6/4 table top slabs…

8/4 live edge slabs… Kinda heavy fresh sawn 24’’-27’’ wide and I am 6’2’’ for scale.

I couldn’t live edge the whole log after a certain point.(butt end was too big) I can only cut 27’’ wide.

I cut some 10/4 future gunstock blanks and 6/4 table tops, just cut in ~48’’ then lopped that part off with a chainsaw. I had to square the butt of the log and mill out ’’regular’’ lumber (not pictured)

6/4 bookmatched table tops… the second picture shows the figure better.

I have looked at this chunk of wood off and on, knowing I wanted to cut table top slabs from it. I could have done that with a big chainsaw, but that really sucks. I wanted to stand it on the mill and slice cookies…but it was just too big for that diameter wise. Over 3’ x 4’...my mill will only let me cut 27” wide.

Then I got to thinking, hey this should split pretty easy. So I stripped off the bark, grabbed a couple wedges and she popped right in 1/2.

It didn’t even damage the wood to be split, they were not joined very tight at all inside. I will/the buyer will be able to join the slices back together (I would do it Nakashima style).

On the mill, sitting on a couple honeylocust boards to span my deck.

Yep I am going to clear and be able to cut it now.

I am pretty sure it is back on the same plane as it was standing whole. I will make some shallow test cuts and try to fit the pieces back together to make sure. I have to get down past where the tree guy made a couple messy cuts with his chainsaw anyway so it will not waste much getting perfectly lined back up. I should be able to slab this all the way down, it looks to clear my guide roller (took the adjustable one off for max cut width) even at the butt swell.

Started milling

Another similar set, the first couple are ~25” x 42”

Then they start getting bigger…these are ~36’’ x 48’‘

They were a mill full though, full 27” cut. The guide roller on one side was rubbing and the bandwheel on the other side was too.

Close ups. Very colorful grain, even rough sawn…

I am going to sticker them tomorrow. I just stacked them back in reverse order for now. 8 sets.

Last weeks load. The pines I am cutting for the guy who dropped off the hardwood in exchange. I saw his logs into framing for his deer cabin and I keep the walnut (many)-catalpa-birch-elm…for myself.

One of the catalpa is, well, LARGE. 50” x 8’

I picked the “ugliest” catalpa out first. I love ugly logs. I sawed out some live edge slabs for benches. 2” thick ~24” wide and ~6’ long.

I got this interesting log from another guy. I had been watching it standing on a lot I knew they were going to develop for over a year.

Do you see what I see ?

Yep, curly maple.

I shot a scrap through the planer fresh sawn…not bad.

Decent stack in a boule to bookmatch later.

This is the machine. A Foley Belsaw model 355

Basically the motor with a grinding wheel rides the track and the knives are clamped to the rail. I have numerous shims to get them set the right distance. The carriage for the motor/grinding wheel also moves to and away from the knife rail. The head obviously pivots to the proper angle of the original grind bevel of the knife. The wheel in the second video to see me turning is a micro up/down adjustment.

He dumped it in the yard in 2 pieces. And it does have strawberries growing on it, huh.

The dude in the picture is my nosey neighbor, he is ring counting it for whatever reason. He is about my size, the big end of the log is 36”. Crooked/nasty/limby/burly chunk of wood, I will see what I can do with it .

I whacked the small end off and threw it on the mill to make some crotch table slabs.

Same piece just flipped over on the mill deck ready to go.

Just that one little piece milled out several interesting 6/4 slabs 27” wide and 4+ feet long…I still have alot of log left.

So I cut one off to mill. I was a little bummed because I see 2 hearts, which usually means less figure/ more bark inclusion…

I had to trim it abit to get it to fit the mill for width (more on that later)

First slab looks decent.

28” wide…not bad for a bandmill that is advertised to make a 24” cut (I made some mods, wider the better in my book)

Then comes the inclusion I knew would be there, not too bad it’s still sound anyway.

They look good in a bookmatch.

Now some may be thinking “Hey Daren, why don’t you lay them end to end to see what they look like ?”...Ok I did that.

The last slice worth saving…that little crotch should make several really cool projects…and there is a heck of alot of just that one log left.

I grade sawed all this out. I am not exaggerating when I say if I cut all the “defect” (any small knots or sapwood) out of this whole pile it would all fit in a 5 gallon bucket !!

A few stragglers, 2 cedar 2 black locust and a birch.

What made my day. 23 walnut logs 8’ long (well over 1000 board feet) delivered.

Back story out of the way I will post pictures of some “trash” I picked up last week. I get my logs from many sources homeowners/municipalities/tree services…I contacted one tree service I had not heard from for awhile. I was paying him a little for logs since he always seemed to have very nice ones, but he stopped coming around. He had found another buyer (sawmill 2 hours south) that was willing to pay more than I. No problem we all have to eat and business is business, glad he is still putting salvaged logs to good use and making a little more money too. I asked if he had anything the bigger mill did not want ? If you have read my last 2 blog entries that figured mulberry and spalted white oak where in his “fire wood pile”, no other mill wanted them so he was going to split them for fire wood to sell. While visiting his pile of discarded logs that others found no use for there was a pile of walnut crotches they had cut off. I asked “What about these ?”. He told me they cut the Y’s as he called them off logs before taking them to the other mill. Since they were too hard to split they would just be pushed into the timber behind his shop to rot. Of course I asked for those and said I had a use for them, which just received a funny look and a shoulder shrug, they followed me home (well he delivered them with the other logs).

I know that was alot of reading for just 3 pictures. Some more of other mens trash milled into 6/4” thick table tops.

This white oak had laid in a back yard of an abandoned farm house and was forgotten about by people for a couple years…mother nature didn’t forget about it, she went to work spalting it. And did a nice job I might add.

So I cut a little deeper.

Flipped it over…and urban logging strikes again. 2 screws, oh well there was plenty of good lumber under them.

Yea those are 21” wide mulberry boards with figure. Kinda weird birdeye/burl clusters, pretty. Mulberry is very pretty anyway. It darkens to the color of aged black cherry as it dries. It is much more attractive dry.

Not a bad stack of 4/4-6/4 and 8/4. Those 8/4×21” x 8’ wet boards were heavy fresh sawn ! I also got a little pile of live edge flitches from the saw down to a cant that I did not take a picture of.

It is so hard to capture what the figure looks like. The sun washed out the color while it was on the mill…and the flash washed it out in this picture. Just gonna have to trust me I guess…it looks better in person.

I built a sturdy frame. The drum is fixed and the table raises to the drum.

This screw raises the bed.

It does a pretty good job, looks like it would sand flat to me with the bed all the way up. I have the wrong paper on in this picture, that is just emery cloth I had handy to see if the worm gear clamps to hold it to the roller was even a good idea.

It will sand 25” wide boards. It is set up right now to sand from 2 1/2”-0” thick, my most common need. If I want to sand thicker I can just add riser blocks under the pillow blocks.

This is how I made the roller. I turned some wood plugs and spaced them on the shaft. The shaft is threaded rod and the wood disks are jam nutted in place.

A test run on a piece of osage orange. I was just trying to see if the drum built up too much heat (something I was worried about using PVC pipe) I figured if anything was going to make it hot that hard osage would…it got warm, but not hot.

If you have ever worked with osage orange you know how hard it is, something like cherry/walnut I could pretty much thrown though the machine.

It did a pretty nice job of finishing.

It is not 100% done yet, but any questions, comments, criticisms are welcome.

You can see I don’t stand the log straight up. I have cut many smaller pieces like this for game/fish mounts for a local taxidermist. I found if I cut them on a angle they do not check and bust open, they dry intact. It does make for a weird edge that needs softened/rounded over, but the plus side they are larger cut on a bias.

Cut 1 3/4” thick. You can see the 24” framing square in a couple of the pics. They are pretty decent size. I will let them dry awhile and make a base for a couple and sell a couple of the slabs to someone else to make whatever they want with theirs.

I really got a great stack of almost perfect cherry boards. I am pleased. (400 bft ? and did not mill them all yet)

The walnut like I said was a little strange, but hey I like strange. I only milled one of those. It was so crooked I had to cut it in short pieces to get anything good. Here is a shot of one of the crotches.

The real reason for this blog entry. The cherries where beauties…this is a beast. I had told the tree service if he was removing any large sycamore I wanted one to 1/4 saw. So he calls “I have a biggy we are taking down, want it?” I asked how big. He said 34” or so. Perfect, that will fit on the mill nicely…
Well he brought 4 logs. The smallest was 34” on the small end. The biggest (in the picture) is 50”. Oh boy, someone has their work cut out for them. That one log weighs 6000 lbs. I have to 1/4 it with my chainsaw to even get it on the mill, not really a fun job in August. Oh well with proper planning/milling I should get some massive 1/4 sawn sycamore boards. Enjoy. I will post pictures of the lumber soon hopefully. I was able to just barely get the little log (not in the picture) on the mill last night. I will be sawing it, weather permitting, early next week.

So this week (today) he shows up with 1000 bft of honeylocust, one of my favorite woods, and osage. The biggest honeylocust is 34” x 12’ and 4600 lbs. A couple of them were over 30”...I see some 24” wide honeylocust slabs in the near future ! The osage was smaller, but still nice. I have fallen behind on milling because I am trying to reorganize my wood storage shed. I finished that today and weather permitting will be making lumber from these dudes very soon.

Unusual white oak, very colorful grain and pattern.

I got a decent little stack of 12”-13” wide lumber off that one tree.

A part of a blow down walnut crotch, a tornado ripped it to shreds.

Not a huge pile, but pretty neat. (and free)

More lumber from the same walnut tree, interesting looking book matched lumber. The boards are 12” wide each.

Another smaller walnut crotch from the same property. 24” wide and 36” long

Again, not a big pile…but every one just lovely.

I got a very large hard maple dropped off too.

It was lighting struck and the lightning did me a huge favor and blew a perfect 1/4 out to start milling. The log is over 50” across, too big for my mill. I will have to finish quartering it with a chainsaw.

The 1/4 on the mill is 24” wide. I milled it already but it was nothing super special so no pictures, just old hard maple.

The tree service dropped off several logs 24”-36” diameter. Here are a couple.

I did mill out one of the small maple crotches this morning. The pictures don’t do the figure justice it sure is pretty. Each flitch is 20” wide and 36” long.

Speaking of flitches. The guy who dropped off that load of walnut the tornado destroyed also brought some really short pieces he managed to save (vultures were already there cutting it for firewood). I though maybe these little 3’-4’ pieces would make a neat live edge small table. One idea I had was use 3 (4?) and make a book self/shelving unit of some kind. Stack the flitch shelves in the order they where in the log.

I have nothing against traditional logging (if done properly, selective harvest), don’t get me wrong. I would never chain myself to a tree like what most people think of when they hear “tree hugger”. But somehow I feel if I mill these trees that were going to waste I am filling a little piece of the market and maybe one tree in the woods can stand. If I mill and sell an oak tree from a local town to a local woodworker, that guy will not buy wood from a tree that was harvested from nature some place else. Maybe an odd way to go about saving a tree, but it is the best I can do.

For another example of my love of trees I have access to log family timber full of mighty oaks. I see those trees and remember the time my cousin and I climbed up in the limbs and had a picnic. The nap I took under the tree on a beautiful fall afternoon. The first time I showed my wife the tree and explained that tree was most likely 500 years old. I live in an area that was heavily populated by native Americans (I have dozens of artifacts from the same acreage, arrow heads and such) To think that a man living off the land 400 years ago might have also rested in the shade of the same tree, hunted the squirrels that fed from the fruit of that tree…No amount of money in the world would make me think about cutting that tree down.

I am not going to shove this urban logging thing down your throat. But millions of dollars of lumber is being wasted every day by our cities (your tax money) The whole time the Fed is subsidizing logging companies, yea they are. I will not go into tariffs here on imported wood that is another subject. The flip side of government funding is “Tree Cities USA” in Illinois alone we have $82.4 million dollars on the books for planting trees in urban settings…care to guess how much they have set back for what to do with the 2 trees they cut down for every 1 they plant ? Or for the ones our grandfathers planted ? I will give you a hint $0. The plan is cut them down and burn them.

Finally I am going to get to my point. If you have read this far, thanks. After 5 years of beating my head against the wall I made contact with the right person. The webmaster has some tweaking to do with links and there will be more information soon. But right smack on the DNR page http://dnr.state.il.us/conservation/forestry/urban/ is an attention grabbing “Urban Forest Utilization” NEW.
The link takes you to a listing page that is also a work in progress. That page will provide information to people/municipalities on how and why to further utilize urban logs and has listings for sawmills like mine that will process them.

Basically this is state endorsement of what I do, and promotion through their site .They are working on pamphlets to educate local municipalities on why they should look into further utilization of their urban forests. I am not going to be able to mill every tree that gets removed in the state obviously…but maybe someone can. Now that “urban logging” is recognized and validated on a state governmental level it will bring more guys like myself out of the shadows. I would love to see a coop of sorts, a network of sawyers working together with communities to put these tree to good use. (and get them in the hands of woodworkers instead of piled and burned/ground for mulch/split for firewood)

I have sited this statistic before from The University of Illinois Forestry Dept. on timber acreage.

• Forestland prior to European settlement – 13.8 million acres (40 percent)
• Forestland today – 4.4 million acres (12 percent)
• Illinois ranks 49th among states in percent of land remaining in original vegetation

We have cut alot of trees down in this state. There is real money being spent through “Tree City USA” to replant them in our cities and towns. It would be a shame to see them meet the same fate as the 9.4 million acres from the stats above. If you live in Illinois and care anything about this there is contact information on the link I provided. I don’t see anything but good coming from a note of support for this. If you are a sawyer in Illinois who will help me saw these logs you can be added to the list of sawmills on that page as well.

I know we have jocks from all over the country/world. If any of this blog strikes a cord with you, check with your state see what they are doing. If they are not doing anything…maybe you should. After many efforts (and I am going to throw a pun in here) and walking away feeling I was barking up the wrong tree, one little email paid off. One lady listened. Not only listened to my spiel, but asked questions. That opened a line of communication between us and the result was the pages on the Dept. of Natural Resources I linked and some people in the state capitol scratching their heads on how much more they can do in the way of putting our urban forests to a good use.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and of course I am available to help in any way I can if you have questions. I would love to see something like this in every state. Some are ahead of Illinois, Michigan is one of them http://urbanwood.org/ . Do some checking maybe your state has something like this in place.