Two More Days Beach Milling

With the city crews having been on a bit more regular schedule recently, it was possible to do a little advance planning and so I was able to mill on both Monday and Tuesday this week.

First up on Monday was another nice cherry, this one a bit skinnier than most I've been milling recently, but it had a really nice graft union at the top where the sterile flowering cherry scion was grafted to the trunk. A couple of friends joined me, it really makes a big difference to have someone there to help with it.



We made fairly short work of the cherry, then turned our attention to a wide but short elm. I am pretty sure it was from the same tree as the elm we cut up last week, but closer to the butt. It was too large for the 36" bar, so I brought along the 60" bar, which worked ok. I am using full comp chain in it, and it did seem like it was having trouble clearing all the dust/chips from the kerf. I wonder if others have experienced that with the longer bars? I was very glad my friends were there to help, especially as this log was not well set up, being flat on the ground and was a ton of work to push the mill through. Our friend announced that she was 4 months pregnant in the middle of the elm log, I was kind of surprised that she was milling like that, but good for her!



So we wound up with a nice pile of cherry and of elm.



Next day I was back on my own, and got another cherry set up. Little better ergonomics than yesterday!



The weather on both days was pretty similar, about 6C and cloudy. Monday there was also some rain sprinkles, nothing very substantial. Just enough to get anything left lying around all wet! Tuesday was no rain and even a few tiny hints of slightly less grey skies.



So on Tuesday I wound up with five nice slabs of cherry (in the pic one has already been loaded up in the van), I was happy with everything, other than picking up a couple nails in the elm on the first day.



That's it for this week, hopefully I can get back there next week for at least one day. There is still a ton of great stuff down there I want to get at while the getting is still good!

The most amusing part of the two days was on the second day, a guy showed up and winched the leftover piece of elm from Monday into his van. It took him several hours, and this was a piece that we had left since it was too waney and irregular to get any more decent slabs out of. I have no idea what he is going to do with it.

Interesting & nice pictures.

I always notice several other logs in the background of your photos, and it makes me curious what you are taking a pass on. What are those logs back there?

TPA said:

I always notice several other logs in the background of your photos, and it makes me curious what you are taking a pass on. What are those logs back there?

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If you are refering to the ones in the last picture that I have my guide board leaning on, those are skinny local species that are mostly log boom escapees that are not worth the trouble for the city to salvage and ship to a mill. So Doug Fir, spruce, alder, red cedar, etc. They are set there for people to buck up into firewood. I am not interested in these species for woodworking, and also the logs are too skinny.

More likely you are referring to the larger logs further in the background that are arranged somewhat in endwise rows. Believe it or not, those are put there by the city crews for use by sunbathers in the summer! This is common on most of the beaches in Vancouver. Kids play on them, people sit on them, use them for shade, stack stuff on them, dry wet clothes on them, etc. They are off limits for milling as milling is only permitted in the small area where I work. Plus those logs have been sitting out in the sun and rain for years, and are full of sand and cracks. I have no idea what species they are, I am guessing a mixed bag, but probably a lot of larger local species like cottonwood and birch, probably some alder and sadly old growth Doug Fir and red cedar.

This photo shows typical summer use, although it is not the same beach where I mill at and the light has been filtered oddly, the usage is the same.

And in case anyone is wondering about the vertical posts in the background of the last picture,

Nice slabs! How well do the dry and will you make tables out of the cherry?

BIG JAKE said:

Nice slabs! How well do the dry and will you make tables out of the cherry?

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I find they dry pretty well, the elm a bit better behaved than the cherry. I am not sure that I will make tables, I have kept 15 cherry slabs of my own, and my milling helpers have taken more than that in total. I don't really need 15 tables, plus there is still a bunch more cherry available at the log dump.

What I usually do is dry the slabs first, then make my decisions on what to do with the wood after drying, based on what the wood looks like and how bad the splitting warping etc is.

If I were you I would cut as much of that cherry as I could. You can only use so many slabs, but you could cut some cants to be resawn later. I've found cherry to dry faster than oak or walnut, and fairly well behaved. I have some elm, including 5' x 30" slabs.

My problem now is having a place to stack and store my slabs. I'm going to have to have a place to put 'em if I'm gonna cut 'em.

excess650 said:

My problem now is having a place to stack and store my slabs. I'm going to have to have a place to put 'em if I'm gonna cut 'em.

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+1 on that! Storage is an ongoing problem on a city lot, both while air drying and then after they are dried.

That's an interesting suggestion on the cants, I had not thought of doing that. What size would you suggest - 12" x 12"? I have never milled cants before, I always thought that was used when slabbing dimensional lumber. But the reality is that the vast majority of the slabs I mill get cut up into smaller pieces for furniture anyways,

Daninvan said:

+1 on that! Storage is an ongoing problem on a city lot, both while air drying and then after they are dried.

That's an interesting suggestion on the cants, I had not thought of doing that. What size would you suggest - 12" x 12"? I have never milled cants before, I always thought that was used when slabbing dimensional lumber. But the reality is that the vast majority of the slabs I mill get cut up into smaller pieces for furniture anyways,

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I would make the cants as big as the log allowed, ie, 70% of the smaller end diameter. You can always make smaller ones out of bigger ones! Weight could be a problem if you don't have help loading/unloading, but can'ts don't take up as much space as multiple slabs.

so daninvan is this in vancouver? i would sh@# a brick if the parks let me mill on the beaches. i find one hell of alot of nice wood on the beach. i asked a few times to different parks officers and even went to the office. they say that the pollution of running a saw on the beach is a major concern. i am currently hunting my next mill site. i had a nice thing going on a new development where the logging company just stacked all the rejects. milled 4 logs and then they sold the wood to another local. was pretty annoyed because i jumped through hoops to get permission to mill there. then the new owner of the wood showed up one day and told me to stay away from it. it's all cedar and thats all i want for now. built a fence and next is a shop. gonna go out to the woods soon and find me some big green cedar's. take them down and prep for milling. already got permission to do it and have looked a few times but can't find any big ones close to a road. i don't wanna be packing wood a km to my truck. oh ya and sweet wood. must be fun to mill on a beach

Thanks for the beach milling pics Dan !

It never gets old. Keep em coming.

Old Blue
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