Daninvan
ArboristSite Operative
Beach milling time has been scarce this year. My friend Pete was in town this week so it was a great chance to give the mills a bit of a workout. Unfortunately the log dump is suffering from a lack of exciting logs right now, but we made the best of it.
I had been down there a couple days before and sussed it out. First up was a couple logs of Monterey Cypress.
Next was a chunk of deodar cedar buried deep in the pile.
And a big piece of crotchy something, possibly oak.
And another piece of something a bit unusual, I will leave it to Pete to post the details of that one!
So we started at about 9 AM or so, the city crew kindly placed the logs for us and we were ready to go. The weather appeared to be co-operating at this point.
I turned my attention to the larger log of Monterey cypress. It was absolutely covered with powder post beetles. And as soon as I cut into it I realized it was Port Orford cedar, not Monterey cypress. And the grain was nice and tight, unusual for a city tree, maybe it was growing in a small grove in a park or something where there was some competition.
Once there was nothing left of the Port Orford but skin and bones, I took a few slabs off the deodar. Sure love the smell of the true cedars, but the grain grows super wide here and they are kind of rustic with lots of knots and stuff. It was also quite obvious that this piece was a branch rather than from a trunk. The pith was way offset. BobL will be happy with the ergonomics here I think, but I know I can do better on my headgear! Still, I think the Darth Vader look suits me, and keeps passersby from lingering too long and preventing work from getting done! You can also see that Pete started in on the other Port Orford log, but that was not to be. We wound up having to leave that one.
(. . . continued in next post)
I had been down there a couple days before and sussed it out. First up was a couple logs of Monterey Cypress.
Next was a chunk of deodar cedar buried deep in the pile.
And a big piece of crotchy something, possibly oak.
And another piece of something a bit unusual, I will leave it to Pete to post the details of that one!
So we started at about 9 AM or so, the city crew kindly placed the logs for us and we were ready to go. The weather appeared to be co-operating at this point.
I turned my attention to the larger log of Monterey cypress. It was absolutely covered with powder post beetles. And as soon as I cut into it I realized it was Port Orford cedar, not Monterey cypress. And the grain was nice and tight, unusual for a city tree, maybe it was growing in a small grove in a park or something where there was some competition.
Once there was nothing left of the Port Orford but skin and bones, I took a few slabs off the deodar. Sure love the smell of the true cedars, but the grain grows super wide here and they are kind of rustic with lots of knots and stuff. It was also quite obvious that this piece was a branch rather than from a trunk. The pith was way offset. BobL will be happy with the ergonomics here I think, but I know I can do better on my headgear! Still, I think the Darth Vader look suits me, and keeps passersby from lingering too long and preventing work from getting done! You can also see that Pete started in on the other Port Orford log, but that was not to be. We wound up having to leave that one.
(. . . continued in next post)
