Milled some oak on the weekend.

[shelby78]

I wanted to post a few picks of the oak i milled this weekend with my norwood lumbermate 2000. I will say in milling the oak it is the first time i got the lumbermate headshake i have heard about. My planks turned out 17 inches wide and i got 7 at 4/4, 2 i cut 5/4 and one a 8/4. I think i did pretty well for only 1 log. I also squared up a big hunk of basswood i had laying around. I must say working for a tree service has it benifits!
The only downside for my almost unlimited free wood is all my logs are 11ft and under as thats the size we need to cut them to load them on our dumptruck. I guess beggars can't be choosers.

 

[mikeb1079]

pretty stuff! what type of oak is that?

 

[Dave Boyt]

Nice. Looks like it is in the white oak group. I've milled quite a bit of oak with a Norwood MX34, but have never heard of head shake. Is it only when you milled the oak? Nothing wrong with short logs. I've milled a lot of 3' to 6' long cherry and walnut, and gotten some outstanding lumber from them.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff490/dboyt54/Sawmill/_WhiteOak_02m.jpg
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff490/dboyt54/Sawmill/WlntRoot_02s.jpg

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I wanted to post a few picks of the oak i milled this weekend with my norwood lumbermate 2000. I will say in milling the oak it is the first time i got the lumbermate headshake i have heard about.

I wouldn't call it the "Lumbermate" headshake, as i've seen many mills of all brands do it. I was talking to Peter Dale (designer of the LM2000) about "headshake in small mill's" one time and he said: "all smaller sawmills will do it from time to time", and he's right.

The old Lumbermates like the Mark 3's, 4's, and 5's were worse about it, and the new MX34 is better as it's bigger/heavier. My 2000 rarely does it, but it does happen.

SR

 

[Oneday]

Nice looking wood, thank you.

 

[shelby78]

pretty stuff! what type of oak is that?

Don't know what type it is other thatn oak...

Nice. Looks like it is in the white oak group. I've milled quite a bit of oak with a Norwood MX34, but have never heard of head shake. Is it only when you milled the oak? Nothing wrong with short logs. I've milled a lot of 3' to 6' long cherry and walnut, and gotten some outstanding lumber from them.

The cant in the pic is the basswood i milled so don't use it for reference. I don't mind the 10 fters but it would be nice to have some 16 ft's.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff490/dboyt54/Sawmill/_WhiteOak_02m.jpg
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff490/dboyt54/Sawmill/WlntRoot_02s.jpg

I wouldn't call it the "Lumbermate" headshake, as i've seen many mills of all brands do it. I was talking to Peter Dale (designer of the LM2000) about "headshake in small mill's" one time and he said: "all smaller sawmills will do it from time to time", and he's right.

The old Lumbermates like the Mark 3's, 4's, and 5's were worse about it, and the new MX34 is better as it's bigger/heavier. My 2000 rarely does it, but it does happen.

SR

This is the first time i have had it happen bad! I mean bad! I had a razor sharp resharpened band on that really wanted to cut. I had to hold it back to a unrealistic pace in my mind. The mill wanted to cut quickly but the headshake was stupid. All the pieces have slight headshake marks in them. The next oak i get i will video the cuts.

 

[Jim Timber]

That stuff is awesome! I want floors that look like that in my house.

What do you do with the basswood?

 

[terryknight]

that is beautiful stuff.

as for the length of the logs do you have a trailer or know someone who does??

 

[shelby78]

That stuff is awesome! I want floors that look like that in my house.

What do you do with the basswood?

The basswodd like all others i will sell. I have wanted to try chainsaw carving and probly will this winter as i have quite a bit of basswood.

that is beautiful stuff.

as for the length of the logs do you have a trailer or know someone who does??

A trailor wouldn't really matter on 99 percent of the days. The logs may be on the brush or we can't just leave them in a customers yard while i find a way to haul them. If i find something i really really want i will figure out a way to get it..


On a side note all the oak is gone except the 8/4 piece i cut for my boss. I listed it at $5bdft on kijiji (total would of been just over $500 for the 9 boards) and said if you take it all i will give you a deal. After 1 week a guy called and i told him $350 for the pile of 9 planks. He came today and gladly took them. He also wants any oak, cherry , or cool grain lumber i find. I'm pretty happy that i took a log i got for free and turned it into $350 with minimal time and effort.

 

[Jim Timber]

I've got quite a few good sized basswood trees, and other than the Amish, I don't know who'd buy them. Do you get a good price out of it?

The fact you turned one log into more money than 3 cords of stumpage is why I'm building a mill. That, and I want wood from my land in my house. Thanks for posting this thread - it's inspiring.

 

[shelby78]

So after my oak success story and having a second and third guy asking for oak i decided to go out to our wood lot to look and see what we had for hardwood. I was only looking at stuff we had cut and after going thru all of it and coming up with lots of hard maple i decided i should look in our woods for trees still in the air..

Well guess what i found..... 5 oak tree's 31 inches in diameter 3 ft from the base and roughly 65ft tall. Most are clear up to 15 or 20 ft or so.... I plan to drop one or 2 some night this week and will video it if i remeber. My original plan this year was just to get 2 or 3 milling jobs and if i payed the mill off in 5 years i was happy. If i sell the lumber i should get from these 5 tree's i'll have broke even on my mill this year

While it all sounds too easy there is alot of grunt work begind the scenes, but i will take pics along the way. I also found more basswood (Did i mention i sold the basswood cant for $200 yesterday?) black cherry, and tons of maple (knew the maple was there).

So far to date i have done $490 of custom milling, and sold $975 worth of lumber. I have only had the mill a few months so i am pretty happy.

Heres the basswood can't loaded in my truck, and a few crappy pics of the oak i took with my phone.

 

[Dave Boyt]

Nice logs! It'll be interesting to see how you get those logs out of the woods and mill them up on that LumberMate. Will you trim them or quarter them with a chain saw? Won't take too many of them to pay for the mill. Then you can start in on your kiln & planer...

 

[hamish]

Basswood is ideal for making highend mouldings ouf of, I can sell all the basswood I care to harvest. Additionally it is loved by carvers, as you are in Trenton and near the bay, find a few duck hunters, sure they would love some basswood to carve some decoys out of.
Always nice to see another Norwood owner on here, owner rep inbound!

 

[shelby78]

Getting the tree's out of the woods was a snap! The case 4x4 farm tractor took the logs out 20ft long with no issues. It did manage to load them up with dirt real nice though I have already milled up the bottom 2 sections of one tree and 2 sections of another smaller one. I still have 1 section from each tree left plus 3 more tree's.

I did have to trim one log a little bit at one end for the carrige to clear. Sometimes it just barely scraped by....

As for the basswood i sold the large cant but haven't sold anymore and i do have a decent amount. I only really list stuff on kijiji and being new the word isn't out yet about my mill.

My first oak buyer is coming back for $1400 worth of lumber so i am pretty happy about that. Heres some new pics for you guys. I did get a bunch of 23 inch wide oak from this batch. I will say that even with my new logrite cant hook turning a 10 ft oak 30 inches in diameter on the mill by hand isn't easy. I do plan to add a winch to it.

There is nothing under 19 inches wide in my pile of lumber to give you a idea of the size.

 

[Dave Boyt]

Looks like you're getting buried in lumber! Looks like you've just about maxed out the mill! That oak sure quarter saws out pretty, doesn't it? An easy way to turn logs is to hook a strap to it, wrap the strap around around the log, and lift with the front end loader. Piece of cake. Here's a link to a photo of how I do it.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/ff490/dboyt54/Sawmill/LogTurning.jpg

 

[Dad2FourWI]

Here's a link to a photo of how I do it.

I love that old Ford 8n.... takes me back to when I was a kid!!!! We did a LOT of work with that!<grin>

Nice idea on the rotating of the log.... yea.... I can see that working a treat!

-Dad2FourWI