tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post7255178866362523295..comments2023-11-05T06:16:56.961-05:00Comments on the Carpentry Way: Can't See the Forest for the Trees (II)Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14328401081765407624noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-7453595925707579312013-12-06T21:01:02.516-05:002013-12-06T21:01:02.516-05:00Yeah that's a big robusta board for sure. They...Yeah that's a big robusta board for sure. They get real big. Some on my road that are over 5' diameter. Really hard probably .85. Tenacious reversing grain. Takes a polish o.k. Also known as red gum, it's from the AU. Will leave gum corns on wooden plane block bottoms. I have to wipe the dai with oil alot when planing. Typically really unstable. Tress have huge piths 6" or more diameter so the bole needs to be really wide to get quatersawn boards. Flat sawn are just a mess when the get dried. Back in the day, they would let the log set for a couple years on the ground prior to milling, now it just get dropped , milled and stuffed in the kiln without even much AD. End checks over 12" are just considered acceptable loss. Quarter sawn boards will crook heavily, a 1x6x10 will often only yield 1x5x8 when processed and dried in that manner. The ropey curl in the ebay listing isn't uncommon . Most of what you see is quater sawn ribbon stripe. Starts out a deep red color for old growth robusta, like a jatoba. Younger trees are more pale like pink. The old growth fades to a nice brown after a while in use like on a threshold covered but gets some partial sun. So cabinets will probably change a bit over time. Good for exposed places. Can take ground contact and the fromosian termites don't put it on top of their lunch list. They will eat it if that's the only thing around. At one mill site there was a bench with robusta legs and a fir top. The mud trail from the termites went from the ground and up along the robusta leg to get to the nice soft new growth fir top. Robusta has been used a little bit for some post and beam homes here but PT fir is more widely used for that. I am building my vanity from robusta currently, I have some of that curly figure for the door panels. I like"swamp mahogany " over "robusta" for some reason. Red gum even sounds better. The latin names never held much romanticism for me.<br />Robusta at the mill is about $2.50 green rough dimension.Dried and rough planed to 15/16"x random widths and lengths are about $4.40 most days. It's one of those woods where it's probably cheaper to buy it at the mill instead of buying a log and processing it yourself. I think the mills get much of it for free from tree cutters, private and state. There are plenty of good places to use it on a house of other building projects.<br /> If you need some...... matsukazehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06817526163910833093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-9430542509234140802013-12-06T16:12:05.961-05:002013-12-06T16:12:05.961-05:00Correy,
did you by any chance check into that guy...Correy,<br /><br />did you by any chance check into that guy who is based in Hawaii and has an enormous clear board of Eucalyptus robusta for sale on Ebay?<br /><br />In case you hadn't come across it:<br /><br />http://www.ebay.com/itm/HOLIDAY-SPECTACULAR-SALE-MOST-BEAUTIFUL-SLAB-ON-EBAY-I-do-NOT-want-to-sell-/111229628055<br /><br />No idea about the working characteristics of that wood, but it looks like a nice slab.<br /><br />~C<br /><br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14328401081765407624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-8840724511539287552013-12-06T13:14:11.709-05:002013-12-06T13:14:11.709-05:00Thanks Chris, Hardly an expert . The industry is s...Thanks Chris, Hardly an expert . The industry is so juxtaposed to what a small woodworking outfit might think the proper way of processing wood should be. I could never find wide boards, poeple do "not want to lift them" no one has the means to process them or much over 12" wide. Drying was a big issue, and I was tired of buying wood with tension set and uneven drying. Not to mention it is harder to go looking for wood for a project than wood telling you to make something with it. I just spent 6 month looking for two 19x120" boards for a project. To do nice work you can not wait for the project and then search for the wood. You need that inventory of material on hand to look thru. Theres no 銘木店 in my area LOL. I enjoy the lumbering, I find wood that I wouldn't otherwise. Wood is like $ it needs to flow. I think it is good to process your own material . You get the best sell the rest, meet all sorts of nice people into woodworking. It's all good.matsukazehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06817526163910833093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-32116548352647606432013-12-05T14:33:12.592-05:002013-12-05T14:33:12.592-05:00Correy,
thanks for sharing your expertise - it so...Correy,<br /><br />thanks for sharing your expertise - it sounds like you've been doing a fair amount of milling yourself.<br /><br />~CAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14328401081765407624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-39874820641720011732013-12-05T14:28:34.797-05:002013-12-05T14:28:34.797-05:00The three main log scales used in the U.S. is Doyl...The three main log scales used in the U.S. is Doyle, Scribner and International. You always measure length and diameter of the small end. If the log is 30" at the butte and 24" at the top, you measure inside the bark on the small end and this is your number you work with. You need to cut the "conical" shaped log into a cant or cants, four sided sticks, that work on the mill. So the flare at the butte is taken off in triangular pieces that will usually just be waste, depending on size and all. The pith may or may not all be waste an the size of the pith can be quite large in some trees/specie. So some types we deduct for pith as well.<br /><br /> Doyle is used for hard cut logs, logs that need much chainsaw work to fit on the mill, defects to cut out or around , just plain pain in the butte log. The Doyle scale will show a few BFT less that the other to compensate for the added labor expense. Of course what you describe in the post is mostly straight soft wood specie scaling. Also scaling and grading are two separate functions. You grade the log to get the scale. International will yield the most bft and might just be called international because it will be used internationally.... Scribner is kinda in the middle. This is used for big straight easy cut logs. Cutting POC cants in to dimension lumber I did 800bft in three hours, mango three hours gets me250bft some days some days less :^(. I had a 24x160 Koa log that was pretty straight and yeilded 25% over scale giving 250bft in two hours. So each individual logs will give drastically differing results. What else could you expect from nature eh?<br />For logs of only 100~150 bft there is only about 5 bft or so difference between the three. deducting for wane and other defect is the real area of expertise as this is where you can get burned if you do not deduct correctly for the defect. Any log with any wind or bend will either be on the Doyle scale or counted as two shorter logs depending on the value of the material. Shorts not being worth much unless they are of an expensive hardwood specie. i.e. Curly Koa which holds it's value down thru 2 and 3 foot lengths which is way under grade for select, walnut allowing the most defect in the US right now for a select board, only needing one face good. I use Doyle most as most of the tropical trees are hard cut logs, bendy, twisty, a ten foot log often comes down to 3- 36" logs. Still good furniture and cabinetmaker stock.<br />It can be very difficult to determine where to begin busting a log into cants. The pith very commonly can be to one side of the log, diagonal thru it, or bend thru it. It's a crap shoot. You end up with loads of waste when you start trying to cut boards with grain parallel to edge when the pith runs diagonal thru the stick. Beautiful long straight log may have that diagonal pith running and all the lumber comes out with a slope grain whether it be to the face or the edge. You won't know if the tree is still standing but obvious after you drop it. Not good choices for a furniture shop but if it were a N. American softwood bound for the construction industry then all the material is milled over sized to compensate for defect as per International building codes. Allowing the industry as a whole to conduct businesses as usual instead of grading each individual 2x4 and 4x6 for strength and grading each for differing uses. i.e. load bearing,post, fencing,pallets etc....<br /> I have never met anyone in the US that does not use one of the three scales above. The one of the things I have learned thru milling logs to lumber is you can never judge a stick of lumber unless you were the guy at the mill working the controls and squaring the log for cutting.<br />Good wood cost alot of $$. The process to get tree to board is a lot of sweat and hard work. The very best select is often a small portion of a tree. The really amazing wood is even a smaller percentage , that material never makes the market. This is why it is necessary to mill your own logs if you want unique or high quality material.<br />matsukazehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06817526163910833093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-35926249148172871142013-12-04T17:48:26.360-05:002013-12-04T17:48:26.360-05:00Mike,
thanks - good to see you comment. It's ...Mike,<br /><br />thanks - good to see you comment. It's curious to me that they would still be sourcing 'mast wood' in WWII, when the wooden ship era was all but over. Perhaps that wood went into something else besides 'masts'.?<br /><br />~CAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14328401081765407624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-89581928121071697272013-12-04T17:47:11.518-05:002013-12-04T17:47:11.518-05:00Andy,
thanks for the comment and the link. I see ...Andy,<br /><br />thanks for the comment and the link. I see that Oregon uses the Scribner board foot system - a member of what's called a 'diagram log rule' type of system. Anytime you see systems based on board feet conversion you are seeing a system where the object is cutting 1" lumber. These systems, board foot log rule, Doyle rule, and diagram log rule, have their own particular assumptions- the log is a perfect cylinder, the boards are sliced at 1" thick, the sawkerf is a generous 1/4", and lumber widths are the standard 4,6,8... inches. Taper is ignored or crudely dealt with. The most common form of Scribner used in Oregon, is the Scribner Decimal C, which simply means that volumes are rounded to the nearest 10 board feet. The matter of overrun - - this is often used as a managerial tool, from what I understand, to monitor mill efficiency, however it can be manipulated by a shrewd operator, covering up real inefficiencies by creaming the most advantageous logs. You're certainly going to lose a lot of wood from butt logs and highly tapered logs.<br /><br />More to the point though, by assuming a log is a cylinder and treating the taper as overrun, people will saw a log in a way which does not yield best fiber quality, as I will take up in the next post in this series.<br /><br />~CAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14328401081765407624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-89506618086795653112013-12-04T10:11:00.445-05:002013-12-04T10:11:00.445-05:00In my father's papers, I found a description o...In my father's papers, I found a description of a logging operation during WWII. Part of the description included complaints about how some white oak logs were set aside as "mast wood" - 3+ logs long and paid for by the Navy based on the diameter at the top. The W.Va. locals were not amused - except for watching the loggers trying to move those pieces out of the mountains.<br /><br />Regards,<br />MikeMike Hamiltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00802744346399727402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261993076995357307.post-66481882153029493592013-12-04T01:08:24.180-05:002013-12-04T01:08:24.180-05:00In Oregon, the log is assumed to be a cylinder bas...In Oregon, the log is assumed to be a cylinder based on the small end of the log and the excess is called "overrun" which the mill gets. I thinned my forest and sold logs from my property. After cutting, trucking and the low price the mill was paying, I got very little. If I ever did it again, I would have the logs milled into lumber on site and use or sell the lumber.<br />'http://nnrg.org/files/pubs-and-resources/measuring_timber_products.pdfAndyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10394365117138074832noreply@blogger.com