Today's milling

[muldonach]

4 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

I think I just inadvertently agreed with your diagnosis in my reply to Stubby. But it milled as smooth as butter/oak I think due to its age. Just milled bloody slow and unusually for my Logosol I got wavey cuts and a laboured engine all the time. 

I cut some discs years ago to mount roe heads - when cut (freshly felled) it was as soft as butter.

left some to dry over a couple of years and it was like iron to work

 

[trigger_andy]

16 minutes ago, Squaredy said:

Yes; I don’t get a lot of people asking for birch, but show the customer a dry board sanded or planed and they sell well.

Most of the Birch I’ve milled is pure white. This is a rainbow of colours at the heart. 
 

Not mine unfortunately. I swapped the mill time for branch logger time. 
 

Easily selling a trailer load for £200 a time plus fuel. 

[trigger_andy]

21 minutes ago, muldonach said:

I cut some discs years ago to mount roe heads - when cut (freshly felled) it was as soft as butter.

left some to dry over a couple of years and it was like iron to work

 

I know how that goes!

[trigger_andy]

Had a spare day or so so milled up some Scots Pine and a nice Beech log at my house. Not had the mill here for about a year now. Was gonna just firewood the Beech but glad I saved it (and it’s sister) as it had really nice colours. Again even my iPhone 14 Pro Max struggles to capture the colours and makes it look full of rot. 
 

Got a load of 2.5” slabs and a nice 6” butcher block outta it. 
 

Quite dark for Beech. Some Purple in there too. 

[AJStrees]

11 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Had a spare day or so so milled up some Scots Pine and a nice Beech log at my house. Not had the mill here for about a year now. Was gonna just firewood the Beech but glad I saved it (and it’s sister) as it had really nice colours. Again even my iPhone 14 Pro Max struggles to capture the colours and makes it look full of rot. 
 

Got a load of 2.5” slabs and a nice 6” butcher block outta it. 
 

Quite dark for Beech. Some Purple in there too. 

Very nice 👍 

[Macpherson]

32 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

I think I just inadvertently agreed with your diagnosis in my reply to Stubby. But it milled as smooth as butter/oak I think due to its age. Just milled bloody slow and unusually for my Logosol I got wavey cuts and a laboured engine all the time. 

 

I milled some reasonably big Birch recently with the Alaskan, but not quite wide as big as your log... It was the but of a multi stemmed  tree, about 2 feet wide in total and it had been left standing for only around 6 months in the summer [ wet west coast ] since I took the rest for firewood, it was nicely coloured  and very woolly to cut and tended to clog in the kerf due to the fast rate of rot in Birch.

 

Most of my firewood is birch and I've long since learnt the hard way just how quickly it rots.. but just how nice it is if cut and stacked really fresh and is one of the woods that benefits most by being painted with a Borax solution in order to prevent fungal degradation while seasoning..

 

I can see from your pics that the colours in your milled birch indicate you just saved it from mush 👍👍

 

My next one is about  the size of yours, and I'll mill it before I chog up the rest for firewood and it should be creamy white, Cheers.

[trigger_andy]

6 minutes ago, Macpherson said:

 

I milled some reasonably big Birch recently with the Alaskan, but not quite wide as big as your log... It was the but of a multi stemmed  tree, about 2 feet wide in total and it had been left standing for only around 6 months in the summer [ wet west coast ] since I took the rest for firewood, it was nicely coloured  and very woolly to cut and tended to clog in the kerf due to the fast rate of rot in Birch.

 

Most of my firewood is birch and I've long since learnt the hard way just how quickly it rots.. but just how nice it is if cut and stacked really fresh and is one of the woods that benefits most by being painted with a Borax solution in order to prevent fungal degradation while seasoning..

 

I can see from your pics that the colours in your milled birch indicate you just saved it from mush 👍👍

 

My next one is about  the size of yours, and I'll mill it before I chog up the rest for firewood and it should be creamy white, Cheers.

Thanks for that! I’ll pass the borax solution suggestion over to the log owner. 
 

It certainly looks close to mush/rotting but surprisingly still bloody hard. The white was a good give away it was damn close but could not get a fingernail into it. 

[Conor Wright]

5 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Thanks for that! I’ll pass the borax solution suggestion over to the log owner. 
 

It certainly looks close to mush/rotting but surprisingly still bloody hard. The white was a good give away it was damn close but could not get a fingernail into it. 

If you're going to do ot for yourself, make sure when you're mixing the solution that the water is about 70°c to fully dissolve the borax, otherwise the little crystals left behind will eat planer blades later on. Speaking from experience.

 

[Macpherson]

14 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Thanks for that! I’ll pass the borax solution suggestion over to the log owner. 
 

It certainly looks close to mush/rotting but surprisingly still bloody hard. The white was a good give away it was damn close but could not get a fingernail into it. 

 

I wasn't being critical in any way and the colours are great.. but as you no doubt know there is a very fine line between usable and completely gone with Birch, and I kinda forgot that you're milling for a client, Cheers.

[Macpherson]

15 minutes ago, Conor Wright said:

If you're going to do ot for yourself, make sure when you're mixing the solution that the water is about 70°c to fully dissolve the borax, otherwise the little crystals left behind will eat planer blades later on. Speaking from experience.

 

 

Aye, I find just about 1kg into 5 gallons hot makes a saturated solution that prevents just about all fungal staining [particularly blue staining ] and insect attacks in milled lumber while it's stacked outside seasoning with only a top cover..

 

I've stuck with this formula since I first became aware that it was the solution [ pun intended ] to the problem and I've never noticed any crystals growing on anything.. but I'll be looking more closely now, I'm not milling commercially but I'm always keen to learn from others as the more info you glean.. the less the frustration with nature, cheers.