Having your wood and milling it too..
unTreatedwood
| Posted in General Discussion on
Our church is going to begin clearing close to 50 acres of oak, maple, ash and poplar in E. Pa. Question from one of the leaders: can we log, rough cut and dry our own oak to be used in the church later on in the flooring? One of our guys has an industrial, 4-blade shaper, (big son of a gun), and can mill the stock in one pass, quickly, when the time comes. We won’t need it for 2-3 years as it now stands now, however.
How do I find a kiln-drying situation if this will work? (and I don’t know why it wouldn’t). Any ideas from those of you near East PA (I-80)?? thanks.
“The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program” -Ronald Reagan
Replies
I have approximately 1000 bf of ash, hickory and red oak stacked and stickered from clearing part my lot several years ago. After cutting the logs I hire a guy with a portable band saw mill to cut it all to 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4 thicknesses. It has been under cover and air drying for a couple of years now and the lowest mc I am getting is in the 12 to 14% range. I stacked some of it in my heated shop this winter and got it down to 8-9%.
Clearing that land means heavey equipment, and lots of work to harvest the logs out of the trees as they are pushed over. I did that with only two people trying to keep up with two pieces of equipment and it was scarey. Everyone has to be on the same page when you have trees coming down and chainsaws running. I managed to get about 60 worthwhile logs out of roughly two acres cleared. Since I knew I wasn't going to have the rough sawn for a while I stacked them on sacrificial logs to keep them off the ground and sealed the butt ends of each saved log. I also kept them as long as possible inoder to be able to cut the checked ends off just prior to running them through the bandsaw mill.
I am also going to build a solar kilm to shorten the final drying time of the rough sawn lumber, and gain better control of the final mc. Check http://www.woodweb.com and do an addition web search on solar kilns.
The industrial shaper is tarrific, but you need to have the rough sawn lumber dressed all four side before it goes through the shaper. That means edge jonted and thicknes planed. A decent dust collection system is a must for those operations, so add it to the list "gotta haves" for the project.
I think it all can be done, and commend you for wanting to put the harvested hardwood from your site back into the project. I not sure you really saves any money by doing it, but it is "green" building, and sure beats seeing it go to a land fill, fire wood, or just up in smoke on a burn pile.
Run your question by the guys over at Knots (click on it at the top of the page).
Dave
thanks for your feedback...great info. I'll pass it on to the "powers to be". In this case the building committee!!"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program" -Ronald Reagan
hadn't thought about the dust issue...hope the guy with the shaper can cope with that! thanks."The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program" -Ronald Reagan
hiring a band mill owner to come pick up the logs, cut them, kiln them, and you get all the rough cut ungraded stock, you can certainly do, and cheaply. Now I have zero idea what mill owners in your neck of the woods charge for that, but its a cost savings no matter which way you cut it. Here its about 50 cents a board foot if you're getting into any kind of quantity.
Just expect fine print - who knows whats in the logs. you buy every blade that hits a piece of metal and snaps. And if the mill owner has a kiln at least try to discern whether or not he has a clue what he's doing. Getting all that stuff delivered but case hardened would sure ruin your day.
"Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think -- there are no little things" - Bruce Barton
That's what we need to find out. You're right on track with what we have in mind. Kiln dryer is a must.
thanks.
"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program" -Ronald Reagan
How big are the trees?
Most of the trees are similar in size ranging from18" to approx 3-4' in diameter, with the average in the 3' range. Trees don't get much larger in diameter due to the rocky nature of the terrain. As to height, probably around 50-80', but that is an uneducated guess."The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program" -Ronald Reagan
"8" to approx 3-4' in diameter, with the average in the 3' range. Trees don't get much larger in diameter due to the rocky nature of the terrain."No, they will get MUCH larger, but you might have to wait a couple life times for them to. U should see pics. of timber logged off Mtns. of VA.....some 6' DBH. & some more. Dont find em any more tho. takes too long for them to grow, not economical.
sorry...I wasn't very clear.. I meant in our area..they don't get much bigger."The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a governmental program" -Ronald Reagan
I worked for a builder once that when clearing land for lots he would save the oak and have it milled into mouldings of his choice.
His kids said that they didn't think that they were saving all that much money over buying the stuff but they were saving the trees from the landfill.
I think from your parishners point of view this would be a good thing because you'd have the pride in having cleared the logs, milling them and making flooring or other things for the church.
I've air dried a lot of wood, currently have about 2500 bd ft of walnut stickered, but given the circumstances if I were you guys I'd opt for finding a kiln and getting the MC down quicker/lower.
Doug
You probably could sell the logs.
blue