In the early 70's for whatever reason, black walnut prices went through the roof for a while there. I heard of a two huge walnut trees cut down in the middle of the night in a park in Ohio, quickly loaded onto a truck and stolen. Here in PA at the time, some loggers were pulling the stumps out with a skidder/dozer, to get the thick roots which made excellent gun stock wood. Never heard of anybody doing that to cherry though. Personally I'm not sure I would go that far even with cherry. Lot of work unless you are really going to be rewarded with something special and it's for yourself or friend. If you're doing that to sell it, gosh, how much is your time worth? Bandsaw blade will dull up quickly going through a dirty root just like chain. I'd take a high pressure washer to it first if you were going to go through all that trouble to get that root to your band saw. As for blade thickness, in the past I have resawn small logs (6 inch dia) on my 14" bandsaw with a half inch blade. It has to be something like a 3-6 tpi though or it will clog up with that wet wood real quick. Now I use a larger resaw band saw with a 1 inch blade. Be prepared to clean off the rubber tires on your bandsaw wheels afterwords also, as wet wood gums up them too. I get it off with a dull knife, like a table knife. I've also used a hard piece of wood, like osage orange with a sharp machined edge. For cleaning the residue and deposits off my blades, I carefully hold that knife against the side of the saw blade as its moving, being carefull not to get the knife up near the teeth of the blade. I KNOW... this is dangerous... if you don't know what you're doing you could lose a finger or two in a heartbeat. But its the fastest easiest way I know to clean my blades from caked on wet wood and gum deposits after cutting wet wood. I should probably put some kind of disclaimer here... FOLKS, Don't try this at home!!
