Chuck Pickering
02-21-2017, 7:02 PM
I have been experimenting with re-sawing pear wood from a couple of trees that were in my yard. One was blown down several years ago, and one was cut down 2 years ago.
I made a saw mill sled for my old Atlas band saw which is limited to 5" dia./high pieces. Just a rough cobb up to get the job done. First I sliced up short pieces from the tree cut down several years ago. The wood was quite punky, and wet. but showed interesting spalting patterns. This wood I stickered and stacked on the back of a bench to dry over the summer. I hope it dries o.k. Not sure what to make from it. Probably small boxes. Spalting looks good with black lines and pink blush in places. I could easily break the pieces I cut from it, so stabilization might be required. This would have made some nice reel seat inserts if I was still building fly rods!
The second set was cut from 5" logs and was better wood. It didn't cut as easily, but I got some nice planks out of it. I cut a 13" piece off of a 5 " log (throat depth of my old Atlas), sliced a side on the mill sled, rotated 90° and took another slice, and then set up a fence to cut some small planks. This wood was in better condition, but still quite wet, so it'll be drying for a while. I hope to clean it up and make some small boxes from it. Not much color, but nice black spalting lines in it.
All this makes me wish I had a bigger band saw, and more energy!
Chuck
I made a saw mill sled for my old Atlas band saw which is limited to 5" dia./high pieces. Just a rough cobb up to get the job done. First I sliced up short pieces from the tree cut down several years ago. The wood was quite punky, and wet. but showed interesting spalting patterns. This wood I stickered and stacked on the back of a bench to dry over the summer. I hope it dries o.k. Not sure what to make from it. Probably small boxes. Spalting looks good with black lines and pink blush in places. I could easily break the pieces I cut from it, so stabilization might be required. This would have made some nice reel seat inserts if I was still building fly rods!
The second set was cut from 5" logs and was better wood. It didn't cut as easily, but I got some nice planks out of it. I cut a 13" piece off of a 5 " log (throat depth of my old Atlas), sliced a side on the mill sled, rotated 90° and took another slice, and then set up a fence to cut some small planks. This wood was in better condition, but still quite wet, so it'll be drying for a while. I hope to clean it up and make some small boxes from it. Not much color, but nice black spalting lines in it.
All this makes me wish I had a bigger band saw, and more energy!
Chuck