Daninvan
ArboristSite Operative
Just at the start of a major cold I think, but had today blocked out for milling and a couple buddies lined up so I could not stop the machine, decided to take some cold medication and head for the beach.
Good thing I did, another very decent day. A bit of overcast with a bright glow over the downtown at 8 AM.
A couple short but promising logs were set up for us.
First was a piece of box elder that I had set aside before last summer, the other a piece of spalted maple that turned up in the log dump very recently.
I was a bit concerned that the maple was maybe too far gone and starting to get punky, but the old fingernail on the end grain test seemed to indicate that it was pretty solid.
After the traditional bark peeling, we started in on the spalted maple, the first cut was promising, although I didn't care for the green tint that was evident in some places as well as the grey stain coming in from the ends in the 'sapwood'.
So we decided to keep going, having come this far it was easy to peel another slab off the log. And the slabs got better as we got a bit further into the log. The green-y bits disappeared and the stain became less evident. The nice pencil-line borders between the different colours are a nice touch
Wound up with seven slabs off this log.
Next up we dug into the box elder. Which as soon as the saw touched it we realized was not box elder at all. We figure it was some kind of hard maple, and had some colouration in it, as well as 3 small nails.
Both these logs were of decent width, they were wider than the ~29" my mill can cut so we had to trim them a bit.
My bowl buddy was not keen on the hard maple, did not like the colour in it. But as we milled through it we came across a burly section, so he was happy to take a couple burl pieces for bowl blanks!
I had the Subaru loaded up with my haul, not a lot of room to squeeze in two mills and a workmate table on top of them!
The weather actually improved over the course of the morning, we pulled out about 11:30.
Nothing but a few scraps left. The guy who runs the loader says he never has to clean up after us, people always come by after we are done and grab the leftovers!
I wound up with four slabs of the spalted maple and two slabs of the hard maple, as well as three half-slabs of the hard maple.
My bowl turning buddy took three blanks from the hard maple and a couple slabs from the spalted maple. The other guy didn't take anything, he came by on his bicycle so would have been hard pressed to carry much!
I had just picked up the saws from the shop yesterday, I took them in for service right after our last milling session as they were both giving me starting problems when warm. One of the mills worked great today, the other would not start when warm. Back to the shop for it I guess.
Not a bad haul for 3 1/2 hours of work.
Good thing I did, another very decent day. A bit of overcast with a bright glow over the downtown at 8 AM.
A couple short but promising logs were set up for us.
First was a piece of box elder that I had set aside before last summer, the other a piece of spalted maple that turned up in the log dump very recently.
I was a bit concerned that the maple was maybe too far gone and starting to get punky, but the old fingernail on the end grain test seemed to indicate that it was pretty solid.
After the traditional bark peeling, we started in on the spalted maple, the first cut was promising, although I didn't care for the green tint that was evident in some places as well as the grey stain coming in from the ends in the 'sapwood'.
So we decided to keep going, having come this far it was easy to peel another slab off the log. And the slabs got better as we got a bit further into the log. The green-y bits disappeared and the stain became less evident. The nice pencil-line borders between the different colours are a nice touch
Wound up with seven slabs off this log.
Next up we dug into the box elder. Which as soon as the saw touched it we realized was not box elder at all. We figure it was some kind of hard maple, and had some colouration in it, as well as 3 small nails.
Both these logs were of decent width, they were wider than the ~29" my mill can cut so we had to trim them a bit.
My bowl buddy was not keen on the hard maple, did not like the colour in it. But as we milled through it we came across a burly section, so he was happy to take a couple burl pieces for bowl blanks!
I had the Subaru loaded up with my haul, not a lot of room to squeeze in two mills and a workmate table on top of them!
The weather actually improved over the course of the morning, we pulled out about 11:30.
Nothing but a few scraps left. The guy who runs the loader says he never has to clean up after us, people always come by after we are done and grab the leftovers!
I wound up with four slabs of the spalted maple and two slabs of the hard maple, as well as three half-slabs of the hard maple.
My bowl turning buddy took three blanks from the hard maple and a couple slabs from the spalted maple. The other guy didn't take anything, he came by on his bicycle so would have been hard pressed to carry much!
I had just picked up the saws from the shop yesterday, I took them in for service right after our last milling session as they were both giving me starting problems when warm. One of the mills worked great today, the other would not start when warm. Back to the shop for it I guess.
Not a bad haul for 3 1/2 hours of work.
