Our First Tree
After getting my Alaskan Sawmill, and a giant chainsaw to use in it, I mentioned offhand to Daven at Wilwood Green Arts (the awesome crafting space where we lease our shop) how I wanted to get some logs to mill up and use in my woodworking. A few weeks later, around 8 in the morning, I get a phone call… “want 2 trees?” Huh? Oh. It turned out he was friends with someone who ran a tree service, and they were cutting down 2 very large ash trees from a yard that had become a hazard to the home and the nearby power lines. After going onsite, speaking with the owner of the tree service, and coming to arrangements… it was now just a matter of time (and figuring out some way to move them).
My first plan… lets just mill them right here, then all we have to do is move the boards we cut. That’s what a portable sawmill is all about, right!? Wrong. Well… it is, but there are a lot of factors that come into play there.
One… the saw is VERY loud and this was a residential neighborhood. They’re fairly tolerant of chainsaw noise as a tree is being cut down (necessary evil), but all day long constant saw noise from milling… an entirely different story.
Two… things break down. That’s a lot of work on a saw/chain, milling a single large log often results in at least 3-4 chain swaps just to keep things sharp while you work (ideally with a helper sharpening the dull ones as you go to keep things fresh). Beyond that, there’s the fuel, bar oil, etc… all which have to be carried with you. These were pretty massive trees, meaning a lot of logs and a lot of cutting.
Three… time. I was just starting out with this mill, had no real practice, it was taking about 30 minutes per cut to get these cut down. 6-8 cuts per log, and over a dozen six foot long logs, these homeowners weren’t going to be ok with me camping in their yard making the already messy sawdust pile even bigger for that long.
What to do? U-Haul to the rescue… and a guy with a bobcat. For the smaller and rotted stuff, the tree company had already contacted a guy to come with a bobcat and haul it away, so I worked out a side deal with him to also use his equipment to load the big logs up on a rented U-Haul trailer and brought them back to the shop to work. And, we’re still working on them. Honestly, it’s best to go ahead and leave them in logs for a while if you have the space (and we barely do) to do so. They dry better that way, with less checking/cracking/warping. So that’s what we did (mostly)… but now it’s time! We’ve been milling these, moving them into the drying kiln, and they’re all down to a beautiful 5-6% moisture and ready to be turned into the live edge table of your dreams! Be sure and check out our shop for what we have in stock, or reach out to us directly to help design the custom heirloom table of your dreams!
Four… Ants live in trees… SO MANY ANTS. The entire neighborhood got quite the laugh as I danced around in that yard trying to get them out of my clothes without stripping down to nothing.