Felling and Milling Trees

[Peter Aeschliman]

Hi guys and gals,

A friend of mine's family owns around 120 acres of land, which is a remnant of a family logging business. They have a small sawmill on the property. As he explained to me, they take trees down and sell the lumber just to cover the property taxes.

He has very graciously offered to allow me to come out to the property and go through the process of taking down a tree. They'll rough mill the lumber for me and let me take it. They may be able to set me up with a kiln, but they don't own one.

I think it will be super fun just to go through the experience, let alone all of the stock that will last me for many years of projects. Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have mostly pine, cedar, and big leaf maple (soft maple). He didn't flinch when I asked if we could take down a maple- frankly I don't have much use for pine or cedar.

Now finally to my question- I have no idea where to begin researching. They will cut the tree down and run it through their sawmill... so I don't have to worry about that aspect. Here are some questions:



How do I go about picking out a tree? What should I look for? I'd love to find a tree with a big burl on it of course, but what should I look for in order to get maximum yield? Long straight sections with few branches? Any general guidance?
How should I have it milled? My instinct is to go for 8/4 for everything. Should I consider quartersawing, or does that cause too much waste? Is it even beneficial to quartersaw maple?


Thanks for any guidance you can provide!

Peter

[Julie Moriarty]

Once you open up a tree, you can see the grain pattern. From there it's, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

If all you have is cedar, pine and soft maple, I'd go for the maple. The straighter the tree, the straighter the grain. But maple can produce some gorgeous grain patterns, I just don't know how to spot that when the bark is still on the tree,

Maybe this can help: http://www.forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=31236.0

[Richard Coers]

If you can find one with wavy or irregular bark, you will find figured wood inside. Personally, I'm not the kind of guy that will just go cut a healthy tree for wood. I'd go for a sick one, or at a minimum, one that would benefit the surrounding small healthy trees for future growth. Is there a local forestry extension? They may be willing to come out and identify trees where removal may benefit the forest. If you have a bandsaw for resawing, all 8/4 may be alright. If you intend to air dry it, it will take twice as long as 4/4. I would mix the cutting to get 5/4 and 8/4. Quartersawn soft maple won't present much for special figure or color. It will give you more stable wood, but may just look pretty boring.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Regarding quartersawing, the goal would be getting stable lumber. The first project I will build is an heirloom quality workbench, so I'd want the lumber on the top to be as stable as possible.

Richard, thanks for raising the point about sustainability. The voice in my head has brought this up a few times as well- I picture a beautiful big leaf maple that has been alive 4 times as long as I have, and it does seem sad and wasteful to cut it down just for my own enjoyment. I'll make sure to ask about this before we fire up the chainsaw.

[Cody Colston]

I agree with the advice to select a sick tree or one whose removal will benefit the remaining trees.

If your goal is stable lumber, then select a tree with a straight trunk with few limbs or defects. If it is 20 inches or more in diameter at breast height, then quartersaw it. If the sawyer uses a method that produces both quartersawn and riftsawn lumber as opposed to all true vertical grain, then you will have much less waste.

If air dried, the 8/4 planks will take around three times as long to dry as the 4/4 boards. To keep the wood bright, seal the log ends before sawing and sticker it immediately off the saw. Use dry stickers because light-colored woods like Maple are very susceptible to staining.

[David Helm]

I generally agree with what the others have said with this caveat. In that managed forest, and knowing that Western Big Leaf Maple is a fast grower, you don't necessarily need to go to sick or dying trees. In terms of figure, a totally straight tree may not have much. Finding good figure in WBLM is more about the art of the sawyer than about quarter sawing or rift sawing.

[david brum]

I've used quite a bit of Big Leaf Maple for projects this year. I got all of it from local sawmills, all on the Olympic Peninsula. It's interesting stuff-so plentiful and easy to work with. Just hard enough to be a valuable furniture wood. It rates 850 on the Janka scale, just between Mahogany and Cherry.

My experience is that the really straight, knot-free wood is very bland in appearance, sort of like Alder. It would be great for a bench or for secondary wood in a dresser, etc. The straighter, faster growing trees will also have softer wood.

The figured wood is fun. You don't really need to be scared of knots. They blend into the wood and are often surrounded by interesting figure. They appear more as a feature than a defect. Crotches provide similar figure, as do burls and other lumps. If you want figure, you might experiment with more beat up looking trees, the ones with some twist and odd limbs.

My neighbor has a little tree farm. He lets us walk in it and I get a chance to look at some gnarly, old Western Maple. He says that most Western Maple isn't really valuable as veneer wood and valuable figured wood is somewhat rare. A good forester can apparently tell the difference before the tree is cut. It all looked good to me. I think that most of the trees get cut into dimensional lumber and sold cheap.

It sounds like you'll have a great adventure. Keep in mind that you maple spalts like crazy, so that might be something to experiment with as well.

As an aside, a sawmill owner friend likes to shop on craigslist. He spied a "burl" for $50 in Gig Harbor. It turned out to be a 6' tall, 3' wide solid burl from a Western Maple that had been cut from someone's yard. For some reason, the stump had continued to grow figure after the tree was cut. Stumps usually sprout long, green shoots and turn into a bush, but this one just continued to grow quilted figure. He bought it, spent a day pressure washing the mud and grit off of it, then sold it to a veneer place for a ton of money. It looked like a huge, amorphous blob.

[Peter Aeschliman]

Wow, good for him! I'd love to find a nice juicy burl. We'll see! Then maybe I can convince my wife to let me spring for the MM16 I've been drooling over for a few years. I just spent all day fussing with my Jet 14" bandsaw and I've about reached the end of my rope. The riser block I put on it has only made things worse.

I'm getting more and more excited about this. It probably won't be until the summer time- my friend is going to be finishing law school in June, and then he'll have time to go out to the forest with me in the summer. We have lots more logistics to discuss. My first project will definitely need to be something for my friend. If big leaf maple looks bland, then I'll definitely consider options such as spalting. Luckily we get so much rain that I can just bury it in the yard for a while and see what happens!

Thanks everyone for your input- lots to consider here. I'll make sure to post lots of pictures about the process when the time comes!

[Brian Brightwell]

Here is the wood I had sawed all from storm damaged trees. I also built a barn. I air dry my wood. Kiln dry lumber reverts back to ambient humidity if left in an uncontrolled environment. I have about 10k more board feet cut and ready to be sawed, oak cheery and walnut. Twice I have had a guy come here with a woodmizer sawmill and do the sawing. He charged 23 cents a foot.
I don't need anymore wood but I hate to see the logs go to waste.

http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/bebrightwell/071_zpsd7f08573.jpg
http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/bebrightwell/073_zps6eba6f8b.jpg
http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/bebrightwell/069_zps04f48866.jpg
http://i773.photobucket.com/albums/yy11/bebrightwell/P4080099-1.jpg

[Dan Hintz]

<chuckle> The turner in me screams "Get the Cedar! One with a burl, if possible." I have enough Maple to choke a horse, and cedar makes the shop smell awesome when you're cutting it.

That said, I would take vacation from work, if necessary, to take part in such an opportunity. Understanding the process from a first-person point of view will only help you in selecting wood next time around, knowing the work involved, as well as the trade-offs. Good luck, and I wish I could go just to watch.

[Val Kosmider]

Peter:

I can offer you some familiarity with, at least, the sawing process. My local saw mill put aside a few logs and last Thrusday he cut them. I got a mix of flat and quarter sawn boards. There is white oak, red oak, hickory, cherry and a little bit of poplar which i intend to use to start some cabinets for my shop. The cost being so low to buy green lumber, i felt that the additional waste associated with quarter sawn didn't drive the overall cost into the ridiculous zone. I got a random mix of 5/4, 6/4 and 8/4. BTW, anything that came off the saw either went to lumber, or was immediately cut to firewood lengths and dropped onto a conveyor which loaded a truck for delivery to someone who heats with wood. Virtually no waste. Even the saw dust gets sold.

Brian...thanks for posting the pictures of your wood 'inventory'. As a result of last Thursday operation i now have a similar stack, and was thinking i must be the only fool in the world who makes items that consume 10 or 15 board feet of lumber, and i now have a thousand or so board feet! It is neatly stacked and stickered...an all day saturday project, and should be good in a year or so to start using.