Cherry Tree Down !!!!

[Andy Haney]

Evening Folks,

I have the game on in the other ear. However, a friend with a (gentleman’s) farm had some dozing done over the weekend to clear a little additional hay ground. He called today to tell me of the wild cherry tree he had pushed to the side if I was interested. I just returned from the first look. It is a forked tree (not a great, straight one) with a short 6’-8’ main trunk, probably 2‘ in diameter. There are 4 pretty straight “forks” of somewhat substantial size and length. I have some questions for those of you with experience:

What is the smallest diameter of the fork that would be worthwhile to take to the sawmill?

The base (crotch?) appears that it may produce some reasonably good burl below the straight part of the trunk, an area probably about 15”-18” in length. Would you have the “burl” sawn in with the lumber, or separate that before milling the remainder of the trunk?

Thanks in advance for your advise.

Andy

By the way, Jack Diemer was nice enough to allow me in his home yesterday to gander at his router table. Of course I looked at the rest, and I admit to significant envy. He has some nice toys that I hope to duplicate some day.

[Chris Padilla]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?threadid=8153

This doesn't really answer your question but shows you some examples of what you could have.

[Andy Haney]

Thanks Chris...there's no way for this tree to yield anything like that...but for the available tree the price is right. I guess this qualifies as a VERY MINOR gloat.

I was hoping someone with experience in such affairs could give me a good perspective about the specific questions I stated, in particular:

"Lumber" good for furniture production can be had from logs/limbs as small as ___ inches in diameter. If I had good input for that I'd know better what to throw into the burn pile.

Anyone?

Thanks,
Andy

[Jim Baker]

I'm sure there are many people here with much more expertise than me, but since you haven't gotten much so far and since I had 3 trees done last year, I will give it a shot.

I would guess that a section of tree would need to be close to 14" in diameter to get much out of it since you don't get much from the outside 4" or so. I would think that whoever you may consider having saw the tree could give you some good pointers.

Also, there are several tree volume calculators on various websites that I found to be helpful. I don't remember any of the names right now, but if you look around, I'm sure you can find some.

Hope this helps.

[Mark Stutz]

Andy.
Althopugh I have no firsthand knowledge, I have read the limbs do not make very good lumber because there is too much reaction wood, and getting flat stock out of it is difficult. This probably holds for commercial applications, but for the price of milling only, I don't know if its worth it or not. Might be good for turning though.

[Jim Becker]

Andy, picking a reasonable downward "size" limit for sawing into lumber with cherry and walnut kinda revolves around how you feel about their sapwood. Both speices have sapwood that is noticably different than their more colorful heartwood and with cherry, in particular, that difference will increase over time. Most folks don't like cherry (or walnut) sapwood in flat woodworking projects, although this is purely a subjective style issue. Turners, on the other hand, often prize the differences as it adds a lot of interest to the work.

Practically speaking, the bigger the tree, the better the payback from getting it milled. Jim's suggestion of starting around 14" willl at least yield a few nice boards of clear heartwood from a log section, keeping in mind that the center boards (once you cut out the pith and assuming flat sawing) will each be no wider than 5-6". You'll get a couple more that are in the 10" wide range and maybe two-four more of narrower width before being back in the sapwood region. At say $50 hour for a sawyer to come to your property and cut, you'll have to do the math to determine what your actual cost per board foot will be. (Some will cut for a fee per board foot with a setup charge, but "my guy" charges by the hour)

For one tree, unless it's a monster, you may be better off deriving turning stock from most of the tree and keeping some shorter log sections to resaw in your own shop for smaller projects, stickering and stacking the slices appropriately to dry. If you don't turn, you can probably easily find local turners who will take it off your hands and give you stuff in exchange or maybe trade flat lumber they have that they don't need, etc.

While cherry burns very nicely, it would be a shame to toast it all, especially since cherry is getting harder and harder to fine inexpensively and it looks so fine in projects. I know that if I lived close, I'd be more than willing to "help you use it up"!! :D

[Greg Tatum]

Andy, I've milled up a few trees but only as a hobby....Mark is right about the limbs having reaction wood. But if they were branching more vertical than horizontal and you sticker them with a lot of wt. on top, they might be ok as lumber. I had a 30" diameter maple branch (Bigleaf) that I slabbed up 2" & 3" thick and let air dry about 4 years now...when I resawed into smaller stock, the 8/4 stuff crooked real bad...(12/4 still drying ).....check out the milling group at Yahoo...a lot of the members are hobbiest's and one in your area might do the job for nothing more than your help and a share of the yield...I would if I was near by....ask anyone with a mill in your area to saw it for a share and the cost of gas for the mill...I'll try to put a link in here.... http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/milling/?yguid=32111855

Also, Have you considered milling it yourself? It can be hard work but also enjoyable when doing on a small scale and only occassionaly....look at the cost of the different chainsaw attatchments...http://www.madsens1.com/granberg.htm

I use both the mini and the Alaskan....there is also one called the Beam Machine.....The mini doesn't need as big a saw as the Alaskan...I've heard that you can get them at Harbor Freight....with a chainsaw attatchment you can pretty much mill anything anywhere....pull up to a downed tree, open the trunk of the car, pull out the mill, secure the log and slab off only what you need....

Just a few long-winded thoughts....good luck.

Greg

[Andy Haney]

Thanks to all for the feedback. We've decided to sharpen the chainsaw and give it a go on Saturday. I'll try to let you know how it turns out, but we're not terribly opimistic.

Andy

[Andy Haney]

Had a delay last Saturday due to rain, but we made smaller logs from the tree this morning. The sapwood is minimal (not more that 3/4"), and we got several (7 ?) straight(ish) logs in the 6'-8' range in addition to the trunk portion. The wood is solid and has nice color. We weren't able to make connections with the sawyer today, so it will be a couple of weeks before we get it cut.

This might now be considered a legitimate minor gloat. Due to the delays it may last a while.

Andy