Today's milling

[Johnsond]

Few more days onsite for a previous client, mix of Oak and Walnut. Some of the Oak was pushing things a bit, only one small nail over the whole period which was a change. 

[marktownend]

I said in another thread a few weeks ago I'd put some pics up of a cherry tree we recently had milled (thanks Charlie!) and here they finally are. It was probably the biggest and best of 6 huge cherries in our small wood and unfortunately came down in Storm Eunice. The butt was roughly 60cm diameter to the crotch where it split into 2 trunks each of which was 40cm, then they continued almost dead straight up another 16m before any significant branches and were still 25cm at that height.

 

No way we'd have been able to mill it ourselves so the guys came and milled it onsite to the specs a furniture maker I know who'd agreed to buy the whole lot from us gave us. They did the trunks into 4m slabs at 35mm (qty 42 @ 4m plus 6 @ 2.5m due to a slight bend) on a mobile mill then used a chainsaw mill to do the butt due to the width as the furniture guy wanted to keep a little of the bottom of the 2 trunks so he'd get some Y shaped slabs and we got 4 x 60mm slabs out of that (plus a few more trimmings when I get the remnants down to the miller's yard), max width 90cm.

 

And we've got a couple of 75mm weird shaped cookies from the bottom we're keeping ourselves, plus the crown which we've not yet touched but I may sell to wood turners, plus a large burr from the base. Sale price £3250. Milling cost £500. Fuel for 2 trips to deliver £250. Profit (excluding our time but we weren't doing this as a commercial activity) £2500. Oh, and we sold it green, he's going to dry it himself. He'd have had to pay around double that amount from his usual supplier for this quantity of kiln dried cherry.

 

So Stere maybe you might now believe me, and Andy maybe you should get your pieces of cherry milled!

Edited October 15, 2022 by marktownend

[Squaredy]

10 hours ago, marktownend said:

I said in another thread a few weeks ago I'd put some pics up of a cherry tree we recently had milled (thanks Charlie!) and here they finally are. It was probably the biggest and best of 6 huge cherries in our small wood and unfortunately came down in Storm Eunice. The butt was roughly 60cm diameter to the crotch where it split into 2 trunks each of which was 40cm, then they continued almost dead straight up another 16m before any significant branches and were still 25cm at that height.

 

No way we'd have been able to mill it ourselves so the guys came and milled it onsite to the specs a furniture maker I know who'd agreed to buy the whole lot from us gave us. They did the trunks into 4m slabs at 35mm (qty 42 @ 4m plus 6 @ 2.5m due to a slight bend) on a mobile mill then used a chainsaw mill to do the butt due to the width as the furniture guy wanted to keep a little of the bottom of the 2 trunks so he'd get some Y shaped slabs and we got 4 x 60mm slabs out of that (plus a few more trimmings when I get the remnants down to the miller's yard), max width 90cm.

 

And we've got a couple of 75mm weird shaped cookies from the bottom we're keeping ourselves, plus the crown which we've not yet touched but I may sell to wood turners, plus a large burr from the base. Sale price £3250. Milling cost £500. Fuel for 2 trips to deliver £250. Profit (excluding our time but we weren't doing this as a commercial activity) £2500. Oh, and we sold it green, he's going to dry it himself. He'd have had to pay around double that amount from his usual supplier for this quantity of kiln dried cherry.

 

So Stere maybe you might now believe me, and Andy maybe you should get your pieces of cherry milled!

Wow, well done, and lovely timber for sure.  What was the price per cubic foot or cubic metre then? Or did you not calculate it like that?

[marktownend]

Thanks, genuinely can't remember exactly what figure we calculated it on, but I think it may have been around £35pcf or £1200pcm. I did some reasonably accurate semi-measured guesstimates to get the volume, he was happy with the price.

 

Interesting process overall from seeing it as a beautiful tree in a woodland to the disappointment of finding it had fallen, arranging for the milling and sale and actually getting involved with the processing and delivery. Looking forward to seeing what he makes from the slabs once he's dried it.

 

 

[Johnsond]

17 hours ago, marktownend said:

I said in another thread a few weeks ago I'd put some pics up of a cherry tree we recently had milled (thanks Charlie!) and here they finally are. It was probably the biggest and best of 6 huge cherries in our small wood and unfortunately came down in Storm Eunice. The butt was roughly 60cm diameter to the crotch where it split into 2 trunks each of which was 40cm, then they continued almost dead straight up another 16m before any significant branches and were still 25cm at that height.

 

No way we'd have been able to mill it ourselves so the guys came and milled it onsite to the specs a furniture maker I know who'd agreed to buy the whole lot from us gave us. They did the trunks into 4m slabs at 35mm (qty 42 @ 4m plus 6 @ 2.5m due to a slight bend) on a mobile mill then used a chainsaw mill to do the butt due to the width as the furniture guy wanted to keep a little of the bottom of the 2 trunks so he'd get some Y shaped slabs and we got 4 x 60mm slabs out of that (plus a few more trimmings when I get the remnants down to the miller's yard), max width 90cm.

 

And we've got a couple of 75mm weird shaped cookies from the bottom we're keeping ourselves, plus the crown which we've not yet touched but I may sell to wood turners, plus a large burr from the base. Sale price £3250. Milling cost £500. Fuel for 2 trips to deliver £250. Profit (excluding our time but we weren't doing this as a commercial activity) £2500. Oh, and we sold it green, he's going to dry it himself. He'd have had to pay around double that amount from his usual supplier for this quantity of kiln dried cherry.

 

So Stere maybe you might now believe me, and Andy maybe you should get your pieces of cherry milled!

That’s a good days work and a bloody good return for sure 👍

[bilke_user]

Something different for a Sunday.
Customer asked if he could bring a couple of old logs he'd like milled to 75x500 to make a couple of large dining tables.  Don't worry if the boards aren't perfect he said, we're going to resin them anyway.
Made for an interesting couple of hours!

[Rough Hewn]

Milled a large cherry for a client today.

at 3.3m x 1m+ it was a surprise it wasn’t completely rotten.

Client is very happy.

[marktownend]

I'm not surprised! Let's hope they know what valuable timber they've got there. That's significantly bigger than the biggest slabs we got from our cherry.

[Rough Hewn]

Introducing my old apprentice of 3+ years. Helping me finish the cherry from yesterday. 

[Steve Bullman]

That timber looks stunning