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Milling Up Spruce For Lumber
The other day Jim told me he talks to the trees!! It might be time to make him an appointment 😉 Probably only a concern if he thinks they answer. Before we could start milling the hemlock and pine logs we got a few weeks ago, we had to mill the spruce we got earlier in the year.
Spruce logs -
Hemlock and Pine Logs Arrived
Why is it Jim is never home when an order of logs or something of that nature arrives? Not sure, but he missed all the excitement. We weren’t expecting them so soon, but sure enough, here they are.
Unloading the first 1/2 -
Purpose of Moisture Meter Readings
The moisture content of materials plays a roll in woodworking, especially when your woodworking projects will be used indoors. Generally speaking, most woodworkers prefer their wood material to have a moisture content of about 8%. For furniture making, I can see the importance of that. For crafts however, I feel you can go with a higher moisture content.
sugar maple moisture content 14.0 -
Milling Lumber for the Kiln Shed Trusses
When we built the walls for the 10 x 20 foot kiln shed, we milled the 2 x 4 lumber and built a wall. Then repeat, repeat, repeat until the four walls were up. Now we are on to the roof trusses and decided to mill all of the lumber first.
Large spruce. -
Kiln Shed: The Walls
On Mondays post I showed you the beginnings of the kiln shed. Last fall we prepared the base, no easy task getting things level, and last weekend Jim got started on the walls.
It’s a start. -
Spruce Logs to Build Kiln Shed
We spent Saturday this past weekend getting spruce logs to mill into 2 x 4 stud lumber to build the kiln shed. For these ones we had to travel to Piedmont, which is about a 45 minute drive. We headed out at 9am for the first load. Jim had asked Darrell for about three cords and he only wanted logs larger than 8 inches across. I know you must be thinking, why didn’t we just go cut logs ourselves. Well, time is the number one factor. Ain’t nobody got time for that, well…apparently Darrell does.
Darrell loading the spruce logs. -
Sugar Maple Cookies
I milled some of the smaller sugar maple limbs for live edge slabs. The limbs had a curve to them, so I cut them live edge to get the most I could from the limbs. The limbs were about 9-10 inches wide. (This post original aired Jul 07 2017 but has been updated (see bottom) as of Feb 15 2018.)
live edge sugar maple slabs. -
Bleaching Wood Slabs
Hey there, happy Friday. Jim had cut these pieces of maple on the sawmill a few weeks ago and stood them up in the workshop while deciding what to do with them. Keep in mind our kiln isn’t set up yet, in fact the building that will house the kiln isn’t built yet. He was in the workshop this morning and took a look at the maple only to find out it was starting to go fuzzy. Normally the wood would be put through the planer anyways but these pieces were too wide for our current machine.
Maple slabs -
Sawmill jig for short logs
A beautiful afternoon it was to mill some blanks of wood on the sawmill. Things got off to a rough start.
Broken pull cord -
Snow Day
What a difference a day makes! Or to be more exact, what a difference one snow storm makes. Here was Jim on the weekend, happily sawing logs.
Winter sawing.
