# Need wind stressed tree explained.



## ironhead (Dec 20, 2008)

I had a shell bark hickory fall from hurricane ike last sept and I am wanting to take it to a buddies to have it sawed and possible some of it milled. I am wanting to use it for numerous interior trim projects and may leave it rough cut to fit into the look we want inside our home. Anyway, have seen a few references to sawyers that are knowledgeable on wind stressed tree in this thread http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f26/timber-drying-2809/
its near the bottom and also referrences quarter sawing. This tree hit the ground because of wind. 

What will the effects be on it if the guy that saws it up for me isn't as knowledgeable as he should be? 

What precautions should I take to keep the boards straight whiole air drying, only method available to me at present.
Will post pic of tree when wife gets home with camera.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Hickory will generally show its best face flat sawn. Doesn't mean it will be ugly quarter sawn though. You are going to get a mix of flat, rift, and quarter sawn wood from a log but a sawyer can maximize the log to one particular pattern if you have a preference. 

There are a lot of variables on this. We need pictures but just shooting from the hip I'd say the log probably has shake. Wind shake is a defect which will make for a lot of waste. I have some large white oak sawlogs out there from a tree I felled that is just a beauty, but much of it has shake. I have milled 3 of the sawlogs so far and I have to flip them this way and that to "cut out" as much of it as I can. I have to cut the rest out as I resaw it in the shop.

I'd say just saw a boule out of it, sticker it back together like it came apart and band it. Tighten the bands every week or so at first you will have to tighten them pretty regularly and less often as you drop below 20%MC

I have half a dozen box elder boules drying this way. Sam Maloof was fond of boule cutting. If it's good enough for Sam it's good enough for me.

If your log has a lot of stress that isn't apparent to the eye an experienced sawyer will be able to advise you how to take the log apart, as it is being milled. If there is a lot of stress in it, boule cutting may not be the way to go. 

He can tell you that often before it is milled too. If the grain has a "twist" pattern in it for example, it is going to do acrobatics as it's coming apart. If it has wind shake, it's sort of catch as catch can depending on how bad. If it has stress from growing crooked or bent at a certain point, that stress will really be dramatic sometimes. 

Some boards will continue to release stress even after kiln dried and put into service. that's not as common but it happens. 

Photos would really help though.


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## Kirk Allen (Nov 7, 2006)

ironhead said:


> This tree hit the ground because of wind.
> 
> What will the effects be on it if the guy that saws it up for me isn't as knowledgeable as he should be?
> 
> What precautions should I take to keep the boards straight whiole air drying, only method available to me at present.


Did the root ball come with the tree or did it snap the tree? If the root ball came with it then chances are good you wont have any wind shake as Hickory is pretty tuff stuff. 

The effects on it if the sawyer doesnt know what he is doing can be scary in some cases. I cut Hickory oversize as it tends to end check bad on stuff 4/4 or less. Seal the ends with three coats of log sealer to mimimize loss to checking. 

Air dry it with stickers every 18" and either put lots of weight on top or strap it down as TT memtioned.


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

I think TT and Kirk answered most of your sawing questions. I just happen to have a "wind shake" walnut laying in the yard. I wish I had a better picture of the end of a shake log. This one has been painted with several coats (something you should do to protect them from end check). But you can still see the ring separation the wind damage caused. The end of this log was literally covered with cracks like this, looked like a broken mirror. I knew it would not mill out anything, but it was someone else's and they wanted me to try anyway. I made one cut to prove to them it was firewood.

In the picture of the grain you can see how the wind (tornado in this case) tore the tree apart on the inside by shaking it back and forth. The outside of the log looks undamaged. But when I saw the ends, both of them cracked to pieces I knew it was a goner.

The pictures aren't so hot I had to scrape snow off the log to take them just now. When the log is dry the cracks in the grain really show up.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Ironhead I haven't cut as much hickory and pecan as Daren and Kirk so I may be wrong on the likelihood of shake in that species. I have cut trailer load after trailer load of walnut though and those pictures Daren posted are all too common in the walnut I harvest. I bet 30% of the walnut I fell in this one particular tract have shake. 

I always loathe that first glance at the end grain when I fell one, because you can see it right off clear as day when they have it. Although on very large trees, sometimes the shake is not so prevelant in the butt log but is present in the tops sawlogs. 

Trees are like women, you think you know them and then . . . . . . . never mind Mrs. Texas Timbers reads this forum.  :laughing:


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## ironhead (Dec 20, 2008)

TexasTimbers said:


> I'd say just saw a boule out of it, sticker it back together like it came apart and band it. Tighten the bands every week or so at first you will have to tighten them pretty regularly and less often as you drop below 20%MC
> 
> 
> Photos would really help though.


Thanks Daren, Kirk, and TT here are the pics. This tree was approx 75 feet tall and it has been pushed around some with a backhoe. It fell on top of one of my daughters cars. That sucked. 
TT you have me at a loss with the quote up there. Could you elaborate on it for me please?
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I put my hat in this one for a size referrence
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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

At first blush I thought "Hmm not going to get much useable wood from that." But as I looked more I figure you will get more than what the pictures show, as long as the middle upper sawlogs are not rotten inside and they shouldn't be. 

The tree wasn't healthy to begin with though which is why it toppled. Looks like it had a low crotch, and one that never grew together totally, or else was struck by lightning some years ago and the crotch began to rot inside. 

Those solid-looking sawlogs that are above the rot/splits/ etc. aren't going to be very large, but if you find a local sawyer willing to cut them you'll get some wood from them. 

Most of us here on WWingtalk like "defects" in our logs like knots crotches etc because most of us don't saw just for grade. I don't saw for grade at all anymore unless you put a gun to my head. Your log has some issues but you should get some nasty wood out of it. Nasty is good. :yes:

On your log I would just have your sawyer knock the slabs off and get as much dimensioned wood from it as he can. Flat saw it. Cut it thicker than you want for final stock like Kirk says. 1/4" over prolly is cool. I reiterate what has also been said seal it REAL well because it does check bad. For my Pecan slabs (pecan is one of four true hickories they essentially act the same drying) I always go back the next day or two and put a second coat of wax on the ends. I also coat the crotch areas and anywhere the grain is not just nice and tight. 

On the boule question I will try and scrounge up a working camera and post a stickered and strapped boule or two. You can weigh down boules if you don't want to keep the top slab and first couple boards with it, but I like to keep the entire log intact so I always have to go the band or strap route on boules.


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## Daren (Oct 14, 2006)

TexasTimbers said:


> On the boule question I will try and scrounge up a working camera and post a stickered and strapped boule or two. You can weigh down boules if you don't want to keep the top slab and first couple boards with it, but I like to keep the entire log intact so I always have to go the band or strap route on boules.


I found one of my own here on the forum. It is just some limb wood, but it is sawn through and through and saved in the order it came apart. Milling like this makes for very interesting book matched sets. I recently reread George Nakashimas book "Soul of a tree" and he too was a fan of sawing and keeping the lumber like this. I rip off his style when I can...I am just lucky enough to have a mill to make my lumber any way I want. Some I grade saw, some 1/4 saw and some flitch saw like this.

You may find this thread interesting in more ways than one. First the picture below is from it and it morphs into discussion of 1/4 sawing and other stuff. http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f2/business-question-buying-lumber-4709/

This thread has the very same pieces of walnut limb lumber boule stacked that I made into something bookmatched (a table) It starts 1/2 way down the page and continues to the next. http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f13/gonna-have-make-another-6982/


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## dirtclod (May 7, 2008)

When I see a hickory like that I think firewood. Most often hickory will have a fairly straight trunk and upright form - even when grown in the open. Hickory is known for interlocking grain and there's typically more interlocking grain in open-grown hickory vs crowded hickory. More interlocking grain can also be found around knots and limbs. Interlocking grain causes a lot of drying problems. It can still be done, but expect more problems.

A second is stress wood. This is found in hardwood trees that have more weight on one side than the other. Trees that lean, or have more limb weight on one side than the other like your split trunk, compensate for the imbalance by tightening the stress in the grain on the top side. As you saw boards off you'll see crook, twist and bow...sometimes all in the same board. Id'ing the stress orientation before opening the first face (subjective) can allow you to control which defect (crook or bow) the boards will exhibit.

Hickory is difficult to begin with. Your's probably has both stress wood and heavy interlocking grain. It's probably going to give you problems. But, this being an infinitely variable material, it supprises me how some that should behave themselves don't, and sure failures sometimes turn into winners.


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## TexasTimbers (Oct 17, 2006)

Daren said:


> . . . I recently reread George Nakashimas book "Soul of a tree" and he too was a fan of sawing and keeping the lumber like this.


I read from it almost every morning. So does Terry. We have our copy in the "throne rack". :icon_cheesygrin:




dirtclod said:


> When I see a hickory like that I think firewood.


I agree, but am trying to think of it from his viewpoint. Before I had a mill, when I first started looking at trees with an eye to take it down to the local mill, I was happy with anything I could bring back. I took some lousy logs down there but he was happy to mill them, and I was tickled to death to come back to the shop with more "free" project wood. 

I wouldn't look twice at a tree like that now, but back then, I would drool over it if it was free for the taking.


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## dirtclod (May 7, 2008)

Hey, I still drool over a hickory tree like that just for the firewood. :brows:

Like you, I used to be happy taking limb wood to the mill. But I hate milling something like that for a customer and seeing it go crazy. :blush: Seems no matter how I polish my after-the-fact explanation, it comes off more along the line of making excuses and transfering blame. :shifty: Sometimes I can spot them before I put them on the mill and can tell them what to expect. Others get by me. But if the customer's happy with it, I'm happy with it. :yes:

We used to take our stuff to a big circle mill. Some of it would come back 1" thick on one end and 3" thick on the other. Some of the 2x stock would crook so bad during drying we'd end up cutting them into blocking and braces. I blamed it all on the mill. :furious: Now I know that that it wasn't all their fault.


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## ironhead (Dec 20, 2008)

TexasTimbers said:


> I agree, but am trying to think of it from his viewpoint. Before I had a mill, when I first started looking at trees with an eye to take it down to the local mill, I was happy with anything I could bring back. I took some lousy logs down there but he was happy to mill them, and I was tickled to death to come back to the shop with more "free" project wood.


And this is exactly how I am looking at it. I need wood for many projects I would like to do in and around the house and this tree almost killed my kids car,( will post some of those pics.) Ever since I have decided to start woodworking i have been looking at all of the massive trees down from Ike and asking myself 2 questions.
1. Can I talk the land owner into giving it to me.
2. Can I get it on a trailer by myself to take it to the mill.
If I get some usable wood and a lot of wood for the smoker I'm cool with that. I can use the junk for the shop I need to build or a really big BBQ.
Which reminds me, Thanks again Daren for the link on Parbuckling. Gonna be trying out that one REAL soon.


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