11 slabs

[mtngun]

Now that hunting season is over, it's milling time.

Today's victim, a 19" doug fir blowdown. Knotty, and as I discovered later, it had quite a few sap seams (not sure if that's the correct term, but it's a sappy structural defect).

Two twelve foot logs limbed and bucked. Beginning to cut two by's. The lame 066BB seem to run a little better today, probably due to the dense frosty air. This is my favorite time of year to mill.

5 hours work produced 11 slabs plus a little firewood.

Can't think of anything new and exciting that happened. It was an uneventful day, but productive and satisfying.

 

[1947wdx]

Now that hunting season is over, it's milling time.

Today's victim, a 19" doug fir blowdown. Knotty, and as I discovered later, it had quite a few sap seams (not sure if that's the correct term, but it's a sappy structural defect).

It might be we call "shake" around here. While that is mostly in hemlock, it might be in other trees as well.

Nice slaps there... And I see you have some helpers...

Here's an old sugar maple I was working on this weekend... I'll have to do something "artsy" with this one as that split goes almost all the way through, and it gets a bit "spalted" down towards the bottom...

 

[Brmorgan]

Was it a pitch crack, with liquid or dried solid pitch inside, or that bright-red pitchy wood that Douglas Firs are prone to having, especially in the center near the bottom of the tree? Pitch cracks happen when the tree develops a crack inside while still alive, usually due to wind or frost, and the tree is trying to fill the crack to heal it. That other stuff is pretty much solid wood that has been totally saturated with pitch resin, and is often a result of the tree trying to kill off an infection or something in the wood, but can also happen as a result of the tree surviving a forest fire when younger. I tellz ya what though, if you ever need some good firestarter there's nothing finer in the whole world. Split some of that stuff up nice and fine, and just hold a match to it and watch it take off. It's just like throwing gasoline on the fire. I keep a couple pieces handy next to the woodstove in case I run out of planer shavings or paper to start fires. Pines can produce this type of wood too, but not as often. I do have two Pine 9' 2X6 studs that I culled from the mill while grading there a couple years back that are more or less solid pitch wood though. I should dig 'em out and take a couple pictures. Stud grade can take a lot of defects, but 100% pitch wood doesn't make the cut!

 

[mtngun]

Was it a pitch crack, with liquid or dried solid pitch inside, or that bright-red pitchy wood that Douglas Firs are prone to having, especially in the center near the bottom of the tree?

It's a dark line with a concentration of pitch (sorry, no pics, maybe later when I edge the boards). My experience with similar logs is that the dark line is prone to separate as the board dries.

I was hoping to use these boards as floor joists but it remains to be seen how many good joists I'll get after cutting around the "pitch cracks." The worst of the boards may be set aside to use as shelving.

Yeah, the butts are often pitchy, both doug and ponderosa. A little pitch in doug makes for a hot fire, but pitchy ponderosa sure produces a lot of smoke and soot unless you open the damper.

 

[Backwoods]

I got a couple of boxes of high-grade Doug-fir fire starter that was sorted out and trimmed down to fire wood lengths. Split that pitchy 2x4 into as fine of pieces as you can and you can start many a fire with it. A little goes a long way. I keep a piece in my daypack when out bow hunting just in case I need a fire. This stuff will get a fire going even with the wettest of material.

 

[Brmorgan]

I got a couple of boxes of high-grade Doug-fir fire starter that was sorted out and trimmed down to fire wood lengths. Split that pitchy 2x4 into as fine of pieces as you can and you can start many a fire with it. A little goes a long way. I keep a piece in my daypack when out bow hunting just in case I need a fire. This stuff will get a fire going even with the wettest of material.

Yep, it makes the best backpacking firestarter too. And if you can't start a fire even in a rainstorm with some of that and some birch bark, you should probably just stay home...