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Favor for a friend

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Favor for a friend

Postby kirkpoore1 » 23 Apr 2017, 19:03

A friend called me up and asked if I could saw up a log for him. It was from tree in his front yard, a Bradford pear. These are ornamental trees that grow fast but only live for about 10-15 years before they start getting ripped apart by wind. Anyway, he cut down this tree and wanted to slab it to make a present for his wife. I told him that we'd give it a try, so this morning he brought it over.

The log was a little under 4' long, and 11" across at the bottom. The top was cut off where the limbs were branching out. I changed my bandsaw to my usual firewood cutting blade, and decided we'd cut the widest branches off and then flatten one side to get a smooth surface to put it through the saw.

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I think the guide is giving about 16" of clearance in this picture.

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After sawing off one limb, we used that for a flat and cut off a second side. This one we took to the jointer and flattened so that the log wouldn't rock when I pushed it through the saw.

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I put the fence on the saw to give it about a 1" cut.

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After cutting the third edge off, I found that the blade was simply too dull. We had to stop and pull out--you can see the cut at the bottom. I switched to a backup blade that I'd used before and we started again.

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And here we go, 5 slabs between 1" and 1-1/4" thick, ready for drying. It only took about 10 minutes after changing to the sharp blade.

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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby ScotlandtheDave » 23 Apr 2017, 19:27

Serious hardware! Great to see, I'd love to be able to turn logs into usable timber like that.

How will your friend dry these to avoid warping and cracking?
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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Mike G » 23 Apr 2017, 21:25

Yeah, that would either push my bandsaw over, or crush it!

I'd take it to me mate who has a Wood Mizer and a 3 foot dia circular saw.
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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Rod » 24 Apr 2017, 02:15

That's a nice favour.
The tree doesn't get a very nice write up. Did the wood smell?

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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Andyp » 24 Apr 2017, 06:27

Nice one Kirk, Satisying, isn't it, to take a log and turn it into usuable timber. I have only done it on a mush smaller scale. What do you do to stop the bugs getting under the bark? Strip it off or treat it?
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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Woodbloke » 24 Apr 2017, 08:43

I've done that once with a wet log of Holly. The big problem I found was that wet sawdust became compacted on the wheels under the blade which had a tendency to then throw it of. I needed to stop every few seconds and clean off the mess with a screwdriver before I could start cutting again and even then I seem to remember that I broke a blade :evil:
It's a nice idea (or so I thought at the time) but not one I'm going to repeat any time soon - Rob
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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby kirkpoore1 » 25 Apr 2017, 03:20

The tree has only been down about 3 weeks, so no bugs under the bark. I had to take the dust collection off of the saw because the wide blade was rubbing on the DC box under the table. It make a pretty good pile of sawdust. Nothing stuck to the wheels, though. The blade on this saw is traveling somewhere over 4000 feet per minute, so a lot faster than smaller saws. I think that helps throw the dust out and not much gets trapped on the lower wheel. I also have a brush mounted under the table to clean the lower wheel.

I expect the wood to warp like crazy. I told him to sticker it and stack as much weight as will fit, and let it sit for a year. He'll probably bring it back over here and we'll run it over the jointer again, then plane it down to half an inch, and he'll get a couple of nice boxes out of it.

Mike, the saw is a 30" one, and weighs a good 1500 lbs. It was build around 1915 +/- a little bit, so I think it's just into it's second century. :) I could have taken it to a friend's place and stacked it with his logs. He brings a Woodmizer in 3 or 4 times a year and saws, then air or kiln dries the boards and sells them. But this was really small scale much more fun.

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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Rod » 25 Apr 2017, 10:08

Many years ago I made the beginners mistake of trying to cut a round chunk of tree on a Bandsaw without proper support. A true brown trouser moment!
I now have a sledge for that process but it doesn't get used that much.

Kirk - I looked up that tree but couldn't find out how it got the name Bradford ( the name of a city next to my city Leeds).

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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby Andyp » 25 Apr 2017, 15:09

Kirk, I was more concerned about bugs and beetles getting under the bark of the planked timber. My own very limited experience with an apple log was that after 2 years of drying the only bits that had any worm damage were those that had a small amount of bark left on after planking.
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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby kirkpoore1 » 26 Apr 2017, 04:54

Andyp wrote:Kirk, I was more concerned about bugs and beetles getting under the bark of the planked timber. My own very limited experience with an apple log was that after 2 years of drying the only bits that had any worm damage were those that had a small amount of bark left on after planking.


Andy:
For this species, I don't know. When I've bought wood with bark on the edge, iqt usually peels off with a little encouracement after a month or so of drying.

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Re: Favor for a friend

Postby kirkpoore1 » 26 Apr 2017, 05:04

Rod wrote:Many years ago I made the beginners mistake of trying to cut a round chunk of tree on a Bandsaw without proper support. A true brown trouser moment!
I now have a sledge for that process but it doesn't get used that much.

Kirk - I looked up that tree but couldn't find out how it got the name Bradford ( the name of a city next to my city Leeds).

Rod

Rod, the branches kept it stable for the first couple of cuts. After that, the flats did the same job. We did have to wedge each cut to keep the blade from being pinched.

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