ucoulddoit

I’m sure I’m not the only person who has noticed the succession of posts over recent months that defy belief and they are all first posts and never heard from again ………….

I guess the value of ‘logs’ is often over estimated by folk who are more used to seeing the price of dried planks. As an example of the difference in values, the picture below is one of three apple logs I bought from a tree surgeon a few years ago for £20 each. They were 22 inches diameter by 4 feet long. Biggest apple trees I’d ever seen. About 10 cubic feet per log which equates to £2 per cu ft for green round timber. What would 30ish cubic feet of this size and quality of milled apple slabs be worth now that it’s dry? Well into 4 figures I’d guess, if you could find a buyer. But this is for my own use. Interestingly, the tree surgeon / firewood merchant was clearing an entire orchard of several hundred trees, and he was paying the orchard owner to do this………! Is apple firewood valuable? He was selling off the last of the butts to woodworkers as he’d already got the quantity of firewood needed to make it a profitable contract. Andrew

I suspect ‘deals’ like that don’t happen very often, but I’ve done it and no regrets. The householder had trimmed all the branches from two cherry trees using a handsaw and cleared it all away. Must have taken them quite a while to do it. But they couldn’t tackle the two trunks which were about 16 inches diameter by 4 1/2 feet long, so a reasonable size for a hobby woodworker. Took me maybe 20 minutes to cut them at ground level with a small chainsaw and load them into the back of an estate car to get them home. My avatar is a hall table made using one of these trees. Andrew

Pretty sure the timing of felling a sycamore tree affects the likelihood of staining and mould after milling. Mid winter when the sap is at its lowest is best, as it’s the sap which leads to the defects. Not sure if it’s also best to mill it soon after, also in the winter? Anyone know? Andrew

I’m planning to mill a shortish length of oak in a neighbours garden in a few weeks, max 40 inches diameter but my longest bar is 28 inches and my Alaskan will only go to just over 20 inches. So I’ve a similar problem. And it’s halfway up a hillside next to a ravine, so not viable to extract it in one piece. Will probably halve it by freehand sawing and splitting with wedges, then mill each half with the Alaskan into thick slabs which can be re-sawn on a bandsaw after drying to get pairs of book matched planks for table tops if that’s what I decide to use it for. Will be interested to see how you get on with this. I’ve had a couple of sycamore trees milled on a bandsaw and found the planks were very stable and stayed flat. But on one of them, the planks were left stacked overnight without stickers as we finished milling late in the afternoon, and in the morning they were already looking mouldy and pretty rubbish! Managed to salvage them by coating them with borax and end rearing for a few weeks to dry the faces before being stacked with stickers. Andrew

Glad someone else asked.

In my last post on this thread I said I’d add some pictures of the process of making the dining table top and notes about the design process. So here they are and it’s quite a long post (again!). The two book matched planks I’d selected for the top had an ideal shape for a dining table. But It was a dilemma whether or not to retain the natural edges on the planks. Photo below is the pair of planks just after milling. My wife wanted ‘smooth’ edges on the table, whereas I was leaning towards keeping at least some of the natural edges. The solution turned out to be a compromise! In terms of design, about 10 years ago I made the mistake of thinking I didn’t need to do any design for a smaller table with book matched planks as these were natural edged planks! It had a quirky shape, but once the initial novelty passed I realised it wasn’t a success and after several years I was ready to chuck it away. I did manage to rescue it by re-shaping the top, removing the natural edges and from that experience learnt that not all natural edges are desirable. So for the current project, I started by experimenting with different ways of putting the two book matched planks together as shown in the following photos. Lots of options! After sketching and thinking about various options, I concluded that an overall simple shape would be best, as the burr oak is quite dramatic and I wanted the timber itself to be the main visual element of the design. So, I opted to have curved edges on the table top, with the curve similar to the natural edges on the planks. The planks were wider at one end than the other. As I wanted a degree of symmetry, I decided the table top should be the same width at both ends. That was achieved by ripping the planks lengthwise to remove a tapered piece from both planks, while maintaining a good match for the grain either side of the joint. I’d been conscious from the start that the slab edges were not a ‘smooth’ shape from end to end. Near the middle, they bulged outwards a couple of inches over about a foot or so. I was pretty certain that I’d remove these bulges and possibly all the natural edges. But decided to proceed in stages, and left them on while the planks were flattened and thicknessed. The following photos show checking the flatness of the planks using straight edges. They had stayed remarkably flat during drying apart from the last 6 to 8 inches at each end where both planks had deflected about 5mm. Should have had stickers at the ends of the planks! As advised several times by others on the forum and I wish I’d seen their advice before I milled this timber. The dried planks were just over 50mm thickness and I reckoned they would be down to 40mm once flattened. Maybe even 35mm, to reduce the weight a bit more. Each of the sawn planks weighed 35kg, so it looked like the finished table top might weigh about 50kg! I wasn’t looking forwards to working alone on that, struggling to move it about without damaging it. But overall, still easier starting with a pair of book matched planks instead of a thicker, single wide slab. Next stage was to flatten the top of both planks using a router. I removed the minimum necessary to create a flat face with the aim of minimising any change to the grain match either side of the joint. Both planks were then machined to a constant thickness by flattening the underside using the router. I find using a router on burry timbers like these virtually eliminates tearout which is almost inevitable if a planer / thicknesser is used instead. On previous projects I’d then used a hand held belt sander and random orbit sander to remove marks left by the router cutter. But that was quite time consuming. Also, I wanted this table top to be as flat as possible, so both planks were run through a 900mm wide belt sander several times which worked a treat. I was aiming to reduce the thickness from just over 40mm down to 35mm. Not sure what grit size belt was fitted, but each pass on the sander removed 0.25mm or less and as the machining / router cutter marks were removed by the time it was 40mm thick and the finish was really good, we stopped at that point. If reducing the thickness more had been necessary, the belt could have been changed to a coarser grit at the very start to remove more on each pass. The company who did this for me were impressed by the two book matched planks after sanding. They were obviously ‘valuable’ and it was increasingly clear it would be a shame to waste their potential with a poor design. Once back home, I set to finalising the shape of the table top including the decision about whether or not to keep the natural edges. I first removed the two ‘bulges’ which really improved the overall shape. Thinking about what to do next, I realised that removing the natural edges from end to end and having a smooth curve would reduce the table width by about 4 inches from 40 to 36 inches. I wasn’t keen on that. So, it was time for my wife to have a look at the two planks laid together. She liked the overall shape, the mix of natural and formed edges and the roughly symmetrical shape so we agreed that would be the final solution. Progressing gradually in stages, we’d achieved a good compromise instead of sticking with the first idea we each started with! So both the ‘client’ and maker were happy which is a good way of getting future commissions (she has a long list for me to work away at!). The edges of the planks for the butt joint were trimmed straight and square using a kitchen worktop cutter in a router running along an aluminium straightedge. Then a groove was cut in the side of each plank for the 6mm thick plywood spline. Once glued together, final shaping of the edges was done with a drum sander and nylon wire brush in a drill. I find the nylon wire brush gives a ‘burnished’ appearance on the burry edges which I like. As an aside, talking about finishing processes, about 25 years ago I attended a woodworking night class at a local technical college so that I had access to a large bandsaw and planer / thicknesser. One of the other students made nice stuff, but I was quite taken aback when instead of using abrasive paper for the final finishing, he used a hand held steel wire brush to roughen all the surfaces! Truth is I thought he was nuts. But 25 years on I’m now much more aware of the multitude of design options in all walks of life and look back on his work with a degree of admiration. He was relaxed about doing his own thing, experimenting, instead of following fashion or a text book. That approach is what now keeps me interested in making stuff, after over half a century of woodworking, although I’m not ready to copy his finishing method with a wire brush! Wide chamfers were cut on the underside so the edges reduce from 40mm thickness in the middle to 20mm at the corners. Just to make it appear a bit lighter and improve the overall appearance. I couldn’t draw a line on the natural edges for the chamfers, so made shallow saw cuts, increasingly deep towards the corners, as a guide for planing the varying depth chamfers. Then sanding, filling with bronze resin, more sanding, more filling and eventually the first coat of oil was applied and it all suddenly seemed worthwhile. Quite a long post as I mentioned at the start which I suppose highlights the amount of thinking and making that goes into a table top like this. A friend who has commissioned several pieces of furniture from other makers took one look at the oiled top and said she thought the finished table would fetch £10K and she would be happy to buy it for that! But it’s not for sale, so I won’t know if she is pulling my leg or would follow it through. Quite a thought though…….. The final weight for the 40mm thick top is 45kg. I’m sure 35mm thickness would have been adequate which would have reduced the weight to just under 40kg. Might still seem a bit ‘over engineered’? Possibly is, but the top has quite large spans and cantilevered edges, so it needs to be thicker than a traditional design with rails on four sides supporting the top. Also, the burry timber may not be as strong in places as straight grained planks. In terms of milling, these two planks were sawn at just over 50mm and I was fortunate they stayed really flat when drying and was able to keep them as single wide planks, 40mm finished thickness. If they had cupped appreciably, I would need to have split them in half and then jointed them back together. I’ve done that before, so that I could use my 10 inch planer thicknesser instead of using the router, for a table top which has four planks, cut from two wide book matched planks. But, although the additional two joints are virtually invisible, I feel there is something more desirable about two wide, matched planks and a single joint on the centreline. And I can see why a single very wide slab with no joints might be even more desirable. Recently I was looking back over the first few pages on the milling forum and came across advice to mill burr oak at 65mm thickness, then re-saw it after drying in order to reduce the distortion which can be quite significant when drying burrs. I guess after drying, it might just be possible to get two 25mm flat finished planks from a 65mm slab? Currently working on the frame to support the top and will post pictures and notes in due course. Andrew

Only ever used driven precast concrete or bored cast in situ piles for buildings. Just curious whether the tubular piles are blanked off at the bottom to improve end bearing resistance, or are they left open and rely on skin friction? Are they driven deeper than the original greenheart piles? Andrew

Been working on the next project using this burr oak for a while and decided to upload a picture of the dining table top having applied the first coat of oil this afternoon. The top is 1.8m x 1m with lots of burr, lovely colour and looking good. Still to make the legs / frame, but will post more pics in due course showing the process of starting with two rough sawn planks plus some notes about the 'design' of the table top. Andrew

Realised the last few posts are veering further and further off the thread title of ‘Today’s Milling’. But I guess Steve will sort that out if necessary? Anyway, here’s another. Following on from the last post, the photos below are the nearest I came to having a traditionally built and rigged wooden boat. Various models made over 40 years ago. All of which looked great sailing on a boating pond in a light breeze, apart from the clinker built longboat which is just a static model. All these were made or finished while away from home studying, without access to a workshop, so they were a way of satisfying the urge to be making things with minimal tools. And a way of day dreaming of larger projects for the future. First two photos are the best model and last to be made, 18 inches hull length carved out of jelutong. Very detailed, even the pulley blocks were carved out of small pieces of boxwood and the mast hoops for the mainsail were laminated from veneer. Gave that to my dad as thanks for all his support with boat building, education, etc. Then the clinker longboat, just 12 inches long with planks made from veneer over a simple mould, exactly how a full size boat would be built. Anyone following the YouTube channel 'The art of boat building' which is making the dinghy for Acorn to Arabella? Then a Pearling Lugger carved out of pine. About 30 inches long including the bowsprit. And finally the largest at 30 inches long and first one made. A schooner with the hull carved out of balsa wood and sheathed in fiberglass. That one sailed superbly in a reasonable breeze. Sadly it's sails and rigging were destroyed years ago by our cat! One of my retirement jobs is to get it re-rigged so it can be sailed again once my grand children are a bit older. Would very happily have full sized versions of the first two models. Andrew

Lovely looking boat. We went to see the Fife regatta in the Clyde last year and I came away dreaming of owning a traditional rigged boat. Very envious and looks like a nice sailing area. Andrew

Those are lovely looking wooden boats. Quite envious! I guess the annual maintenance takes quite a while? That’s partly why I sold mine. Have had a battered fibreglass 12 foot dinghy for the past 27 years which is practical for mackerel fishing and my two lobster pots. Pretty sure it’s a very early fibreglass dinghy from the 1960’s and solidly made, and has survived a lot of abuse since we bought it. Andrew

The design is a T24, by Robert Tucker who also designed the Silhouette and many other small ply cruisers for home building. The silhouette was on my short list, but I went for the T24 as it was a bit bigger at 25 feet. My plan was to build a boat and sail singlehanded across the Atlantic, hence the bigger boat. But in fact, I’m pretty sure several Silhouette’s have made trans Atlantic crossings. There was a real boom time for self building small boats in ply through the ‘50’s and 60’s. I bought the plans and started building in 1975. My dad and I had built a Mirror dinghy a few years earlier ( one of 10’s and 10’s of thousands self built in the UK) using the stitch and glue system and that was the inspiration for a bigger boat, longer trips, etc.etc. Andrew

I sailed thousands of miles in the boat, but sold her over 30 years ago as life was moving on from my schoolboy dreams about boat building and sailing, to being married, and starting a family. No regrets about that though and quite happy these days to be working in my workshop. Are you a boatbuilder as well? Photos below are the finished boat in 1988, plus a few of the building which I did between the ages of 16 to 18 in our back garden. She was a wooden boat, with ½” marine ply on mahogany, teak, pitch pine and keruing framing. Very supportive parents and I was fortunate that my dad had wanted to do the same at a similar age. I’d been given a workbench and a few tools at about 5 years of age, so by 16 was quite proficient at making stuff. But nevertheless, it was a massive undertaking working largely alone on such a big project. Longest trip on the boat was sailing round Britain aged 21, which took 2 months and singlehanded for 5 weeks of that with no self steering, radio, or much else, which was a great way to develop self reliance and seamanship. Three years on I sailed around the world on a larger boat. Then as I said, settled down to pursue other dreams. And still dreaming of other things to be doing involving making stuff with wood……. Thanks for your question which brought back great memories of those adventures many years ago. Andrew

All these posts about South American hardwoods reminded me of a couple I met about 35 years ago at Bunessan, SW Mull. My wife and I had just sailed around Skye in my self built 25 foot yacht. They were building a larger steel hulled yacht, and were planning to sail to S America with a chainsaw mill. Then earn enough to keep going by milling trees in the forests there. Often wondered how their dream progressed. Hope the boat isn’t still ashore, as sometimes happens with these projects. Andrew

Worth watching their short video about importing greenheart to the UK/Europe. Lengths available up to 24m, which is far too long for a container, so they charter an entire ship and fill the hold with milled greenheart! Andrew

Was hoping someone would answer this question as I’d also be interested. So in the meantime I’ll speculate / guess, and maybe someone who has a kiln will set me right. I suspect there isn’t a definitive single answer and type of kiln and future use of the timbers needs to be considered. Oak is particularly susceptible to surface checking right at the start of drying, so I’m guessing a steam kiln might be better than a dehumidifier kiln for green oak? Other drying defects such as case hardening and honeycombing due to drying too quickly are caused when the moisture content variation from the outside to the centre of timbers is too large. So the drying schedule needs to be regulated to control this variation which depends on timber species and thickness. So filling a kiln with a mix of species and / or timber sizes doesn’t work efficiently as the schedule needs to suit the ‘slowest’? I’ve no experience of using kilns. But that hasn’t stopped me milling and drying timbers for my own use for many years, mainly furniture making for centrally heated houses and have never had any problems. But it does take quite a long time, so I understand why this question was asked. I always air dry planks using the rule of a year per inch thickness, plus a year. Then I bring timbers into the workshop which I keep dry with a small domestic dehumidifier. After at least 6 months they are usually down to 10% moisture content or less and ready for use. From what I’ve read over the years, I gather that timbers dried slowly in the ‘traditional’ way are better to work with for furniture making. But I guess that with timbers for other types of project, the drying method and speed might be less of an issue? Flooring for instance? Andrew

In case of interest, I used to following advice about sticker sizes, spacing for different thickness and type of timber, etc. Andrew

I’ve always used 20 x 20 ripped on the table saw from 45 x 95 regularised timbers. Can get almost 40m from a 4.8m length which works out about 20p a metre. Also have a bundle of sticks sawn at 12mm thick by 20mm wide which I use for oak. Andrew

My limited experience of oak framing while working as a structural engineering designer, was the timbers were sourced and milled to order. Also, working green oak, cutting joints, etc. is so much easier than once it’s dry. But my work with oak framing was 15+ years ago, on medium and large sized projects and I dare say there is a lot more use nowadays on small projects, perhaps even just single timbers for lintels and visible beams to create a ‘feature’? So maybe there is a need for readily available stock sizes? A sawmiller who used to mill logs for me had experience of milling locally sourced logs for framing timbers to be used locally. I remember him talking about the timber grader being able to decide from looking at a log, which way the milled timbers would be inclined to bend. So, for a rectangular beam, the log could be turned so it would bend in the direction of the long side on the rectangle and the framer could turn it to bend upwards for instance, and reduce deflection in a beam due to the weight on it. Andrew

Thanks for all that. Surprised I've never heard of it being done, so I guess others might be interested too. I've been watching the Tally Ho project for years as well almost from the start. A real inspiration and great workmanship. Takes me back almost half a century to when I built a boat which led onto some great sailing adventures. Recently started to binge re-watching the videos from the start. Also following the Acorn to Arabella and Restoring Rosalind projects. All a bit different but all have used chainsaw mills at some point as a 'workshop tool' which is how mine gets used nowadays, re-sawing lumps of wood that are too big for the bandsaw. Andrew

Good point as they are re-sawing a dried piece of timber. Andrew

Just watched the latest Tally Ho boat building video and it includes a brief section about chainsaw milling purpleheart timber for the rudder. That's a really hard dense timber and they have a hose running, presumably for water cooling? Just wondered if others have seen this before and any thoughts about doing it. Skip to about 2 minutes 30 seconds in the video. Andrew

Just a few comments. I’d remove all the sapwood for external use, could be 2 inches or more, so that will quite significantly reduce the usable quantity of timber. I also seal the ends with PVA, but working outside, it’s almost inevitable that some dirt and grit will get stuck to the end. Having once quickly blunted /chipped a set of planer blades while machining some milled planks with sealed ends, I now cut off the ends before using them. Quite a costly and inconvenient error to make! The cladding planks I cut were for vertical cladding, hence the rectangular section, 20 x 100. No experience of feather edge boards, but I see online there is a range of widths and thicknesses available. Smallest was 150 by 16 tapering to 6. Largest we’re 200 by max 25. Not sure what factors to consider when selecting the cross section, but let us know if you find advice online. I wonder if they should be fitted with the heart side outside so as they dry and cup, they’ll not create a gap? Or maybe it should be the other way round or maybe doesn’t matter? I’d plan the milling cuts to suit the pith position, so that it can be excluded. I’d typically have sawcuts 2 inches above and below the pith, then split that plank along the pith. Or to reduce drying defects further, I’d remove 3 or 4 inches from the middle of that plank. Might seem wasteful, but that part if often poor quality and has shakes. For the sizes your proposing, you could have a much thicker slab through the pith which might be well off centre due to the tree leaning. Throughout it’s life? Re timing of milling, waiting a year or more shouldn’t matter, and milling in the autumn so that initial drying is over the winter is worth considering if your timescale allows that. Andrew

The pics reminded me of an oak tree offered by a tree surgeon from whom I’d previously bought good quality logs. The promise of a ‘nice large oak tree’ persuaded me to drive 40 miles each way to inspect it, but I was pretty disappointed and didn’t follow it up! Having said that, if it had been in my own garden or a neighbour’s, I’d have happily milled it for my own use on the basis there might be some good stuff and also a fair amount that ended up as firewood. So I hope you’re able to get something from it. This isn’t advice from a ‘pro’, but as they might reject the tree outright, and there hasn’t been a flurry of advice, an occasional miller’s approach might be what you’re looking for? So here goes. Hard to see from the photos, but I presume most of what can be seen and described as leaning, is actually the second length? What length is the 3 foot diameter section and is it the main butt below the second lengths? Assuming the main butt is a usable length, I’d start by cross cutting at the main junctions, bends, etc. to have shorter straighter lengths. Looks like several branches have been cut off at some point and based on my (limited) experience, this usually means at least localized rot inside, sometimes quite extensive. Were the branches mainly on one side? If so, one side may be clearer, with less knots and rot? But as its leaning, there is probably reaction wood which might cause more distortion during drying and in use, so possibly not suitable for fine furniture making. But sounds like you're looking at other uses? What type of cladding are you aiming for? Waney edged or straight planks? Attached photoes which were posted a few years ago are for straight larch cladding planks. I chainsaw milled several larch trees in a wood into 100mm thick slabs which could then be manhandled and taken to a sawmill for secondary milling into 20mm planks. Worked a treat! That approach would let you see if the timber is actually worth the secondary milling into thin planks. If after chainsaw milling it into slabs it doesn’t look that good, i.e. rot, knots, etc. at least the thick slabs might have a use as sleepers, posts or even split for firewood! Haven’t got my tables to hand but from memory 20mm oak would need stickers at about a foot spacing to minimize distortion if you were going to dry it before use. Would be good to see some photos of how this turns out. Andrew