Weekend Find

[Shannon Brantley]

Made a creek run Saturday morning that brought me more than just relaxation. We found a side cut-off of a log from back in the old days of floating the timber to the sawmill. Found it by chance and it's amazing that we were able to get it out of the sand. It turned out to be almost 28' long, 11" wide and 4" thick. The 2 of us couldn't pick it up out of the water. We managed to get it on my canoe and walked it about a mile down stream before we hit a spot with too many snags to get through. (sunk the canoe and lost the load trying) Luckily it was at a sand bar that was accessible by truck and we knew a guy with a key to the gate, 4x4 and a chainsaw. I hit the end with a block plane so you can see the grain. I'm scared to guess when it was harvested but I think it's safe to say that no one who had a hand in it is still alive.

[Shannon Brantley]

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[David Weaver]

Do you have any idea what kind of wood it might be? at that length and thickness, it sounds like enough for an entire medium sized project.

[Shannon Brantley]

Sorry for the pics turned wrong. Trying this from my phone. The big one is under another small one we found, if you can call 16 feet and 2" thick small. We found the small one first, which was a nice find, but after finding the monster, it lost it's sparkle.

[Shannon Brantley]

It's virgin pine. Given the area, either loblolly or long leaf.

[David Weaver]

Safe to say we don't see much pine that must've fought for light as much as that one did. It'll be interesting to see how you feel that stick works once it's dried....which may be a couple of years. It'd be really nice to have pine of that quality everywhere.

[Judson Green]

Golly I'm surprise its not punky or rotten considering it doesn't sound like it was under water to be preserved. Unfortunately it is probably loaded with silica. Nevertheless good score!

[Shannon Brantley]

Dave, it would blow your mind how many full logs are on that creek. Some look to be cypress but 75% are pine. There are several creeks around here that I float. They all have logs on them but nothing like this one. The run we did Saturday is one of the smaller creeks and a short run. It's only the second time I've been down it. I guess because it's shallower, more got hung up on the way to the mill. I have several pieces of music gear I was about to sell and put the money on a nice lathe but after this weekend, I've got an urge to get an alaskan sawmill and a couple of inner tubes.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

Nice find! Glad I read this thread. I thought it would be some rusty tool at a flea market. I built a paddle board out of a wood sailboat mast we found offshore on a deserted cay. We towed it behind our kayaks. 43' long and probably 800 pounds. I cut it into three sections that each took two strong men to lift just one end of.

[Wayne Collier]

Shannon,

You may want to research the history of logging in the area as you may get an idea of how long it was in the creek and if the mill ran mainly cypress, loblolly, or long leaf. I built a dining room table from cypress (purchased from friend, Lee Tigner at Early American Furnishings) recovered from a creek near Myrtle Beach, SC. I believe the log was in the creek for over 130 years as the mill closed in 1880. SC requires the folks that recover the logs to document everything and pay for the privilege of recovering the logs. If they find something of particular interest the state can lay claim to the log.

Check out Lee's video - They Came for Treasure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u17q16uDoXc&list=UUjQaCFA7kQD8tT4cNagecXg

Enjoy the wood.

[Dave Anderson NH]

There are several outfits recovering sunken logs from areas of the country where there was heavy logging and transport was by river drives. Most of the lumber is expensive, but is of the quality that hasn't been readily available for over 100 years. There is an outfit recovering wonderful mahogany logs from the rivers in Belize in Central America. It was estimated that out of the 4 billion board feet cut that almost 1 billion never made it to the coast to be loaded onto ships. Some of the figure of these huge 24" to 60" diameter logs is amazing.