Milling Low Grade And Short Logs

[Sawyer Rob]

A few days ago i took out some cherry tree's that were blown over, and three of the nine logs were "low grade, short top logs". I think my friends who helped me get them out, figured they should be sawn into firewood. But, i decided to mill them into "thick stock", to use for lathe turnings, or for a project that required something thicker. They certainly looked like firewood when i sawed them off the tree, but i'll let you judge if milling them into lumber was the right choise or not.

Here's the first one rolled up on the mill,

I squared it up, and split it down the middle,

I then loaded the second log. I wanted to mill this log leaveing the "sweep" in it, so i just milled the slabs off the top and bottom, takeing a few 5/4 boards, and leaveing a 3" thick plank.

The third log appeared to have some rot in it,

You can see the rot in this pict.,

But once i opened it up, it looked pretty good,

It even had a pretty bad defect on the side of it,

And here it is, with that "face defect" taken off,

 

[Sawyer Rob]

And with the log squared into a cant, i split the cant,

Here it is, opened up,

This is a close up of what the slap looked like on the inside,

And here's the tally for the three logs,

So, was they worth the time to mill? OR, should they have went straight to the wood stove?

Rob

 

[Can8ianTimber]

Very nice. Deffinitly better use than firewood. Keep the pics coming.

 

[dustytools]

I see many woodturning projects in your pictures Rob. Nice save!!

 

[excess650]

My neighbor had a tree outfit in to do some cutting around his house. The trees being cut were a black locust hanging towards the house, and a choke cherry (4 trunks from one stump)hanging over his power line. They intended to run everything through the chipper, so I asked if they would leave the cherry buttlogs. They weren't large in diameter, and were only 10' long, but I milled them similarly to what you did. It has beautiful color and definitely was worth the effort.

 

[stipes]

And with the log squared into a cant, i split the cant,

Here it is, opened up,

This is a close up of what the slap looked like on the inside,

And here's the tally for the three logs,

So, was they worth the time to mill? OR, should they have went straight to the wood stove?

Rob

I'd mill it...Looks damn nice,,and worth the effort!!!