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We're at a customer site. They're excellent neighbors and our families have known each other for at least 6 generations. Otherwise we wouldn't be milling for them because we're done milling for others on the road. Like usual, more logs show up while we're there. We'll try to finish up this weekend but there's supposed to be some cedar show up...how many is anyone's guess. Here's the last(?) of this customer's big logs:






And the yeild in 2x6's:



They did us a favor and loaded a big 16' red oak while we weren't there. It had a huge knot on it that must have landed directly on the bunk. Here's the damage:



They had this small walnut. It looked different. I know there's some butternut on their farm. I have yet to mill any butternut so I'm not sure. The pictures make it look like black walnut but it didn't look that much like black walnut in person. The orange under the bark was much brighter:







They did us another favor and picked up some logs a tree service dropped off in brother's yard. This will save us from moving the mill and eliminate the need to clean up the mess:

Found this on the mill yesterday:


I was told that they carried it from the woods with 2 tractors. I would have liked to have seen that...especially the going through the gate part. This is a white oak that was killed by lightning. It's 16'8"L x 24" on the small end. We had to move it ~8" to get it lined up with the last bunk. Careful placement got us 16' 8" lumber. You can see a left-hand twist to the grain. I read a post a few months ago by a man who claimed that the rare left-hand twist logs don't make good lumber compared to the more common right-hand twist logs. He said he has done 1000's of twisted grain logs and tracked it for years. I cant imagine the difference and he didn't elaborate what was specifically unique about the left-hand twist. On the bottom side of the log was a lightning damage streak that was about 6-8" wide. It was about 1" deep at the center and followed the spiral in the grain for 20' into the top log.




We relieve the winch a few clicks before this picture was taken. We were afraid it would break before we could record it. You can see it's not-ready-for-prime-time. 16' white oaks are heavy.


Here's the butt log's yield in mostly 2x8's:


Here's the top log:


It should have been bucked 4' shorter - it was challenging getting it lined up.

Time for milking:

I love messing with the larger older logs, the grains are tighter and to me make a better looking board. But they are hard to mess with and they can damage the mill.

i agree, i love the bigger logs, thank goodness cause thats all i seem to get. With the smaller logs seems like i do more turning and get less wood. and i'm alwys loading a new one.

Not going into it full time...just working 1/2 - 2/3 of a day, 2-3 days a week.

I like the bigger ones too but I would rather keep the small end under 20". I'll make an exception for yellow poplar as it's light and saws easy. That largest red oak on the trailer couldn't be lifted by any of the tractors so I loaded it by myself by hand. It was 24" at the small end and 12'6" long. What a chore that was. I had to dig the mill out and relevel it so it would be stable and not move while loading. Then the log pivoted 20 degrees just as it reached the top of the ramps. Did I mention it was over 90 and little or no wind. I had one slightly-used good blade left when I opened the log. Ended up hitting a hardened screw with it on the last wide cut. Then found a nail with the chainsaw while trying to cut around the screw. It was nice clear wood. But I had had it from the heat and left a big cant on the mill. Hitting the screw was my fault. I was given the choice of making one more wide cut before dropping down 4" to cut below the screw and get a mantle in the process. I didn't make that one extra wide cut because I didn't want to risk the blade getting too dull before all the wide cuts were done. But I misjudged how deep the screws went and hit one.

Tree, when you got really massive logs to mill where everything about them is more work,, like that big-un that was 24" @ the small end,, do you adjust your milling rate ?

No adjustments for the bigger ones but that is subject to change.

Here's what I hate:


As you can see - most are 5" or under at the small end. This is less than half of what showed up one day last winter. He didn't stop by the house, instead he dropped them off and left. I found a big pile of them blocking the road in front of the log deck with no means to move them and no room on the deck. Most of them looked so small and crooked there seemed to be no way to even flatten two sides. I was mad to say the least. Bro. squared some of them. I've got to say black locust makes a beam that gives you confidence. But bro. learned his lesson and won't be letting anything like this happen again...I hope!

Stuff's been waiting awhile.


Thats black walnut, red oaK, tulip poplar, white pine, etc. Got about double this waiting to be loaded on deck. Mostly black walnut, red oak and sugar maple.

We're obligated to do one more road job. Apparently bro. said he would do it before the sign was taken down. It's going to be walnut and ? Ok, so we've got to finish up at the first site, go do the walnut job, get back here and finish everything, then we may get to that right-of-way job.

A couple weekends ago we did a suprise job and cut some cedar for our own use. We had cut several logs before I shot the first photos:




We were warned that there was wire in one so bro. cut it out:


But he didn't get it all and I hit some on this unplanned 6x6:


ERC allmost allways looks interesting:




Couldn't get back far enough from this stack to get it all on one shot:




And the final pieces that were held out of the other stack because they're spoken for:

That's some pretty wood.
How long was it down before you got to milling it?

He got this from a firewood lot. I know it was there for ~6 months. But I don't know how long it was cut before being moved there. I suspect no more than 9 months total. I agree it's pretty wood. But notice the sapwood isn't pearly white. I prefer it freshly felled to get that pearly white but that usually also means getting sap on you while handling it. With luck we'll be cutting a lot of nice cedar this fall and getting sap all over us and pearly white sapwood.

[font=Comic Sans MS]TB
We don't get cedar like that around here. Don't suppose you'd want to trade some oak, cherry or hickory for some?[/font]