Some heavy Scottish oak

[Mike Dempsey]

After a break of a couple of yearsI have been using my alaskan mill over the last few days to mill up some 3" thick european oak boards for a job coming up in a couple of years time. The oaks were about 2'6"View attachment 277490View attachment 277491View attachment 277492 in dia and I cut them into 5' lengths.Each plank must have weighed about 100Kg/220lbs and as they have to go up a steep muddy slope of about 60 feet it was hard, tiring work. I need about 40 of these slabs in order to end up with about 120 or so 4 x 3 blocks at 5' long. Some of the planks have shakes/cracks in them as the trees are windblown on a hillside. Luckily we have had so much rain in the last few years they will have a soft landing. There's plenty of firewood to be had as well so nothing will be wasted. The previous week I milled up some douglas fir which was a piece of cake compared to this, but I am not complaining as its all free.

Mike

 

[cityslicker]

That looks like some good work you put in there, what will you be using the posts for? Perhaps a support structure for a tunnel system leading to an underground man cave filled with chainsaws and scotch?

 

[qbilder]

What will you be using the posts for? Perhaps a support structure for a tunnel system leading to an underground man cave filled with chainsaws and scotch?

If that's true then I want an invite. You can PM me the details of the secret handshake :msp_sneaky:

 

[Mike Dempsey]

Scottish Heavy oak

Unfortunately guys nothing as remotely interesting as a man cave althought he Scotch whisky bit was correct. The oak will finally when dry be cut into blocks of 58mm thick by 100mm wide by 128mm blocks with a 8mm hole recessed in the top for very expensive bottles of whisky to sit on. I cant tell you the name of the company or brand due to customer confidentiality. Their name is being cut out in gold coloured metal and stuck to the front and then it is spray lacquered. The whole package is put in a fancy leather case along with a leather bound book and sold for about £3000 plus each. A nice wee purchase for your pension fund! By milling up my own oak I am saving about £4500 on each job. I will have to buy in the next lot of oak but for subsequent orders I will use my own.

Mike

 

[cityslicker]

Wow that is very very cool, must be some nice stuff!

 

[qbilder]

Yeah, that's cooler than what I use my milled oak for.

 

[Mike Dempsey]

The tolerances are +/- 0.3mm for some items made from wood. On one project I was originally asked to drill a 34.3mm hole into end grain oak! Sometimes its just nuts. The hole ended up being 30mm and the shank on the cork 'tophatted' to 30mm after I told one of the directors they would have to pay £200 pound each for 2 forstner bits to be specially made. Some times I think that they forget that working wood to fine engineering tolerances it a little bit ott.

Mike

 

[qbilder]

I know all about machining wood to very close tolerances. I measure in the thousandths of an inch, just like a machinist does. Actually, I worked as a machinist for years and the woodworking I do is sometimes more critical than the metalwork I used to do.