What to do with Urban Trees

[Bob Coleman]

My brother-in-law (sister's husband's brother) owns a tree service company in Leavenworth, KS. I don't know the exact details, but he bid on a job to remove some very old trees (oak, maple, hickory, walnut) from Fort Leavenworth. He called around (I don't know to who or how many places) and no sawmill would saw them up for lumber for the usual metal-in-trees reasons.

Does anybody know of a place that would do something with them? Right now the trees are headed to the firewood pile. (I also don't know the condition of the trees - termites, rot, etc) I would really hate to see all that wood go up in smoke!

Thanks!

[Stephen Tashiro]

My random thought: If these are large trees, contact speciality places that need large pieces of hardwood. For example, there might be places that build replica wagons, cannon carriages, ships etc. If these places don't want the wood as logs, they can tell you who their suppliers are.

[Ted Calver]

Turners are always interested in free wood. Contact local turning clubs, put ad on CL and Freecycle and see what turns up.

[curtis rosche]

talarico hardwoods,,

or just dont tell the saw mill where they came from

[Mike Henderson]

talarico hardwoods,,

or just dont tell the saw mill where they came from
It would be very unfair to the sawmill to hide the origin of the trees. If they hit a piece of metal, it can cause very expensive damage to the saw, as well as danger to the workers.

Mike

[Kevin Bourque]

We have lots of trees on the farm that we have sawmilled into lumber.

Our sawmiller guy has a hand held metal detector that he uses to find nails,fence wire, bullets, etc.
We have never had a problem yet, but if he does hit something we are responsible for his band saw blades which I believe cost about $40.

[Curt Harms]

We have lots of trees on the farm that we have sawmilled into lumber.

Our sawmiller guy has a hand held metal detector that he uses to find nails,fence wire, bullets, etc.
We have never had a problem yet, but if he does hit something we are responsible for his band saw blades which I believe cost about $40.

That seems like a reasonable approach. Is there any significant risk of damage to say a woodmizer hitting metal beside destroying the blade? Damage to the tension mechanism or something like that? It might be worth a blade or two to have w-i-d-e boards. I could sure see a mill with a with a $$$ blade not wanting to take the chance.

[Rod Sheridan]

I've contacted people who own portable sawmills and they simply charge for damaged blades.

When I was sawing up some urban ash I was using a metal detector for the first few cuts, then stopped and of course hit a nail deep inside the log.

It just damages the blade, no problem for the saw itself..............Rod.

[Ted Calver]

It's also possible that the trees are too large for the woodmizer crowd. There are limits on the diameter the mizers can handle. As the oldest active US Army post west of Washington DC, there is some history in those trees. I would contact the post engineer and ask if there was any new construction going on, find out who the architect was and call them to see if they had any interest in incorporating any of this historic material....perhaps made into tables or benches....in their project. The NCO Associations are always looking for fund raising projects. I could see a bunch of young guys horsing a Sperber/Alaskan mill through that wood and selling the slabs or giving them to the wood hobby shop. Heck, this is supposed to be the "Intellectual Center of the Army", there is no doubt in my mind that if the right people are asked, a use could be found.