Guys:

I might do that once, for fun.  However,  my friend and I had 2,100 bd ft of
white oak milled last spring, and are about to have the same amount of black
oak and walnut milled when the weather warms up -- already at mill waiting.
We did a couple thousand bd ft of walnut and white oak a few years back.
Some of the logs weighed around 3,500 lbs.

Can you imagine riving all that?  

My mother lives in a forest.  Most of it (40 acres) is under a conservation
easement, and we cannot even remove deadfall.  The remaining 15 acres is
preserved by us because we want to preserve it, but storm-topped trees or
those that are dying near buildings are harvested.  Most harvested trees are
around 100 ft high -- as much as 130 ft for the oaks.  They are first-growth
trees.  Last August, it actually took the winch on a tow truck to pull four
black oak logs out of the woods (we minimize footprint and damage).  The
butt logs were about 32 - 34 inches inside the bark at their bases and
tapered very slowly.  On our sawyer's big Woodmizer with its narrow kerf,
logs that size yield maybe 500 bd ft each. 

Joseph Sullivan

So you're in the unenviable position of needing to deal with 6,000+
bf of quality hardwood? How terrible. With my method, you'd certainly
have splitting headaches.

If you're facing a disposal problem, I can help!

Gary Katsanis
Albion New York, USA

	(He who dies with the most wood, wins!)

	-----------------------------------------

	From: "Joseph Sullivan" 
To: "Bill Ghio"
Cc: "old tools"
Sent: Monday January 20 2020 4:32:11PM
Subject: Riving

Guys:

 I might do that once, for fun. However, my friend and I had 2,100 bd
ft of
 white oak milled last spring, and are about to have the same amount
of black
 oak and walnut milled when the weather warms up -- already at mill
waiting.
 We did a couple thousand bd ft of walnut and white oak a few years
back.
 Some of the logs weighed around 3,500 lbs.

 Can you imagine riving all that? 

 --snip, snip-- 

 Joseph Sullivan

SNIP

So you're in the unenviable position of needing to deal with 6,000+ bf of
quality hardwood?  How terrible. With my method, you'd certainly have splitting
headaches.

If you're facing a disposal problem, I can help!

END SNIP

 

Haha.  

Actually, if you lived nearby I’d let you help.  If we cut any more, I will not
only give some away but also sell some to the hardwood retailers here.  The
lumber is in the Midwest and I live in Texas.  My little trailer cannot carry
more than 1,000 lbs, so it takes a few runs to get a load back to storage here
and in the meantime it stays in my mother’s double garage.  As she no longer has
a car, that’s not the problem it would have been a few years ago.

It all started as a lark and an adventure because we knew there was wonderful
wood waiting to rot away and not only did we want the wood, but also, we wanted
to see if we could pull it off.

However, not all is mine.  The first time we did this it was because a storm had
topped two big walnuts, and there was some downed white oak.  That was about ten
years ago.  Yield was about 1100 ft of each, which he and I split.  The walnut
was superb; the oak was nice but interesting in that it was wormed.  I have been
using the wormy oak to make furniture and quite like the results.  Have used
quite a bit of the walnut making cradles of my own design as various children
marry off and then start families.  I have a good source for curly and Birdseye
maple and find that, with my design, the maple and the walnut go together
beautifully.

A year ago we took a number of un-wormed first growth white oak logs to the
sawyer.  He cut them in May, and had dried them by August.  The trees had to be
taken because they had died and were posing risks to structures.  We got 2100
-2300 bd ft of oak.  Not all was high-grade of course – literally run of mill --
but some is just wonderful.  The lots of good rift sawn wood and beautiful book
matched q-sawn boards. Because the trees were standing snags when we cut them,
much of the sapwood is lost.  One third of that is mine as split with same
friend and one of my brothers.

At the same time that we took delivery of the dried white oak, we sent a load of
black oak with a little walnut and a couple of basswood logs to the mill.  That
will be cut when the weather warms. The sawyer says that his blade tends to
wander in frozen logs.  His cutting is very precise – he is a retired tool and
die maker who later became an equipment designer for Caterpillar.  It is a
pleasure to stand with him as he runs logs trough his big Woodmizer.  In fact,
being honest and not caring for controversy HE WILL NOT saw unless the customer
is there, and they spray paint the ends of the cut wood and count the boards
together if he keeps them for kiln -drying.