Milling Weekend LJ event - Murchison, NZ #4: Day #2 photos

Yesterday rain moved in late in the day and rained all night but cleared in the morning. Unfortunately that left the steep track to the beech forest impassable due to clay mud, despite serious mud chains on the 4wd. The plan was adjusted to do a local walk to view some intact native lowland forests. We visited some massive examples of Kahitakea, Matai, Miro, Red beech and silver beech.

Then it was off for a leisurely hot brown beverage at the local River’s cafe before going back to my beech forest to at least visit this mythical log we dreamed of milling and a general tour of the pines(radiata pine), tasmanian blackwoods and the other kinds of beeches not yet spotted ( hard beech, black beech )

Finally, we met ‘the log’ – a red beech probably in excess of 300 years old. Moshe, keen on getting some kind of steel edge into this elusive log, tried to mill his log with his Silky japanese mini foldable saw. Defeated, we settled for a short section of spalted beech.

Then, off to visit the mama of all our beeches. this red beech specimen has a base 8 m ( 25 feet in circumference) and is estimated to be 600+ years old.Thus our final pose for the day and the end of our weekend.

The challenge to move this log using medieval winches and milling with the portable mill will have to remain for next time!

Thanks to a great bunch of guys for making this a great woodworking/milling weekend! I discovered that we all had completely different approaches and reasons for woodworking but were united in the love and respect for the material that we rely on for our craft.

-- If you can't joint it, bead it!