# Back to Sweet gum



## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

I guess I now understand why not many people mess with sweet gum. The thick slabs I cut all have deep surface cracks on the face of the boards only a day later. And they're not radiating from the ends. Is this common for sweet gum? Oh Well, I got a little more firewood.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Sounds pretty standard for Sweetgum. If you let it lay in the sun even for only a few hours before you put it in the shade, it sets the tone for the experience to come. But even under the best of circumstances it moves, and them moves some more. I coat all faces with Sweetgum just like I do Flame Boxelder. 

It has interlocking grain, shrinks like a wet sponge tossed on a hot road, and will twist, cup, crook, bow, and warp like a potato thin turning into a potato chip in a hot oven. Other than that it's a very stable wood. :icon_rolleyes:

I don't seem to have the same degree of warpage down here as what I hear other sawyers exclaim don't know why that is. Sweetgum spalts well, has beautiful grain, and if you can acceot the fact that it will incur 20% to 30% more loss than most other species you can learn to live with it. 

Spalted Sweetgum is g - o - r - g - e - o - u - s. Worth the effort IMO even unspalted. If you fall only trees that are near-perfectly straight, you'll go a long way in avoiding stress relief when milling and drying. Avoid trees that are real limb-heavy on one side. When the individual fibers of that interlocking grain form around each other it is inherently stressful (unstable), but when you add lean, curve, or crotch wood to the equation it's going to go bonkers when you mill it, and when it dries. 


It's all just part and parcel with the species. Embrace it, or walk on past to another species and let it keep making those pretty little prickly balls year after year.


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## djg (Dec 24, 2009)

Yes it was quite disappointing. It was a 6' x 24" dia. yard tree. One side appeared to be free of surface defects. I was hoping to get a slab big enough to get 6" x 14" bowl blanks from it. I guess I should have cut the blanks and sealed them as soon as I got home, but I was so dog tired from butchering the log with a chain saw mill. That was the only option I had. At one time I was considering upgrading to an Alaska saw mill, like frankp is, but that idea is quickly dashed. The ads make it sound so glamorous "make your own lumber" etc, but it's not for me. No disrespect, frankp, but maybe you're younger than me. I did an ash log about the same size last year; I guess I forgot how had it was to pull a saw through a log. And I was well aware of you guys with band mills opinion on CSMs, but I guess I lose it once a year and have to do something 'less than smart - i.e. stupid'. If I ever run into another 'furniture grade' yard tree, I'll buck it to a manageable length, CSM it half, and then load each half onto my tilt trailer with rollers etc. The I'll take it somewhere and let someone else do the work. Enough of my ramblings.
P.S. maybe I'll still be able to salvage some smaller blanks from the sweet gum.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Yes you'll definitely get some useable lumber/blanks from it . . . I would be shocked if you didn't. I hear the discouragement in your "voice" and understand it. So I'm not trying to talk you out of anything but you reminded me of something I have been meaning to bring back up and keep forgetting. 

This is for Frank and you and anyone else on our forum who is interested in CSMing. I bought this book several years ago to learn as much as I could about CSMing and anyone who is getting into it, well it is the bible of CSM IMO. In fact that image is my book, since Amazon didn't have an image I uploaded for peeps down the road, but I digress. I'm good at that. 

Anyway, it's expensive because it's long out of print, and right now the lowest price is ~$84 up to ~$160. I think I paid ~$65 but can't remember now. I could dig through my past posts here to find out but it's irrelevant what I paid I guess. If you're going to get into milling it's worth even the $160 IMO. I know that sounds ridiculous but just one of several key chapters in the book will save you that much time and money and headache in one day. 

So I bring all this up to tell you fellers that it has a couple of chapters illustrating in minute detail how to build his CSM and I mean he shows and tells right down to the last nut and washer. Nothing is left to chance it's all there. What's really cool about it, is his winch system. You never break a sweat using his design. Not milling anyway, the hardest part would be lifting the slabs off the log but AFA milling, like Donny Bracso says _fuh-gidda abowwdit_. 

Since all the books for sale are used, and new ones cannot be purchased, Mr. Malloff does not receive any commission from any of these sales. With that in mind, although I wouldn't want to copy the whole book, any of you wanna-be CSMers that would like the 2 or 3 relevant chapters of this book to build your own mill from scratch, I will have Mrs. TT scan the pages in and email them to you. I make this offer only to those who are long time members here already, and who know they would seriously consider building it. I will also include the chapter on chain modification as it is indispensable. 

If you are reading this and ended up here from a search engine please don't ask for the chapters this is offered only to current members of WWT. I would add that I have seen times when there were no books available. I think what happens is people buy them, copy them, and put the original back on the market. I ain't letting mine go though. :no: Furthermore I think if some of you get the 3 chapters from me you'll end up wanting to buy a copy for your own anyway but at least this way you can get a free peek without spending the coin. Either way you can always get your money back - those books will set there for a few months or so and all the sudden they are all gone within a matter of months or weeks sometimes.


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