Cutting down trees: Worth it to have them milled?

In reply to SVreX :

It’s allowed, it’s how log home and timberframed homes get built.  Google timber frame or Jack A Sobon and Ted Benson  among others who have published books and written articles about the art and skill of building Timber framed houses.  Using both new Growth and old Beams from old mills, old barns, and old buildings.  

In fact if you watch  This Old House they actually did several timberframes.   There have also been a few log homes built on local PBS. Not to mention shows on cable TV featuring high end Timberframes and Log  homes.  

You clearly need to spend some time reading the UBC. ( It has a new name that escapes me right now. )

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Good family friend is a moodmizer dealer here in north carolina. We nay be able to find a guy for you.

 

As far as wether or not the trees are useful for furniture wood, the sawyer can tell you.

Wood turners (like me) love the burls, crotches, etc. So theres a way to not waste them, as my understanding is that you cant use those parts for lumber.

When dealing with highly figured wood such as burls and crotches they are best used as ornamental ( trim, finish flooring etc.) However there  is a provision to use such highly figured wood as burls and crotches.  The University of Wisconsin  sets the standard for the structural strength of  wood with a high degree of figure ( burls )  while it’s severely downgraded the actual strength of hardwoods tends to be so high that under the correct application it still can be used.  In fact I have 9 such highly figured beams in my house on prominent display.  I also will be using  six  22 inch wide x 10 feet long  boards in the floor when I do my floor  in the great room. 

The real problem using such wood though is drying.  It took nearly 10 years of careful drying in near perfect  conditions to reach proper moisture content due to density. In fact it’s approaching 20 years since I harvested my wide plank boards. While they are frequently turned, rotated, and moved in an attempt to completely flatten them. I still will be forced to reduce their thickness by almost 1/4 inch by the time I’m finished laying them. Now I understand why Rolls Royce and Jaguar use veneer instead of sold burl wood.  

I have given much thought to making a mill of my own.  Around here there are occasionally some big band saws that go on sale at auctions or yard sales.  Flip it on its side and mount a couple straight casters to it and make an adjustable track for it.

Problem is, my midsize tractor won't really cut the mustard on moving bigger pieces.

frenchyd said:

In reply to poopshovel again :

For two trees Stuart has it right. Check the wood mizer website. 

Here are some warnings.  

Yard trees tend to get metal in them. It might be nails or lag bolts. Property markers or various hooks and screws.  You will be responsible for any blade damage when the sawyer hits them. If you’re lucky it’s just the time it takes to resharpen the blade.  Big sawmills with circular blades have replaceable teeth and you may only need to replace a few. The rest can be resharpened. But replacing the whole blade on a Woodmizer is expensive.  

Metal detectors will help but really slow down the sawing process, you’ll have to pay for that!  

The process is they will saw anything you pay for but you pay for any wood they saw.  There is a lot of waste in a tree. Mother Nature makes trees round and wood workers like flat straight boards. That means you’ll have slab wood.  Nice to burn but that really seems a waste.  In addition wood is graded according to how knot and defect free it is. In other,  words, you get what is grown.  It’s called mill run.  

Good sawyers mill trees either for yield.  ( most knot free boards ) or for figure. ( most interesting wood ) Trouble is one mans trash is another’s treasure. One see’s crotch wood as beautiful and valuable and another see’s it as a defect downgrading it’s value. 

Deciding how to mill is another issue.  Some woods have beautiful and valuable wood when they are quarter sawn while others  look best plain sawn. And it varies from tree to tree. The Judgement on how to best saw a tree only comes from decades of millions of board feet sawn. 

The worst guy to have your trees sawn is also going to be the cheapest or a hobbiest  who saws a few  trees a year.  

You aren’t just paying for the use of the woodmizer you’re paying for the skid steer or whatever that moves the log around. And yes that will tear up your yard plus leave a mess that needs to be cleaned up afterwards. 

There is more and I’ll be glad to go further into it if you’d like the information. Stacking, drying, edging, trimming, jointing, planing,  all need to be discussed.  

My background, I turned 55,000 board feet of hardwood into my home.  These were trees I selected from a farmers woodlot.  In doing so I’ve spent over 31,000 manhours learning and doing it.  I still have about 12,000 board feet of wood to use up 

To put that into proper perspective a normal house takes 2500-3000 man hours to build from start to finish  

 

31,000 hours is 15 years full time job. And I thought my projects were long drawn out affairs.

Curtis said:

I have given much thought to making a mill of my own.  Around here there are occasionally some big band saws that go on sale at auctions or yard sales.  Flip it on its side and mount a couple straight casters to it and make an adjustable track for it.

One of the Youtube creators I follow is Matt Cremona, he's a woodworker here in Minnesota who built his own humongous bandsaw mill for processing logs from urban trees.  Here's one of his more recent videos, cutting up an oak log that's about 48" in diameter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqiZcD_HlI   Here's a playlist of the construction of his mill.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dX5redvVZQT-bJ-HNfrJEXlQJleCwun  He also has a pretty clever attachment on his trailer for loading the logs and then unloading them onto the mill.

frenchyd said:

In reply to SVreX :

It’s allowed, it’s how log home and timberframed homes get built.  Google timber frame or Jack A Sobon and Ted Benson  among others who have published books and written articles about the art and skill of building Timber framed houses.  Using both new Growth and old Beams from old mills, old barns, and old buildings.  

In fact if you watch  This Old House they actually did several timberframes.   There have also been a few log homes built on local PBS. Not to mention shows on cable TV featuring high end Timberframes and Log  homes.  

You clearly need to spend some time reading the UBC. ( It has a new name that escapes me right now. )

 

Dude, the UBC hasn’t been published since 1997. It’s completely obsolete, and it only covered the West Coast.  I think I’ll avoid studying it, thank you. 

The IBC is the current code nationally.

Tedd Benson has an entire engineering staff. How do I know?  I used to work for him.

As I noted, there ARE exceptions that permit timber and log (but they still need engineering). Ungraded lumber IS NOT permitted for structural components in stick built construction. 

Frenchy, I am a huge fan of what you have done with your home. It’s phenomenal. But please don’t imply I am not knowledgeable about the building code. I use it every single day, and I have for over 40 years.

The best In reply to SVreX :

Thank you, as I said the UBC Has a new name and you are correct it’s the IBC. Am I correct that you are in California which as it’s own building code that differs from the IBC  primarily with regard to dealing with earthquakes. 

I knew a little about that because the final hurdle to getting my building permit dealt with safety in the event of an earthquake.  ( to my knowledge none has ever been recorded in Minnesota ) Traditional timberframes are held together with wooden pegs. Luckily I remembered a Fine Home Building article about the strength of Lag bolts  compared to nails. 

Then I referenced the work the University of Wisconsin did on hardwoods and got authorization to replace typical wooden pegs with lag bolts which would be recessed and covered with wood peg  ends. 

I’ve got the engineering numbers someplace in all my permit paperwork but it’s something like 13,000 pounds before failure for each lag.  ( If you’re interested I can dig the actual numbers up) compared to at most 200 pounds for a nail. ( shooting from  the hip here but like I said I can look it up.). 

With regard Ted Benson, when I first stumbled across his work it was something like 1969(?) when he wrote his first book about The art of timberframing and he was doing everything himself. Before that there was a government publication about timberframing. That produced guild lines about required Timber sizes but nothing official for home occupancy.  

Kind of Ironic given the popularity of the work of Greene and Greene  1868- 1957.   And European timberframing dating from the 1500’s Yes ballon framing pretty much killed off Timberframing, with it’s faster construction and use of smaller boards rather than large Timbers. 

However grading boards is not some big complicated deal. The sawmill I had do my timbers could have easily graded all my timbers for 10 cents a board foot. They have a certified grader on call when needed.  When they sell wood overseas they grade it because they get paid a premium well beyond the cost. Some buyers ask for graded wood and they happily comply making an additional profit by doing so.

Mill run wood is always ungraded and because of that I can do my own grading/sorting and get premium wood at rock bottom prices. In fact I have raised panel fiddleback Maple I only paid 10 cents a board foot for and the current price for a single piece of fiddleback big enough for a violin is around $400.00.  i also bought all that burl for only 40 cents aboard foot  

The sawmill also Mills timbers for railroads, rail ties and bridges and special needs such as shoring for construction projects.  On occasions some is graded some not. 

In reply to frenchyd :

The IBC is not a new name for the UBC. It is a completely different code. The UBC, the SBC, and the BOCA codes are all obsolete.

No, I have never lived in CA. I live in SC. 

CA does not have its own building code. They use the same building code as the rest of us in the US. The IBC, with localized addenda. 

All of which is not very helpful to whether the original poster in this thread should mill his two trees. 

stuart in mn said:

Curtis said:

I have given much thought to making a mill of my own.  Around here there are occasionally some big band saws that go on sale at auctions or yard sales.  Flip it on its side and mount a couple straight casters to it and make an adjustable track for it.

One of the Youtube creators I follow is Matt Cremona, he's a woodworker here in Minnesota who built his own humongous bandsaw mill for processing logs from urban trees.  Here's one of his more recent videos, cutting up an oak log that's about 48" in diameter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqiZcD_HlI   Here's a playlist of the construction of his mill.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dX5redvVZQT-bJ-HNfrJEXlQJleCwun  He also has a pretty clever attachment on his trailer for loading the logs and then unloading them onto the mill.

This makes me salivate a little.

In reply to Curtis :

For a long time it was part of my job to sell equipment to sawmills. I visited sawmill after sawmill and noted they all had different solutions to turning round logs into flat boards or Timbers.  

They also had special niche they fit into. One mill would have a big bottom blade of 60-72 inches with a top blade of 48 inches.  Thus allowing them to handle really large diameter logs.  

Another had really long runs so turning a 24’ or even 30’+ foot long log into a beam that long was possible. A few used bandsaws and accepted the higher cost/ maintenance. Most just tried to turn logs into boards as fast as possible. Trying to stay ahead of the expenses.

I had 30+ sawmills on a regular schedule. Some visited annually while others were on a much more frequent basis. All of their owners were serious  characters.  It’s a dangerous business. Injuries are seldom minor and their employees are at risk from many different dangers. 

stuart in mn said:

Curtis said:

I have given much thought to making a mill of my own.  Around here there are occasionally some big band saws that go on sale at auctions or yard sales.  Flip it on its side and mount a couple straight casters to it and make an adjustable track for it.

One of the Youtube creators I follow is Matt Cremona, he's a woodworker here in Minnesota who built his own humongous bandsaw mill for processing logs from urban trees.  Here's one of his more recent videos, cutting up an oak log that's about 48" in diameter.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwqiZcD_HlI   Here's a playlist of the construction of his mill.  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0dX5redvVZQT-bJ-HNfrJEXlQJleCwun  He also has a pretty clever attachment on his trailer for loading the logs and then unloading them onto the mill.

Very nice mill he has. Looks like his trailer is a septic tank trailer used for hauling and setting septic tanks. Ingenious use of it to haul logs. The guy needs a forklift before he hurts himself.