# Cutting Season



## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

Okay, I have a question.

I'm quite new to milling lumber, I do so on a bandsaw.

I have an entire tree, that came down almost two years ago. It's Broadleaf Maple, _Acer macrophyllum_.

No steps were taken when it was felled, unfortunately, and this appears to have had two consequences. One is that there is a lot of checking on the ends-- it's all cut up into logs between five and about seven feet long.

The other is that all of it is heavily spalted. :clap:

Anyway, my question is this: we're in what for us (Seattle) is a fairly hard winter.

Should I wait for summer to cut this up?

What are the pros and cons either way?


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

I would mill it this spring personally.


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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

Thanks, Daren.

Where would you go for Basic Milling 101 information?

I don't even know what parts of the log I want-- I know I don't want the center of the log, but I don't know how to tell the wood I want from the wood I don't. (I don't know how *much* of the center I don't want.)

I'm tempted to just start cutting, and walk through it in two inch slices, but if there's information about the right way to do it, I'd like to read about it.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

With maple you want plain (flat) sawn lumber to get the most grain pattern. The spalting will show either way but qtr sawn maple is not as pretty as flat sawn. 

Here's a couple diagrams. This first shows a boule cut which will produce pairs book-matched flitches. The site I got this from said these boards would all be plain sawn but that is not correct. The closer to the pith you get the grain patter will turn to rift, then qtr sawn, then back into rift and then back into plain sawn boards again. It also said the stack of boards all together once sawn in this way is called a flitch, but that is also incorrect - each individual board is a flitch because it has one or more sides that still has bark. I need to email the guy and straighten him out. This is how to get the widest boards obviously. You can then edge each board and also edge the pith out to the degree you wish.











This pattern shows a method to get the maximum number of flat sawn boards and also isolate the pith. You can change the thicknesses and widths on this method to suit your log. Also, the four leg stocks are positioned correctly in this diagram - they will have two faces of qtr sawn opposites from each other & two faces of flat sawn opposite from each other, and will remain very stable taken from this position in the log. The log will tell you how to cut it once you get enough experience to start understanding the treenese language. 









That pattern does give a good general supply of furniture stock. And don't rule out using the pith center - sometimes it is well suited for a number on things especially if it's a tight, straight, centered pith. Speaking of which, make the pith at each end of the log is equidistant from your saw blade unless you have some dramatic taper, then split the difference and take it off the outside cuts of the log (slabs) in that case. 







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## Mizer (Mar 11, 2010)

That second pattern seems to be impossible to cut unless you set lumber aside and then put it back on the mill.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

You have a gift for understatement Brian. :laughing:

As a production sawyer you wouldn't ever be found using a time-consuming pattern like that. But it wouldn't take as long as it looks. After you make cut #3 you'd rotate 180 and make the next 3 cuts. I put the numbers upside-down purposefully since that's the way they'd be cut. 

After that you stand each section up and mill down, setting the center cluster aside for resaw - you only have two of those though. The rest is just flipping and milling downward. Not so bad really. Has the benefit of minimizing movement on warp-prone species and also gives a wider variety of lumber, and also allows you to isolate really figured areas. 

Not for high production though. :no:

















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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

Thanks, guys!

Don't know that I'm really high production-- I have two pickup loads of eight foot logs, and there has to be time between cuts for "now what?...", coffee drinkin' and nose pickin'.


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## pwoller (Dec 12, 2010)

I like sawing in the winter but thats because I use a chainsaw mill and it is alot of work and heat. But I will saw in anything under 90 degrees.


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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

Okay, next question. You lay out from the center, at both ends?


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## pwoller (Dec 12, 2010)

Check out this.

http://www.arboristsite.com/milling-saw-mills/

The stickys at the top should get you headed in the right direction. I like to mill with at least one other person so there is alot of time in between turns for nose picking and beer drinking, I mean coffee drinking.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Jammer, 

There's a million and one ways to take a log apart. I just gave a couple of examples. The first method, the boule is commonly used. I use it a lot on by box elder logs. The second method is not very common but it is just a general guideline - one which you can tailor to your own situation. But it has merit because it maximizes flat grain and also because of from where it takes the thicker stock out of the log as previously noted. 

Brian didn't like it because he is a production sawyer. In his shoes I wouldn't use the method either, but custom sawing and high production sawing ar night and day. Custom sawing is more than sawing someone else's logs to their specifications. It also entails sawing a log according to the specific use it will have, and also according to what the log gives you - that's what I meant by sawing the log "how it tells you to". 

If you saw your spalted maple logs using the boule method you won't get the same amount of pretty lumber as you would using methods which maximize the flat grain, such as the second method I showed for example. that's not to say qtr sawn maple can't be pretty. If it has curl or other such figure then yeah it can be pretty, but if you lay plain jane qtr sawn next to plain jane flat sawn maple I'll take the flat every time. Especially if it's spalted. JMO. 

I posted the two diagrams because of the one single statement you made: _I'm tempted to just start cutting, and walk through it in two inch slices,_. I didn't think it would be a good idea for you to do that with spalted maple, and was just trying to get you to put your thinking cap on and _get started thinking_, before you _got started cutting_. You may end up deciding to quarter saw all the logs. Nothing wrong with it if you do, as long as you know going in what you're options were. 





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## Jammer (Jul 15, 2009)

Well, again, I thank both of you.

I'm going to study the link pwoller gave me, and then I'll start thinking. 

Cuts to follow, along with pictures, but I have a small project first.

Several of the logs weigh more than two hundred pounds, and I'm old. I'll be damned if I'm going to lift them up to chest height, so I'm going to build a bandsaw stand and a slide (raceway? ramp? table? feed?) that's as close to the floor as I can get it. Mohammed, mountain and so on.

Study first, then building, then nose pickin' and coffee drinkin'.


Oh, and cutting.


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