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Milling Sticks for the Kiln Lady
We were contacted by a lady, Teresa, who lives not far from us, for 1 x 1 inch or smaller sticks of wood. She also specified they be no longer than 22 inches. She has an outdoor pottery kiln and those are her requirements. She asked for us to cut up about a cord of wood to start. People…That’s a lot of milling!!
Getting set up -
Air Dried Sugar Maple
We’ve had a couple of sugar maple logs air drying outdoors for 2 years now. Decided it was time we move them into dry storage. They were weighed down and covered with a sheet of steel roofing to keep the rain and snow off them.
Live edge air dried sugar maple slabs and cookies. -
Back to the Sawmill
Why does everything take so long to do? Or is that just us? The week long heat wave finally ended and with logs piling up waiting to be sawed, we headed out to try and make a small dent. First things first, we had to build another pallet. We used tamarack lumber for the job and to get that lumber, we had to saw tamarack logs on the mill. That meant half the morning was gone just to make the pallets, never mind the pile of logs we are trying to get sawed. But, first up was changing the blade on the sawmill.
Putting on a new blade -
Hemlock Headaches
Just to get to this point of saw milling sometimes a lot of little things have to get done.
Hemlock timber cant. -
Saw Milling Logs is Stressfull
We’re all busy just trying to survive. A bit of pressure from this or that just adds stress to your day. It molds you, shapes your character, you adapt and keep moving. Well with trees, its not a whole lot different. A tree that grows up sheltered in a secluded area with good soil and protected from the harsh environment, grow up tall and straight. Other trees (the 99%) grow up in not so great a location; side of an embankment, poor soil conditions, high winds. It all adds to the stress of growing up straight and tall. Trees, just like everything else, adapt and carry on.
Crown of the white ash tree. -
Getting Out the Ash Logs
With one large ash tree cut and hauled to the road, we spent another afternoon doing the same with an even bigger ash tree. This one was located just down from the first. This time we decided to try a slightly different approach.
Cutting the second ash tree -
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 -
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 -
Saw Mill Laser Installation
A laser beam allows a sawyer to see on the log where the blade will travel before starting the cut. This can be handy as it will save some time when cutting crooked logs or when you want specific features added to, or cut from, live edge slabs. Laser beam kits are available for many of the bigger, more expensive saw mills but for our small manual mill, no luck. Time to make up a DIY kit. Beam me up!
laser line -
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.
