So the trees are down, and I am sore. The trees came down without a hitch, power company and cable company were good. The sawyer reconsidered what I am doing with the wood and will be slabbing a LOT more of the tree, about 80% verses 10%. He wants to wait for warmer weather so the bandsaw mill gets proper lubrication (Our lows have been in the single digits for a couple of weeks), and I'm fine with that. I'll have to expand where I'll stack the slabs, but I have time. I kept a close eye on the smaller trees in the back, it's a good thing I did, one of the small elms has some tremendous burl; it should make a fantastic bowl blank. The boxelder had some great color, light purple or rose. While the boxelder isn't very large I just want scroll saw sized wood.

The largest section of the big tree is too large to fit into the sawmill for live edge planks, I want to have the sawyer cut it into quartersawn pieces instead. There will be plenty left for live edge. 

some pictures:

 

Glad everything worked as planned Wichita. Looking forward to following all aspects of this thread from sawyer to finished projects. You've definitely got some beautiful grain to work with. What are your plans to seal to minimize splitting?

1 hour ago, Wichman3 said:

quartersawn pieces

Ah. My favorite. Very nice project; when my dad's 250-300 year old oak came down I wish I had a place to store usable pieces for resawing. The tree guys told him it had no usable lumber, just firewood, but I'd still think ...

 

One of my goals is to learn and practice riftsawing.

Is my town the only one  that has a very large site that has all the trees being cut down around these parts hauls them to this large site and unloads them in a big semi circle and any one can come and load up what they want. The city request that they be from 4 to 9 foot long so the guys sawing them for resale can set up their machines in that area if they want. 

  Great way to keep most of it from going to the land fill.

3 hours ago, Smallpatch said:

Is my town the only one  that has a very large site that has all the trees being cut down around these parts hauls them to this large site and unloads them in a big semi circle and any one can come and load up what they want. The city request that they be from 4 to 9 foot long so the guys sawing them for resale can set up their machines in that area if they want. 

  Great way to keep most of it from going to the land fill.

 

I am not aware of anything like that around here Jess.  But then trees are pretty plentiful around here too

Glad you were able to get a bunch of wood from it. 

10 hours ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Glad everything worked as planned Wichita. Looking forward to following all aspects of this thread from sawyer to finished projects. You've definitely got some beautiful grain to work with. What are your plans to seal to minimize splitting?

In the next couple of days I'm going to paint the ends with latex paint, probably the mismixed bin at HD.

 

9 minutes ago, Wichman3 said:

In the next couple of days I'm going to paint the ends with latex paint, probably the mismixed bin at HD.

 

If you have a Habitat for Humanity Restore close, you might also check there. Often can get mismixed or leftover paints there at a discount. Stop by your local Walmart if they have a Paint Department. Ours seem to excel in mismixing paints. Sometimes you can even bargain them down.