ash.
Since all of the bolts that I milled that day were eight feet in length, the following day I would be building another platform and stickering the ash and cedar lumber.
The wood I had milled previously was ten feet in length and these new boards need their own resting place.
Stay tuned, up next will be bolts of Maple that should produce some fabulous spalted Maple lumber.
Here is a picture of one end of a spalted bolt.
I hope you enjoyed, if so, come on back as I'm just getting going!
So cool dude. So cool. I’ve probably got sucked into a hundred or so of those videos where they take two live board edge pieces and pour resin in between. It’s mystifying and rather relaxing, haha. Nice work man, can’t wait to see that canoe!
When we are working with live edge stock the two boards are joined together using two types of joinery, pocket holes, and Craig screws along with some carpenters glue and bar clamps, and presto, you have a tabletop, countertop, or bar top.
It will take a while for the cedar to air dry, but once it does, it's game on.
Enjoy the weekend and good luck with your FF league.
I don't know that much about wood, and definitely enjoy reading your posts about it.
Thanks for your reply and it makes me smile when someone states that they enjoyed what I have written about.
Nice post Woody.
Ready, set, go...I just heard the rooster.
It's getting lighter outside.
Can I help you with your boots? Get going will ya, that sunroom isn't going to finish itself.
😁🦾👀
Just waiting for sunrise, the batteries to the flashlight went dead last night.