OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

58364 Mike McCracken <mike@c...> 1999‑02‑24 Riving large trees
Gentlemen and Ladies,
        I think the protocol is that I first introduce myself to the group
prior to any comments.
        My name is Michael McCracken, and I am a greenhorn beginner at
working with hand tools.  I must say that my experience is next to none
compared to most members of the group.  Which leads me to this short story,
and why I became interested in hand tools in the first place.  That is,
beyond doing things like cutting morises for locks and hinges.

A white oak tree was expiring on our front lawn, and the neighbors were
concerned about it falling on their house.  Being a good neighbor, I
ignored them for a year, but SWMBO is not ignorable, and so the tree had to
be taken down.  Please note I live in an in-town neighborhood and this
thing was a100 year old white oak with a 38" diameter.  To shorten things
up, I had the thing taken down, and the three bottom logs carted to a
nearby sawyer to make me some boards.  The mill was a WoodMizer manned by a
72 year old man who loved to do wheelies in his bobcat.  To get the beasts
onto his mill we had to cut 11 foot logs into 5'6" lengths and then split
the suckers.  That leads to my posting, and I hope it doesn't offend
anyone, but here's how we did it.  We used one of those non-hand tools
called a chain saw.  The mill owner sliced down the center of each side of
the log (starting at an existing check in the log), and then joined the two
end slices by cutting through the middle.  We still had to get out the
wedges and mauls to finish splitting the log, but the result was almost no
waste due to hand splitting.  I was intending to quarter saw the logs, and
wanted to save as much of this stuff as I could.  Since I am a city
slicker, logs are real hard to come by.   This is one of those times, IMHO,
that resorting to the mechanical devices allowed me to end up with over
1000 bd feet of qs white oak.  It still took us 4 days to cut the stuff on
the mill.  Best time I have had in some time.
Mike
p.s., the chain saw was a big sucker, 30" as I recall.  Took both of us to
start the darn thing.  One holding and one yanking on the rope.



Recent Bios FAQ