milling is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are gonna get!!!!

[farmerjohn]

Nice load of pics there John - starting to build up a good load of timber there

 

i'm hoping to power through it on the jobs i got lined up this year so need to get a good stock on, plus furniture i want to have a go at making

[Big J]

Protect your oak from as much sunlight as possible, and moderate draught. I've heard that sawyers on the other side of the pond use hessian sheets over stacks to stabilise the drying process.

 

Thinner stock is less capable of moving (thinner boards, less timber to exert a drying stress on the rest of the stack) so seems to check less. I must admit that this is relatively new to me. I always knew that cutting oak in spring was risky business but wasn't aware that different thicknesses reacted differently. It's also the same reason why you should cut thicker stock from boards closer to the heart - crown cut boards, with their propensity to move produce worse thick boards.

 

I'm not sure of the method Alec is referring to. I quarter by chainsaw milling the log in half, ratchet strapping the two halves together, rotate 90 degrees and then repeat.

 

Lots of that elm left, yep. Generally about £14 a cube off the saw at the moment - nice forest grown stock.

 

Jonathan

 

CHEERS ROB,

out of interest, if oak was stored inside out of sunlight would it be OK to mill for another month?

 

how come thiner oak is less susceptible to checking than thicker peices? i though it would be the other way around as thinner stuff has a greater surface area per cubic foot and would dry quicker.... or not!!!

 

Also BigJ i have been talking to alec a bit recently and he mentioned a way of quarter sawing without turning the log each time by quartering and propping on the angle, do you know about this? does it work ok? if so any chance you could describe the process to me? last thing, do you still have any of that elm left for sale?

[farmerjohn]

regarding the hessian i saw a youtube vid on an American mill and they did that, i have half a roll of debris netting knocking about here so was going to use that as theirs plenty of air flow through it.