Lumber for next year....

[Jim Becker]

This morning, bright and early, Gene Hamilton, a local sawyer with a nice Super Hydro Woodmizer, was back to our property to turn a few tulip poplar logs into lumber. 4 hours after we started, I had 1550 board feet of boards to stack...and a bit of cleanup to do after that. By the end of the day, I had 3/4 of it stickered...ran out of stickers at about 5:30p...and called it a day for my tired bones. I'll finish that tomorrow morning and then get on with the cleanup. And yes...I HURT! Oy! (This is another "how I spent my last week of vacation" tale, of course)

Here's the material prior to being moved to the location I planned to stack it for drying. Since I have a handy-dandy trailer hitch thingie for the tractor, I took off the backhoe and employed my big trailer. Boards coming off the mill went right on the trailer until I perceived I was getting close to the 2100 lb limit. The rest got stacked tight temporarily to keep things moving. (time is money when the mill is on-site.

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After lunch and a little physical recovery, I towed the first load up the hill and got things rolling. I snapped this picture just to illustrate the size of a few of the nice wide boards. That round black thing is the lens cover for my camera...about 2.5" wide, give or take. These lower layers are all 5/4....about 10% of the total. The rest is all 4/4 except for one 6/4 board.

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I will post a picture tomorrow of the finished stack...I was too tired to hold the darn camera up to take an intermediate one before showering and cooking dinner. (And doing some laundry, too...LOL)

Oh, if you throw out the $15K for the septic system updates necessary due to our addition project that caused the three trees to come down, my board foot cost was about 23 cents per. There is maybe 10% FAS and the rest is all #1 and #2 common. All will get used. And if you are in this area, I highly recommend Gene for any sawyering you need...PM me for his phone number. (There are also pics on my web site from his visit back in 2000)

[Eric Larsen]

Jim, you tick me off sometimes...:)

My wood gloat would go something like this:

"Four hundred tumbleweeds blew into my back yard. I wanted to take them to a sawyer, but we don't have one in a city of 2 million people. So I ran the tumbleweeds carefully through my band saw. Now I have four hundred 1/8" x 1/8" x 6" stock for making toothpicks, matchsticks, pick-up sticks, bbq skewers, etc.

[Don Bullock]

Wow! Jim, that's a lot of wood. What are you planning to make with it?

[Don Abele]

Jim, awesome gloat. Nice to see those trees going to good use. The choke cherries I took down a couple of years ago because they were a threat to the house wound up in the fire place. They were not worth anything more than heat.



A roadrunner looked up at me as I was collecting the tumbleweeds and said, "Dude, ?"

Eric, LMAO...that's too funny...

Be well,

Doc

[John Thompson]

You see freshly sawn lumber.. I see drawer sides. :) Nice haul. I love it when I get the chance to work with the wood from the felling to the finished product. And even though it wears you down you feel good knowing you accomplished something worthwhile.

BTW.. nice piece of property those trees were on.....

Regards...

Sarge..

[Craig Kershaw]

Jim - Where did you get your stickers? What kind of wood are they?

[Jim Becker]

Where did you get your stickers? What kind of wood are they?

I've been "recycling" the pine 2-by material I salvaged when I took down the old book cases that were on our loft above the great room. Two nightstands (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=92296) and a gazillion stickers came out of that lumber...

My band saw has gotten a lot of attention this week ripping stickers, that's for sure!


What are you planning to make with it?

A lot of stuff... LOL Time will tell, but I can certainly imagine one very nice table out of a couple of the 5/4 slabs will be part of the mix.

[Chris Padilla]

Does any of it have that wonderful green color in it? I've always loved that color in poplar but does it hang around or eventually brown up?

[Jim Becker]

Chris, the "recently exposed" heartwood of tulip poplar is indeed greenish, but turns brown with exposure to UV and via oxidation. In my experience, the only time any noticeable green color hangs around is when there is mineral staining. I have none of that in this batch.

[Eric Larsen]

Any way to set the color chemically while it's still green?

[Jim Becker]

Any way to set the color chemically while it's still green?

Since the sapwood is white and thick, I'm not sure there would be much popularity [:)] of that option if there actually was a way to do it.

----

Well, here's the stack. All 8' of it. Those last few layers were "fun" to lay up! And I'm glad I'm done lifting this material. About half of it I had to lift twice and the other half three times.

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[Jim Kountz]

Wow Jim nice haul there. Time for a solar kiln?? Ive thought about one of those a couple of time over the years, if I had that load there I would have to seriously consider one!! Nice gloat ol boy!

[Peter Quinn]

Wow, nice haul. What will you do with that much poplar?

[Peter Quadarella]

Somewhere along the way I decided on these two products for the day I end up with a bunch of lumber like Jim:

http://www.shadedri.com/index.html
https://www.uccoatings.com/uccoat.php

It may never happen, but a man can dream.

[Paul Greathouse]

Nice stack Jim

I like seeing good logs used for what they were intended instead of being hauled off to the dump. Too much good wood gets wasted. I've got a few good logs waiting to be sawed. Wish we had Poplar down here in Louisiana. Plenty of white and Red Oak but no Poplar.

Its interesting that the sawing price is roughly the same in your area as it is in mine.

[Christopher Stahl]

If you run out of room to store all of that lumber, my 5'x10' trailer has plenty of room. :D

[Mark Rios]

Hubba hubba Jim, nice score. I like the sight of a stack of air dried wood. :D

[James White]

Somewhere along the way I decided on these two products for the day I end up with a bunch of lumber like Jim:

http://www.shadedri.com/index.html
https://www.uccoatings.com/uccoat.php

It may never happen, but a man can dream.

Peter,

Does that shade dri product go on top of the lumber to keep it dry? Or is it just to protect the sides. Any idea on cost?

James

[Dan Gill]

Wow, nice haul. What will you do with that much poplar?

Fried poplar, boiled poplar, poplar scampi, poplar salad, grilled poplar, poplar stew, poplar tartare . . . :D

[Jim Becker]

If you run out of room to store all of that lumber, my 5'x10' trailer has plenty of room.

LOL...so fill it up! You live smack in the heart of "hardwood heaven", my friend.... ;) You don't have to venture too far from Happy Valley to score premo lumber, for sure.


Hubba hubba Jim, nice score. I like the sight of a stack of air dried wood.

What's really interesting is that I can still smell the fresh cut poplar more than two days after the cutting. And when I was running the chipper yesterday getting rid of the smaller parts of the wane, the bark gave off an entirely different odor...more astringent. Interesting.

[Will Blick]

Jim, nice pix.... where is the pile heading to? A shed? How long is dry time?

[Craig D Peltier]

So when you sticker lumber and then cover the top its okay to have that much of the sides exposed? I mean obivously there going to get soaked from any type of angled rain. Then dry and then get soaked etc.

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Jim...kind of off-topic, but you have some beautiful property too.
-Jeff :)

[Jim Becker]

Jim, nice pix.... where is the pile heading to? A shed? How long is dry time?

The lumber is dried outside. It will not go into the shop until it's "done", more or less. About a year or so to 10-12% MC which is about the best for this particular area.


So when you sticker lumber and then cover the top its okay to have that much of the sides exposed? I mean obivously there going to get soaked from any type of angled rain. Then dry and then get soaked etc.

Incidental wetting from blowing precipitation is immaterial. The only reason for the cover is to insure there is no standing water/ice/snow on the pile. The sides MUST be open for free air flow...that air (wind) is what wicks away the moisture as it's released from the wood.

[Christopher Stahl]

LOL...so fill it up! You live smack in the heart of "hardwood heaven", my friend.... ;) You don't have to venture too far from Happy Valley to score premo lumber, for sure.


Haha, you caught me. :D I do feel lucky to have so many good sources of lumber here in Happy Valley.