Extremely Average #138: I rescued some wood today.

Brian; The first thing you need to do to your new found wood is to seal the ends of the logs. Any old latex paint will do. This will help prevent cracking and checking of the logs as they dry. Some of those logs appare to be limbs, and as such may not be stable when sawed into boards. The fibers in the limbs of trees are subject to great bending pressure in their before life. These same pressures are not found in the vertical growth. Never fear ,however, you have done a good thing saving the wood from the fire of damnation. Be proud and have fun.

-- Nils, So. Central MI. Wood is honest.Take the effort to understand what it has to tell you before you try to change it.

hello there Brian I liked your blog today
glad to see you got some frebee
and that you got yourself a new freind

about the wood you shuold seal the ends with wax or paint soon as possiple (yesterday)
and take the bark of becourse it´s the entrenceway for the bugs to the wood

then you cuold use a froe http://lumberjocks.com/projects/32192 to slice them
or a copple of wedges to split them so they will dry in 2-3 years
if you let them bee as now they proppebly will bee dry around the time you
build your sawmill …....lol

Dennis

Hmmm, interesting. I have a different approach that you might try.

When you cut a tail, you are sawing down at an angle, making sure to follow the line the whole way. You also have to look at the line on the side of the board the whole time you saw, which means your eye level should be down at your bench. Its a very unnatural thing for your brain and hand and wrist and eyes and back to do. You also have to get used to sawing down that subtle slant in one direction, and then turn around and do it the other way. Most people are dominant in only one eye, and our hands/wrists are not symmetrical (what if they were? ...ew.) So inconsistencies are inevitable in this flip flop unless you close one eye and do the right slanting cuts, and then close the other eye and switch hands for the lefts. The Cyclops was good at dovetailing. And bowling.

But why not cut the tails first? The pins are easier. When you cut a pin, you line up your saw with the angle you’ve marked on the top edge (endgrain) of your board. Then you just cut straight down every time. You don’t even have to watch the road. Straight down. Straight down. And this way the inconsistencies in those pesky tails get celebrated instead of scorned.

Happy woodworking blog guy :)

-- Happy woodworking! http://www.blakeweber.us

Thanks for the tip Blake, every little bit helps.

-- Brian Meeks, http://extremelyaverage.com