The Saga of Sugi

This is a followup to the forum post on Japanese cedar (or ‘Sugi’ as I was told on the forum). Trying to move these large logs turned into a project in and of itself. Saturday was a crazy day – Friday afternoon had shown the limits on 2 grown men’s ability to lift 500 lbs with their bare hands (and a teacher and a finance guys’ hands at that – not a powerhouse combo). We were able to move 4 of the smaller logs, but not the big ones. There was still a mound of lumber and 2 big logs up in the condo courtyard so I had to go to plan “B”, not that I had a plan B. So Saturday morning I went up the street to MLK and hired 3 day laborers to help me with the beasts.

Somehow, someway, we were able to roll the 2 heavy logs down the courtyard, slowly let them go down the stairs, and then put them onto the back of the pickup.

We did this twice, and I didn’t think we were going to make it. It’s amazing what some brute force can do mixed with a little determination.

Next we had to move all of the rest of the logs down to the sidewalk. This was not fun. I think a few of my laborers kind of lost some steam; granted, the heavy lifting was done. I later listed all of the wood on Craigslist (under material for woodturners – always trying to give my fellow woodworkers a heads up) and it was gone by the end of the day.

I didn’t know if the Ranger was going to be able to take these logs all the way out to the burbs. (The guy who cut them said they probably weighed 500 lbs a piece, and a coworker told me my weight limit on the truck was probably that much.) I took the back roads out to the place where the guy and fellow Lumberjock at Rose City Lumber will mill them up for $0.50 / board-foot. After I dropped them off there was a definite sense of accomplishment once they were safe and sound off the truck (and the truck still worked).

Can’t wait to see what these will look like when they’re milled into slabs!

Logs in the truck….

Anthony taking them off my hands….