Sawyer here, what to cut up?

[Mike Holbrook]

I have had a bad itch to harvest some wood on my property. It was suggested here that I find a Sawyer with a Woodmizer.

Well I found one. He was in the area with time on his hands so we walked around the property checking out likely logs and trees.

I have nice large Sycamore that he thinks would make nice logs. One has a damaged top but quite large trunk and good straight logable sections. I have some Black Walnut, not very large maybe 16-18 inch diameters. Two of these are pretty close together so I would not feel bad about removing one. He thought he could get at least 4-5 inch boards from one of these. I have a pretty nice Ash log and more Ash I could take, plenty of Poplar, a nice looking Maple, with good straight section, in a place that is bad in the way. I also have a good size Hickory down that he thinks we could get a good log out of. There is a bunch of River Birch easy to get to but he did not think it would suit my purposes.I also have plenty of Sweet Gum. There is oak, but my wife says she is tired of looking at oak & would rather have just about anything else.

I am thinking about stacking up 6-8 nice logs and getting him out to saw them up. I hope to get some opinions here on which trees would make the best wood to work. I am making cabinets now and plan to work into furniture in the next few years. I have some places to put wood to let it dry. The sawyer also says he can get it kiln dried for me for .15 a board ft. I am not professional. I just want a ready supply of wood for my own use.

The sawyer seemed very interested in the Sycamore but I know nothing about how it is for wood working.

[Martin Shupe]

Seriously, a forester can help you out here.

First, call the state forestry service, and see if they have a landowner assistance program. Most states do. Then see if they will come out and look at your trees. Most states will come out, spend a half a day with you and write a management plan for you, and most states will do it for free. Why? They want to encourage private landowners to manage their trees sensibly.

The state forester should ask you to define your management goals for him to consider in writing your management plan.

In your case, you need to tell the forester...I want to harvest a few trees for lumber, which ones would you pick and why? Which ones could I harvest 10 years from now? Which ones can I cut now, and which ones shouldn't I cut now, but save for later or even my children?

He can also help you decide IF you should remove one of the walnut trees, and if so, which one. He may also recommend some removal of smaller trees to "release" your future crop trees. This may even be a tax deductible expense for you, depending on if you sell some trees.

I have a friend who has some land, and we have cut and dried some of his walnut successfully. However, he tried to dry some white oak and it checked horribly. I talked to Scott Banbury about it and he said oak was harder to dry than other woods.

Martin, BSF '83, MSF '86 forester in my former life.

[Tom Sontag]

The sycamore and sweetgum make nice lumber ONLY if quartersawn because of instability. Sycamore makes a nice secondary wood for drawer sides and so on, although I know a sawyer whose kitchen cabinets are QS sycamore. It is a lighter weight wood with beautiful flecks when sawn right. See pic.

Sweetgum has a darker heartwood and creamy sapwood which makes a fairly dramatic board which can be harder to work into larger scale work IMO.

Consider sawing the walnut into something like 3x3s or 4x4s to compliment that which you can buy readily.

The forester is not a bad idea for land management practices. www.woodweb.com has plenty of articles on drying etc.

[Karl Laustrup]

The only thing I could add to what Martin and Tom have said is to really look at how much wood you are going to cut at once. It adds up pretty quick and you need to be prepared with enough space and help to stack it.

When I had a cherry, maple, box elder and red oak cut in 2003, I ended up with a stack 8' L x 5' H x 10' W for drying. I don't really know how many board feet I ended up with, but it took all day to saw and stack and none of the trees were very big. I'm bringing this up because it sounds like you are going to be cutting a lot more than I did.

Having said that, I think you should have your trees cut into lumber that you can use. I have some other trees to take down that are not as desireable, but as my sawyer said, "You can always use them for something." I have to agree. It is a really good feeling when you build something, that you can say that the wood came from your property. A trick I learned was to have the sawyer saw to give you a full dimension. Normally if you ask to have 1" rough sawn thickness you actually end up less because of the saw blade. Last time I had my sawyer saw to give me a full 1" board. Leaves just a little more, which can help later when you finish dimension your lumber.

I like what Tom said about sawing some of the lumber into other than 4/4 stock. You can always resaw later if needed. Just remember that the thicker you have the lumber cut the longer it will take to dry. I would consider stacking the thicker lumber separately or keep it on the bottom of the stack, depending on how much you cut.

Don't forget to seal the ends of the logs as they are cut and have a way to mark each species as you stack it.

[Mike Holbrook]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I will look up a Forester ASAP. I do not want to get too much wood, that is one of the hardest things for me to figure out. I do have better storage than I imagine most people have though. Next to my shop I have a 14' x 11' room, all underground with concrete walls on three sides. It is mostly for wood storage. I will close this room off so I can put a heater or something in there to dry wood if I want, kinda a kiln maybe. I also have a 60 x 30' pole building down on flood plane where I would harvest wood. The building has a top 5\4 board deck (two stories) walled on 3 sides, tin roof. The back 10 feet is divided into rooms with walls. I can store wood in one or two of these rooms too. With the tin roof those back rooms heat up pretty hot in the summer, not as hot as an attic but over 80 up to 100 & more much of the summer. The back ten feet is over a 10 X 60 ft cinder block room so it should support some weight.

My Sawyer says to think in 1/4s. He said I might think about some 4/4 and maybe some 8/4 (for things like table legs). He usually saws 16 ft boards, but I am thinking maybe 10 ft. since I would like to be able to handle it alone if necessary.

[Jim Becker]

I am so glad I had most of mine sawn to 5/4 or "oversized" 4/4 since I was not an expert at stacking and did have some minor staining. I also had a bunch of 8/4, 10/4 and 12/4 sawn in my poplar and that has also been very beneficial, either for thick components or thin, resawn components. I'd rather have to take the time to resaw from thicker stock than waste a lot of material milling 4/4 down to something thinner.

I'll echo the previous thoughs adding that you definitely should harvest some poplar (tulip poplar, I'm assuming). Great wood to work with for whole projects, secondary components with other woods and for prototyping. Dries reasonably fast, too...

[Karl Laustrup]

I'm not sure about 16' lengths, or even 10'.

How many things are you going to build that would require a 10' board? Maybe cut some at 10', but just for handling purposes, I don't think I'd cut any at 16'. Maybe someone here has some reason for 10' or 16' that I'm not seeing.

I had my logs cut at 8' and then asked my sawyer to get as many wide boards as possible, so I have a lot of 8", 10" and 12" wide. Figure I can always rip them down.

Anyway, keep us posted. And pics of the operation would be in order also.

[Dan Gill]

You're getting good advice, but let me suggest that you may be able to sell some of the wood, especially if you have space to air-dry it. You don't have to use all of it yourself.

[Jim Becker]

To Karl's point, most of my lumber was cut at 10-11' rough and dried that way. (Some was at 14' which was the way the trees were dropped) When it comes in the shop, I generally evaluate each board and remove some material, such as any checked ends, etc.) before putting in storage...most of the time leaving clear or "clear enough" boards of at least 8'. I like starting with 8' boards as wide as possible so I can lay out my project components, matching for grain and color in the process. (components are not always parallel to the edge of a board in that respect!)

To the point, it's easier to process and work with boards that are ultimately about 8-9' long max and as wide as possible. IMHO, of course!

[lou sansone]

hi mike
Glad to see that you found a sawyer. Years ago it was a pain, but now with so many guys with band mills it is quite easy. My personal preference is to buck up the trunks into 8'6" and end seal them ( although in the winter you really do not need to do that if it freezing out. I find that for most furniture projects that lumber over 8' is not needed very often. Keeping them @ 8 makes storage pretty easy in the long run.


Hickory is very hard and not the most beautiful wood. It makes great flooring, and it the "hardest" North American hard wood on the flooring hardness scale. My shop had hickory for a floor and I have dragged 4000 lb machines across it without damanging it.

IMHO black walnut is the king of woods. It is very easy to dry as compared to cherry or oak. It is one of those woods that look best when not "kiln dried and steamed". If there is a nice crotch at the end of the main trunk then you might get some small crotch sections. If you are unsure about how to saw it let the creek know and you should get some good answers.

One thing I learned the hard way when first starting out sawing was that the heart really should be sawn around and thrown away. If you keep the heart in a plank or whatever it will definitly blow right open and ruin the entire piece of wood.

As far as stickering the lumber be carefull with the light woods like ash and maple. Use dry stickers. Where do you get dry stickers? at first you will have to buy the cheapest dry wood you can find and rip them down to something like 1 1/4 " wide by 3/4 or 1 " thick. Oak is hard to air dry without getting checking. Keep the piles covered and out of the rain and snow.

have fun
lou

[Mike Holbrook]

Great help there guys. I will get out this week end and take some pictures and figure out how to get them posted.

Thanks for the info. on stickers, the sawyer said, he could make all I needed from the trimmings for cheaper than I could buy them. I have plenty of scrap construction grade kiln dried wood that I will make some stickers from for light wood.

I am still wondering whether to mess with the Sycamore. The tree that the sawyer thought would be great is very big, too big to pick up with my 30 horse Kabota. That tree is the right solution ecologically though as the top is badly damage leaving a nice long very wide trunk that the sawyer though would have some beautiful grain.

I have a small, sturdy trailer which I could use to take logs to my sawyer or a mill a buddy of mine was telling me about that is close by. I could save some money and process a few at a time that way. I think I would have to have the sawyer out to saw up that Sycamore and a few others though. I may end up doing both. The Sawyer is not far away maybe 15 miles and said he comes near me pretty often so I do not think the on site cost should be to horrible.

I would not mind selling some wood and I do have a very good place to store, dry and load it from.

[Jim Becker]

You can buy a "pincher-hook" to put on the back of your tractor to drag the logs to one location on your property. You only need to be able to lift the front of the log enough to clear the ground and any obstructions along the way. Of course, you will need your loader on the machine and may need to fill it for ballast for the big sycamore log so the tractor doesn't tip. You may need to work with a shorter log in that case, too...but it's doable. Even my smaller Kubota (23 hp BX-22) can drag logs fairly well this way. (Which I plan on leveraging one of these days for a few more trees off the property)

The reason I bring all this up is that it's usually more economical, both financially and "work wise" to have the stuff milled on your property...right next to where you plan on stacking it. If you have the area prepared, you take the boards right off the mill and put them right on the stack. I like a layer of landscape fabric to keep down weeds followed by 4"x6" PT strips to raise the pile up 6" off the ground with stickers on them to isolate the lumber from the PT and get air flow under the pile. Top everything off with a solid cap...old plywood, corrogated metal roofing, etc., with some weight to keep it from blowing away and slanted so water runs off. The pile should be open to the air so moisture is wicked away...rain and snow does not hurt it. Stickers should be layered right over top of each other in even rows...I space no wider than 24". Being anal while you stack will make for happier lumber when you are done...

[Scott Banbury]

I second the call for quartersawing the Sycamore. Also the Sweetgum unless you saw it thick and put it on the bottom of your pile.

Unless they are really crowding each other, I'd let those little Walnuts grow some more.

DO NOT use fresh cut stickers, especially for the Sycamore--the moisture will cause stains for sure. If I don't have dry stickers to sell my customer, I tell 'em to go get a couple bundles of 1x2.

I typically recommend bucking logs at 9'--that way you'll end up with 8' material after end checking during drying. Bucking all your logs the same length will make stacking it for drying much easier.

While thicker stuff 6,8 or 10/4 may be the highest "value" material, it will also suffer the most degrade in drying. If you know your final use, saw it that thickness.

Communicate thickness in 1/4 inches, ie. 4/4, 5/4, etc.. The mill has scales on it that automatically cut 4/4 at 1 1/8" to account for shrinkage in drying.

For more info on sawing, including PDFs on various aspects of it, visit my site at http://www.scottbanbury.com/sawing.html

[Jim Andrew]

I like my lumber cut into as long lengths as possible, as it is quicker to
handle and very little waste. When you pile short lengths into a given
space it is like doing a jigsaw puzzle, and the ends all have to be supported.
So I would cut the lumber 16' long if you have good long logs, and make
16' long stacks. JMHO. Jim

[Mike Holbrook]

Hmm Pincher Hook, I have seen something like that which can replace the bucket on a loader but I have not seen one that attaches to the rear--- PTO? As I recall my loader is- I think its called a skid steer type that has other attachments I can add other than a bucket, the problem being that they are quite pricey.

In the past I have attached a pulling bar across the arms of my PTO wrapped a chain around it and the log, lifted the end of the log and drug it to where I wanted it. Moved a bunch of big timber that way. The Sawyer told me that "Sawyers" do not like to saw logs that have been drug because they collect dirt in the bark that will dull blades, so I was trying not to drag. He did say that pressure washing the logs would fix them if they were drug & I do have a pressure washer.

I was thinking about getting removable forks for my bucket, they seemed to be the most versatile, price effective option the last time I looked into something to enable me to move building materials better. I guess I have another research project.

Since I have the trailer. The trees are on the far end of 12 acres. I am thinking of storing the lumber in a building on the other side of the 12 acres. We were talking about loading lumber on the trailer as it is cut and hauling it with the tractor to its resting spot. Maybe I should be considering building a temporary place closer to where I am cutting to air dry. I guess I should say that portion of my property is 100 year flood plane. The stream was up in those woods after the hurricane came through Atlanta last fall, but that is the only time anyone remembers that stream coming out of its banks. I think I would be safe if I got the wood up on blocks or something a little higher than a 4 inch PT post. I do have a fair number of 16 foot pieces of tin roofing left over from building my pole barn that might be perfect for covering some drying hardwood.

Ohhh the drama, its getting interesting :)

[Mike Holbrook]

That is some pretty grain. How does it work?

[Mike Holbrook]

I have been to your sight in the past and will visit again Scott. I have it bookmarked now. I was interested in seeing that you have the same type of management I do, a bossy wife and a herd of monkeys :)

Thanks for the tip on the stickers. Nine feet sounds about right I was thinking 10 but 9 will be better. I can see the reason for 16 footers, I think my Sawyer cuts a good deal for building materials. I don't think I have the 16 feet in the rooms I am thinking about and I may have to move it around myself though. I was counting on removing some end wood, nice to know you think an extra foot is enough Scott. I am learning to talk in 1/4's fast!

[Jim Becker]

I like my lumber cut into as long lengths as possible, as it is quicker to
handle and very little waste. When you pile short lengths into a given
space it is like doing a jigsaw puzzle, and the ends all have to be supported.
So I would cut the lumber 16' long if you have good long logs, and make
16' long stacks. JMHO. Jim
One shouldn't cut the logs longer than the mill that will be processing them...16' may be pushing it for some sawyers...

[Jim Becker]

Hmm Pincher Hook, I have seen something like that which can replace the bucket on a loader but I have not seen one that attaches to the rear--- PTO?
Sorry, wrong term...I was needing to get out the door for a customer briefing. The proper term is "skidding tongs" and you can see an example at:

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=6970&productId=200307445&R=200307445

[Tom Sontag]

The lighter colored woods can stain if not dried properly. The shed with air flow is definitely a better place than the dungeon you described.

The whole point of the sycamore picture was to make deciding about sawing it easier. :)

[Ron Smith ... Richmond, VA]

Here's a couple of picts of the one we have on the back of the "come along" for the tractor. It works great for the 8' to 10' logs we cut out. I'm planning on getting a lot of these logs sawn up, too. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

[Rob Blaustein]

Looks like Scott and Tom have already answered your scyamore question. I also just read about this in a website that Ralph Barhorst pointed out in response to Dan Gill's question about quartersawn vs rift sawn wood (http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=17318). Check out:
http://www.frankmiller.com/default.asp?OPID=31
If you scroll down, you'll see a pic and a brief discussion of sycamore, reiterating the above prefs for quartersawing it.

[Mike Holbrook]

Great links, thanks I have them bookmarked. I am getting quite an education here.