Making lumber the hard way.

[RoadKingLarry]

Finally got a chance to get back after it with the chainsaw mill.
Kind of a big log. 8'6" long, 28" diameter on the big end, 25" on the small end
My goal is to produce dimensional lumber. Not really interested in big, live edge slabs out of this log.
So for that reason and because "I wanted to", I squared up (more or less) the log to allow me to cut boards. The squared up cant is 18" wide and 22" tall.
Sort of worked like I planned but turning that damn big log was more work that I thought it would be even with my little tractor for muscle.
After trimming branch stubs and big lumps I cut the 1st slab off the top, rolled it 90°, cut it again then rolled it back 180° to give me 3 flat, mostly, sort of square side. The tricky part was rolling it back up so my "top side" was where I wanted it. That took a bit of jockeying with the tractor and loader and more than a little bit of "sketchy *expletive deleted*it" getting it upright and stable. The log was probably close to 1500# when I started.
I'm not going to get a lot of "premium" lumber out of it but I'm guessing close to 120+/- board feet of some pretty good lumber.







The top board will get edged down to close to 14" wide once the sap wood it trimmed off. I should get several boards 16"-18"+ wide. The heartwood of this log is oval shaped and I should get a good bit of quarter sawn boards out of it.

[sumpnz]

Cool!  I’m still waiting for time to mill a bunch of logs.  If’n I had equipment and a band mill I probably would have milled them a long time ago.  But hopefully the delay will mean good spalting.

[tokugawa]

  But hopefully the delay will mean good spalting.

 Heh. This is called  optimism......one mans spalt is another mans rot..

[RoadKingLarry]

I can't let logs sit too long here. Powder post beetles will get in it and destroy it. I let a couple of Ash logs go about 9 months after felling and the damn bugs turned what should have been  a bunch of 12-14" wide boards into a handful of 8" wide boards and some firewood. I've even had the damn things get into Osage Orange and ruin a bunch of bow staves.

[cordex]

RKL, that's a heck of a log.  Nice work!

[sumpnz]

No serious bug issues here.

[RoadKingLarry]

The guy that took down the big oak for me dropped off 3 Silver Maple logs Saturday morning. Those are next on the chopping block. They are in the 14-16" range, much easier to move around.

[sumpnz]

The bottom end of the big leaf maple logs I have are 30+” diameter.

[JTHunter]

That is some beautiful grain in that wood.