Logging Walnut in Iowa

[Martin Shupe]

A forestry school buddy of mine owns some hardwood timberland in Iowa. A couple weeks ago, he had a tree that had fallen across a creek. He didn't want to waste it, so he bought all the fixins' to commence chain saw lumber sawin'. He read up on it in FWW, and while I'll admit I was very skeptical at first, I was truly impressed with how well this setup worked.

I don't know the brand of the jig, or I would say, but it is listed in the FWW article. The chainsaw is a Stihl, equipped with a special rip chain, which is the key to making this whole thing work.

The first pic shows the saw resting on the top "alignment" boards. The two by fours set the depth of the first cut, and allow you to cut off the first slab, so you can get a flat surface for the first board. After the first slab is cut, the alignment device is no longer needed for subsequent cuttings.

The saw is currently resting on top of the boards, but when the first cut is made, the jig will rest on the boards, and the saw will cut just under the metal end piece.

[Martin Shupe]

The second pic shows us starting to cut a board. I am the one on the left, not that you can see my face...

[Martin Shupe]

In this pic we are nearly at the end of a board. The tree was small, but if I remember correctly, we got 5 decent boards from the bottom 8', and and then 4 more good boards from the next 8'. We decided to cut the boards at 5/4, so we would have some room to work with when planing down to the 3/4 inch final thickness. I also got a good case of poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans. :( Jim is going to put up the boards for a year or so to dry, then make something for his wife.

[Scott Neblung]

In this pic we are nearly at the end of a board. The tree was small, but if I remember correctly, we got 5 decent boards from the bottom 8', and and then 4 more good boards from the next 8'. We decided to cut the boards at 5/4, so we would have some room to work with when planing down to the 3/4 inch final thickness. I also got a good case of poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans. :( Jim is going to put up the boards for a year or so to dry, then make something for his wife.


Martin,

Good job salvaging that wood !

Looks to be about a 12-16 incher eh?

That jig and chainsaw are likely good for a coupla boards, but it seems like too much waste and work to me.

Wondering where you were in Iowa?

Scott

[Martin Shupe]

Martin,

Good job salvaging that wood !

Looks to be about a 12-16 incher eh?

That jig and chainsaw are likely good for a coupla boards, but it seems like too much waste and work to me.

Wondering where you were in Iowa?

Scott

We were in the vicinity of Keosauqua. The top end was 15-16 inches, the next log was smaller. It was a lot of work, but very satisfying for a couple of old foresters. Yeah, we figured we lost about one board per log due to chainsaw kerf.

A woodmizer would have been more efficient, but there is no way to get one that far off the road, and we had no way to skid the log out to a main road. There was at least one major creek crossing involved.

I had showed Jim your previous posts that used a woodmizer, but it just would not have worked in this particular case.