Cincinnati - Getting your own lumber milled?

[Matthew Cresci]

254337254338Hello. I am new to the site and have been finding a lot of useful information. I am pretty new to woodwork and lucked into some free ( what I believe is ) birds eye maple. The tree was cut down a few days ago. The tree has been dead for a number of years. Picked up the wood this morning. I basically have cross cut sections of the trunk approximately 2 ft in diameter and around 8" thick. I am wondering if any local saw mills would cut each piece into 3 pieces cross cut. I am interested in making table tops out of them. I have seen other posts for lumber mills within an hour of me so I know their names but I don't know if they will cut pices of wood like this that aren't purchased from the mill. I also have no idea how much cuts like this would cost so I am interested in that as well. I have a chainsaw that will cut through the entire trunk but I don't want to lose the amount of wood that a chainsaw would take. I would also have to rig a system up to hold the wood steady as well as the chainsaw. Any help or other ideas would be much appreciated.

[Ted Calver]

Matthew,
Welcome to the Creek. Glad you found us. You might find a local band mill owner willing to cut those for you and it shouldn't cost much....might even be free, but I wouldn't get your hopes up on the round holding together well enough to make a table top from. The main issue with this kind of cut is that more often than not, the wood dries unevenly, leaving pie shaped cracks radiating out from the pith. There might be one or two large cracks (an inch, or more) or several small ones ....depends on the log and the circumstances. In addition to the aesthetics of having a bunch of cracks in the top, they may affect the structural integrity of the table. Even if the wood has lots of birds-eye figure, I doubt any of it is viewable in end grain. Don't mean to rain on your parade and it's certainly worth a try, but be prepared for disappointment. Someone on another forum posted about a kiln operator in texas that had developed a way to dry rounds without cracking and I remember people successfully soaking rounds in polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a way to keep them from splitting, but running into problems with finishing over the PEG. Good luck.

[Matthew Cresci]

Hello Ted. You certainly gave me some things to think about. Not what I wanted to hear but thats why I posted it. Just wondering about a few other things now. I am assuming that even though the tree was "dead" it wasn't truly dead since it was still attached to the root system. If this is the case the true dry time for the wood has just started? About half the branches were rotted out so I guess I assumed the wood other than the snow that was on it was already dry. If I can't use them as rounds can I cut them lengthwise into say 1x8's or 2x8's with a bandsaw and then let them air dry ? I really love working with wood and free is right up my alley. Thanks

[Ted Calver]

Matthew,
It's possible that the tree has dried enough that the rounds wouldn't split as bad as if they were green. It also looks like some ambrosia beetles have gotten into that tree and as a result there may be fungal staining that many woodworkers find attractive. It's hard to tell from the pictures just how dry the wood is, but it might be worth slabbing it out. Slab a two foot section with your chain saw and see what it looks like. If you have any wood turning friends they would love to get their hands on some too. If you use the forum search function in the upper right and look for ambrosia maple you will see pictures of both lumber and turnings. If you have a friend with a moisture meter they might be able to give you an idea how wet the wood is.

[Dennis Ford]

These pieces could certainly be made into lumber or turning blanks. I agree with Ted that drying a round section (usually called a cookie) would result in serious cracking. Whole log sections take many years to dry and very few varieties have a chance of drying without cracking.

[Rich Riddle]

I recommend contacting Steve at Hardwood, Lumber, and More in Milford (suburban Cincinnati). I use him for things like this and find him extremely reasonable and knowledgeable.

[Matthew Cresci]

Thanks for all the info gentlemen. I have been learning vast amount of information the past few days. I had no idea how much is involved in going from tree to usable wood. I am actually more interested at this point. As far as the cookies are concerned I have 6 in total so I plan on using Rich's advice and contacting Steve about trying to cut 2 of the cookies into my table tops. If it works I should be able to get 3 8/4 sized cookies from each. 6 table tops would allow me to keep 2 and sell 4 to cover costs and maybe make a buck or two. I will use 2 to make blanks. The last 2 I will do straight lumber. That should give me the most new experience for my time I think. I can use the lumber for the little projects I already do like bee hives, mailboxes, jewelry boxes, etc. I truly appreciate all the advice.