Let's just say this post is a time capsule for my future relations to look back on a simpler time. My time traveling kin may see how old Grandpa Bill turned logs into lumber while the future is all busy zooming around planetoids in silver space suits.
In winter, I use a snowmobile and cargo sled to skid logsout of woods. With the snow melted, I use a slightly more difficult
way to move log.
I lift the log onto the back of the ATV wagon and strap it down.This is not the best thing to do for my spine, but I prefer it to
using a skid chain. In future I'll use something called a 'log arch'.
Ta-da! I've made it to the log landing at the mill yard.Then I simply unstrap the log, and roll it onto the pile.
It's important not to get body parts crushed doing this.
Moving right along, I've got a log up on the bandsaw mill andstart to cut bark slabs off the log in order to make a four-sided
piece of lumber called a 'cant'.
It's important to select straight logs for milling.While this appears to be a straight log, notice the
indent in the middle of the log after the first cut.
Here's the Before photo of a straight-ish log secured on themill 'bunks'. Even with the straightest log, it will loose about
four inches from the diameter of the smallest end.
Now the After photo of the same log cut into a cant. That's a bigloss of wood. Only now can I cut one inch planks with little or
no bark. Notice the pile of cut-off slabs thrown from the mill.
Sad for me to look at this. It can be cut up into firewood. I use thesawdust to help breakdown compost. Nothing is wasted
when wood is my stove fuel. Though I wish it were lumber.
Here's the rough sawn sugar maple lumber.I set them up in book-matched pairs then will
separate them on levels to air-dry. The drying
and kilning process is another thing altogether.
