White Oak Planing Advise Needed

[William Gray]

Hi everyone. This is my first post here so I'll give a bit of background. I timbered about 800 bdft of beautiful single forked NC White Oak, sticked and stacked it up in my warehouse, treated it with Timbor(R) and left it for 12 years.
I just retired from the design and construction industry and am ready to get into that huge pile.

I need a plan, so my first request is advise on how to get this rough board stock finished at least 3 sides and maybe some additional re-sawing to get the stock to more manageable size and volume (warehouse space is $$$). My options seem to be buy a good thickness planer about 18" to 24" wide (yep wide stock!) or job it out to an existing shop, hopefully near-by.

This is made a bit more challenging as I am in South Florida which has seen a massive loss of wood shops and the cost of space is getting so high setting up my own shop as a hobby is becoming difficult to impossible.

Oh, did I mention one of the boards is 24" thick x 46" wide and 96" long with a bit of bark showing? That one is being held for a bit of cross-section work I have in my head. :cool:

My last option is to just sell some or all of it or give it away and find a new hobby with less mass.

Any thoughts or experiences?

[russell lusthaus]

24 inches thick? Wow. If you could figure a way to resaw it, there could be 5-6 (maybe more) real nice workbench tops in that one piece.

My back hurts just thinking about it. While it is real nice (I am sure) to have a planer that wide, I would hire the job out if I could.

Would love to see a pic of board that big. Is it right to call it a board? More like a tree, well, that is where it comes from and . . . .


Russ

[Jeff Duncan]

Going by the rule of thumb of 1" thickness per year of air drying....your halfway there:D

As for what to do with the wood, that's a very personal decision as only you know what you might want to do with it! However my question is if it is next to impossible to build a shop for yourself, what do you intend to do with the wood if you keep it? Without a shop, do you still have a use for it?

good luck,
jeffD

[Scott T Smith]

William, your math is not adding up.

A beam that is 46" x 96", 24" thick measures 736 board feet. That one plank by itself is almost the 800 board feet that you mentioned - perhaps you meant 8000 bd ft? If your 24" plank was fully dry (it's not), it would weigh 3000 lbs.

What you will find on a plank that thick is that there will be a lot of internal tension that will be released when it is resawn. You may have to rip the resawn planks into narrower boards for the best yield. Realistically, your only way to resaw it will be on a band mill. The center of it is probably close to 25% MC or higher, but the outer few inches is probably down around 12%.

As to the rest, you might want to consider sorting through your stacks and dividing the lumber up based upon the following:

1: Grade (FAS, select, #1, #2, etc)
2: Milling pattern (flat sawn, rift sawn, quartersawn)
3: Thickness (typically 4/4, 5/4, 8/4, etc)
4: Any special characteristics (curly wood, high ray flect, etc).
5: Width.

Look closely for any signs of insect infestation in your stacks too.

Once you have a good idea of what you have, you can figure out what to do with it.

Regards,

Scott

ps - welcome to the Creek!

[Carl Beckett]

I'm going to guess 8000 bf also ( 800 isn't that much wood by the standards here....).

Scotts advice is golden.

If 8000 bf of rough cut lumber. But no shop or equipment or idea of what you want to do with it...... Well, I might recommend sorting and selling some of it to finance what you DO want to do. If you have a house you could do flooring (would keep you busy in retirement). Or furniture. Outdoor furniture (white oak is good outdoors)

Given all the shops that are going out of business, used equipment is cheap. You could buy a used planer/jointer and surface it all and then sell the equipment..... But it would be better to surface it when you are ready to use it, else it will move some more.

[William Gray]

Hi guys, Thanks for the rapid responses.

Yep that is one big "Board". It really is the principal trunk logs (1 of 3 each 8' with the top one with a crotch about 2/3rds up) with two parallel sides sawn flat to field prep it for what was then planned to be a nice hearth mantel for a new home which died in the crash of 2000. Best laid plans... Needless to say I got what I wished for and now I get to re-purpose that big, very heavy log. ( when I moved it into the warehouse I had to rent a forklift so I am quite certain I need to think this through a bit better then next time I tackle it:)

As to the BF...I meant I had the log in addition to the rest of the sawn stock. Since I have not opened the pile up I really do not know what of it is usable. I'm sure some of the top pieces are warped due to the lack of weight on it. The rest should be good, but only time will tell.

I can say that I took some care with one slab of crotch wood which was really spectacular when green. Actually it was a rich shade of peach and lavender. I don't have any Idea how that will finish out but my hopes are high.

I'll drop a pic into this thread when I figure out how to do it.

Carl, Thanks for the advise about finishing when near ready. I had forgotten some of my Dad's old rules of thumb, and that was one:)

Scott, It is a mix of cuts and thicknesses. I just pulled a slab from the top which was a bit warped. After trying to cut thru 1-1/2" with my 7-1/2" Port-a-cable rip saw, I am just now beginning to get a hint of what you mean about internal tension. I took a steel wedge and a 16lb sledge to get that boy to let my blade loose:) That's when I knew I had to come looking for some advise!

[William Gray]

I need to correct my measurement. The widest is about 38" not 48". Still good sized but not so much:o.

I located a pic from 2003:

242109

[Paul Murphy]

William, a couple thoughts on your wood:
1. Lots of woodworkers find it nice to build projects from a single tree. If your stock is stacked together that way you will find it nice to build a color and grain matched project. You will be able to book-match boards, slip-match boards, etc.
2. If you stickered it really well many of your boards will be flat enough to skip-plane (hit or miss) to a consistent dimension without wasting wood thickness. Makes it easier to stack flat, takes less space, and easier to select boards for visual traits.
3. If you didn't sticker it well many boards will not be very flat. In this case it's better to wait for a project, cut pieces to length, then joint and plane. Less stock thickness is removed flattening a shorter piece, making it more likely that your entire surface will plane to desired thickness.

[Gary Herrmann]

Well shoot. I was just down there visiting my Mom. I would have bought some. Unless you have something special in mind, definitely rip that large trunk section. You could wait another 15-20 years for that one to dry.

If you don't have the space for tools, you can probably find someone to mill that for you. I have no idea what that would run though. I seem to remember there are a couple wood retailers in the Ft Lauderdale area. Not sure where you are.

[Mike Heidrick]

I dont look at working with large rough lumber as a one time joint/plane situation. There is always hand tools.

[William Gray]

Many have given excellent advise, most of which begin with me getting that pile pulled apart and inspected anew so I see what condition it is all in now and sorting it. ( Thanks Paul for the Skip-Planing idea!) Depending what I see I'll cut a few more wide slabs off the log and then get out my chainsaw and slice some cross-sections for the tree-ring work I have in mind. When I get into this I'll post some better specs and pics. I will say that I already know I'll be going back to files and diamond stones to keep my tools sharp. This white oak is tough and does not yield it's secrets without dedicated work.