Read the Log Before Milling

I've got a log on the sawmill, and it's an interesting story how the log got here. I don't own a skid steer, but my friend Bruce does, and he's got his shop and sawmill just up the road, literally just up the road in town. So I went and I picked this log out and he said, "No problem, I'll deliver it for you". So it was funny living in a small town of 2,000 people, about a half an hour later here came this skid steer up the road with this log on the forks and dropped it off in my parking lot. Now that we've got it on the sawmill, here's what I wanna talk about.

This piece of maple has some really nice crotch in it, I think. The log has got some branches, they're currently on the bottom here, so we can't see 'em. And that's where we wanna look at reading the log, how do we position this on the sawmill to really optimize the look that we're gonna get from the resulting lumber that we're gonna produce? So here's what we gotta do. I know I've gotta roll the log because one, I want you to see those branches and then two, we need to get 'em in a better position for the cut.

And I'll talk more about that in a second. I am gonna grab my cant hook. Now we're getting there. Okay. I think we gotta go a little more.

Let's have a look. Those branches I'm talking about are right here. So the way to think about this is that, where branches come into a log, it's like zippering on the freeway, it's like two rivers coming together. And the confluence of those rivers typically is really pretty right here. That's the crotch that we're after.

What we've really got here is the trunk of the tree, big branch, big branch. So there are three different things coming together right here, and that's what I'm so excited about is that I think that's gonna look amazing. What I wanna do is get this on the mill in a way that we're gonna come through it this way. This is a chainsaw mill. So the chainsaw bar is gonna be horizontal on this beam back here.

So, I'm gonna say, this maybe needs just a little bit more roll. And with something like this, this is more art than science. I can't nail this down 100%, but I feel like if I pitch it up just a tiny bit more, we're gonna have a better chance at seeing some cool crotch inside there. Come on, baby. I think I like that.

So again, we're gonna cut this. We're slabbing it this way, we're slabbing it horizontally. So looking through here, I think that's gonna give us what we want. Next step, I'll get the chainsaw set up on here, and we'll see what happens with this first cut. It's gotta be a big bang.

Little bang. All right. There's some spalting inside here. There's that branch going that way, this branch coming this way, the main trunk up the middle. That's pretty neat.

I think the next slab is gonna be even more better. Close your eyes, don't look yet. And then, let's see if we get some drama. Oh my gosh. The water test.

Look at, right there. Look at that. That's beautiful. Oh my gosh. That's worth a cut right there.

All right. Rinse and repeat, second verse same as the first. I'm gonna keep going and see what else I get out of this for live edge slabs. But see the importance of positioning those branches, the crotch in just the right spot so we come across 'em this way, that what's exposing that really pretty grain. The spalting we're gonna get no matter what, that's not what I'm so excited about.

I mean, I'm excited about it, but the positioning is what gives us the really neat grain effect, the quilting that's right there across that crotch. When that's dry, in like two years, that's gonna be beautiful.