Sawmill
A collection of posts and information about our saw milling activities and services.
-
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 -
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 -
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 -
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. -
Uses for Wooden Cookie Slices
Honestly, I had never heard of the term cookies when referring to wood before. All my cookies come out of the oven. Always learning something new. These cookie slices were cut on the sawmill.
Wood cookie -
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.
