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.
I think the guide is giving about 16" of clearance in this picture.
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.
I put the fence on the saw to give it about a 1" cut.
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.
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.
Kirk