Sawing Short Logs

[Night Raider]

What is the shortest log easily sawn on a band mill, I was looking at getting a walnut log sawn up that someone is cutting down in the city.  My plan is to be making it into a dining room table so I won't need long board anyway and keeping the logs short will make everything easier for handling.

Thanks

[pigman]

My standered sawing rates apply to logs 8 ft and longer. I charge by the hour for short logs. I have sawn logs firewood as short as 12 inches, but it is just slow.  The real short logs are sawn by putting a board against the backstops and another under the log if it won't reach two supports.

[WDH]

Anything less than 6 feet is a pain on my mill.  My minimum is 8 feet 6 inches.

[blaze83]

 Night Rider,

here is a pic of some 4/4  X4'  cherry we cut last spring.  it was pretty easy to do on the LT28......wouldn't want to saw short logs like this for money, but for hobby work it is a good thing i think. Have some 4' walnut and 4' sasafras also. the logs were too crooked to cut at 8' or even 6', and perhaps should have been sawed into firewood. as it turns out me and my dad got about  700bf of cherry 150bf of sasafras and 200bf of walnut. I think it would be well worth the effort for you to cut the stuff into 4'3" or 4'6" logs and then saw it into boards. short boards are pretty too guess i'll have to cut firewood out of something else

just my 2 cents

steve

[Chuck White]

Night Rider;
As already mentioned, short logs take more time to saw!

A lot actually depends on the mill you're going to saw them on!

I have sawn 3' logs on my LT 40 HD and find that it calls for more "attention to detail" than when sawing an 8' log.
The feed rate will usually be much slower and I find that I end up sawing very close to the log-stops or the clamp, than I do when sawing 8' stuff.

In a nutshell, you can saw any length log that you can securely hold with your mills clamping system.  Short ones take longer!

Lots of sawyers will not saw anything under 8'!

[PineNut]

On my Cooks Saw, I can easily cut a 4-foot and with care, a 3-foot log. But I had to add an extra stop and dog. As originally built, an 8-foot log had to be in the perfect position to saw.

[Night Raider]

Thanks for the replies.  I figured there wouldn't be any problems just take longer, the guy I'll get to cut these logs charges by the hour anyway, he's a farmer with a band mill, one of many sideline jobs.  I was thinking just under 4 1/2' anyway then I can roll them up the ramp onto my trailer without the meed for much equipment.  I'm also going to try to do something with a crotch to make a coffee table.

[SwampDonkey]

I've yet to build anything longer than 4'-6" or if a table is even 8 feet long, most people cut the boards as long as the width, so again about 4'-6" is about all your going to use anyway. If they are your logs, saw them as you like'm or in a way that they can be put into service in your projects.  If walnut is a little hard to come by, or you can use it, or any other tree for that matter, use what you can I say. Heck, it's being severed off the stump to begin with.

[nas]

I can cut 4' lengths and am not too far away

Nick

[backwoods sawyer]

This is a deck of cherry logs that I have been working on for a while now. They are 3’, 4’, and 5’ logs.



It is very time consuming to mill short logs. It can take much longer then milling an 8’ log with half the board footage because they have to be handled all by hand. The difference in the amount of time may warrant the rental of a piece of equipment to load the longer logs. Some sawyers just will not mill short logs even by the hour just because they are a lot more work. Talk with your sawyer and find out if he will mill the short logs and if he will accept help. If you do go with short logs you will be able to save time by providing two helpers so the sawyer can remain at the controls more and positioning logs less.

[SwampDonkey]

Sure can't blame a sawyer for knowing his costs. What I had in mind was the owner of the logs owns the mill and is not sawing any large volume of lumber from short wood. I look at it like a fellow messing with a rare burl or a piece of crotch wood or stump wood. For a sawyer to go around and only saw small short wood he'd have to like volunteer work real well.

[york]

I have milled short logs on my TH-blanks for gun stocks-and i will never do it again.....bert

[ely]

make sure and figgure in you loss when bucking the logs up short or you may wind up compromising on the lenght of your table.

[Dodgy Loner]

Anything less than 6 feet is a pain on my mill.  My minimum is 8 feet 6 inches.

Except for me, right?   Remember that apple log that we sawed up?  That was one log that was definitely worth the extra effort!  WDH is right, though- anything less than 6' on an LT15 will require a lot more work.  I've sawn a log as short as 20" on our LT15, but the rarity of the wood made it worthwhile (to me! ).  By adding an extra clamp in a strategic location, I could make it easier to saw 4' logs, but it may be a while before I get around to that.

[WDH]

I remember.  Some of it ended up in a beautiful table!

[Banjo picker]

D L  that sure was some good looking wood.  There is a couple of apple trees at my mom's that need to come down.  I may be able to get around to that now that I know what may be inside.   I had an extra stop put on the Cooks when it was made.  Two foot centers on two of the stops, and one of the log dogs hits right in the middle of them.  Tim

[Night Raider]

thanks for the replies, I would need 44" boards so I had figured 4.5' should deal with most of the checking.  This is one of those where a person is having a tree taken down 'sometime soon' but also thinks it's worth what someone would pay at a specialty wood store for it.  I'm not holding my breath, I thought I'd inquire anyway because it could make other things a lot easier in the future.

I can cut 4' lengths and am not too far away

Nick, you can come mill up a few logs, I'll come up and help you cut some cedar and pine.

thanks for all the help

[Dodgy Loner]

D L  that sure was some good looking wood.  There is a couple of apple trees at my mom's that need to come down.  I may be able to get around to that now that I know what may be inside.

Banjo picker, the log in the picture is actually yellowwood, which is a rare tree found in the southern Appalachians and the Ozarks.  The apple tree WDH and I sawed was about 4' long, if I remember correctly.  Don't worry, there's pretty wood inside of those apple trees, too .  Here's the table I made from it:

[SwampDonkey]

Dodgy, that looks great. How do you keep the bark on? Epoxy?

[ladylake]

I saw 42" stickers quite often, 8 to15 at a time, no problem with a B20 TK and a setworks that works.  Steve

[Banjo picker]

D. L.  Would the short logs you have pictures of as yellowwood be Cladrastis Lutea?  I have been looking on ebay and there seems to be several woods known as yellowwood.  Some of them even coming from Africa.  Don't want to spend several years growing the wrong tree.

If I can find a seedling or two, I will grow that tree (if I can).  Thanks for posting the picture.  Tim

[Stephen1]

I can cut 4' lengths and am not too far away

Nick

I am just down the road from Nick, i need about 4'6"

Stephen

[SwampDonkey]

D. L.  Would the short logs you have pictures of as yellowwood be Cladrastis Lutea? 

Yes, Or known as Cladrastis kentukea. Bark looks smooth and gray like American Beech.

[WDH]

SD,

One of the keys to keeping the bark on is to saw and dry the log in the dormant season.

[SwampDonkey]

Still seems to shrink and fall away. I think I'd epoxy the stuff in a  tomb.

[Dodgy Loner]

SD- Nope, I just cut the tree in January, and the bark held fast.  Next time I do one, I'll probably shave off the bark, because it was pretty tough to avoid getting the bark boogered up why I was working on it (and I wasn't completely succesful at it).

[SwampDonkey]

Any winter cut firewood we had around here, the bark fell off or was falling off by the time we tossed it into the basement, split or unsplit. So it's hard to fathom, if you see it from my side of it.  Not doubting the bark is on it, just hard to grasp I guess. Right now the humidity is about 15 % in here with the window open as it was raining all day and I have a fire.

[Dodgy Loner]

The faster you saw it and dry it, the more likely the bark will stay on.  This log was cut alive, sawn within a week, and stacked under shelter the day it was sawn.  Standing dead trees, logs that are laid out for a while before they are sawn, and lumber stacked in the open tend to lose their bark more readily.  Trees sawn in the spring and summer tend to lose their bark no matter what you do.

[Dodgy Loner]

Sawed a bunch of short logs this past weekend, from 6' long all the way down to 18".  I started off with this sourwood log that I cut off of my property this February.  I was pretty surprised by how little decay there was.  Just a ring of blue stain inside the bark.  The wood is kind of tan colored, but pretty dull if you ask me. I doubt I'll cut any more sourwood.




Next one was a small maple log that was cut at the same time as the sourwood.  I was hoping for some spalted maple, but I mostly got beetle holes and blue stain.  I decided it would make better bowls than lumber, so I cut a 3" slab and tossed the rest of the log.



My favorite log of the day was a Japanese cherry crotch about 3' long and 14" in diameter.  There wasn't much crotchwood in it, but the color of the heartwood was spectacular.  I'm glad I didn't cut this into firewood



Finally, I sawed up a walnut log 18" long and about as wide.  I got two 4x14" bowl blanks, six 3x3's and two 3x6's.  All of it was perfectly straight-grained and should make some nice turning stock.



After all that, I spun a few bowls: 2 walnut, 2 spalted maple, 2 yellowwood, and one Japanese cherry.  It was a good day .

[WDH]

Nice!  (How do you like that 25 HP engine??)

The wood and bowls are good too .

[Dodgy Loner]

The first thing we sawed with the mill was a stack of white oak boards 14" wide, and she never broke a sweat.  I like the 25 HP

[WDH]

I am jealous, and I want one too . 

Maybe one day I can take her on a few paces .

[Dodgy Loner]

Next time you come up for a visit, we'll be sure to have some logs ready.  Oh wait, you've never come up for a visit .  Guess you'll have to remedy that sometime soon .  Anytime you're in the Athens area, you're more than welcome to drop in on us!!!

[WDH]

I will make a special effort to do so, so keep  some primo logs in the wings.  I bet that 25 HP hums. 

Haul it down here and we can work it over on some big oak .

I really do want to meet the little girl, so I will be coming since you mentioned all the improvements that I want to experience.  Life is short, you know .

[Lanier_Lurker]

Dodgy, I am sorry to hear of your disappointment with the sourwood.   I was thinking it might have some potential.  What do you think causes the blue staining?  Also, those pictures really show how thick the bark is on a mature sourwood.

[Dodgy Loner]

I can't say for sure, but I suspect the blue stain is caused by the same fungus that causes blue stain in pine.  I can't say that there's anything wrong with the sourwood.  I would describe is as having the grain of maple (very plain) with the color of beech (also very plain).  But the true test will come after the wood has been dried and planed.  Whatever the case, I'm sure I'll find a proper use for the wood .

[WDH]

I am looking forward to your new thread, "Building a Sourwood Table" .

[SwampDonkey]

Me, too. I think tables make the best projects. 

I gotta make another inlayed one this winter, small one this time, I think.  

[Dodgy Loner]

Just give me a few years, and I'm sure I'll get started .  I like building tables, too.  And anything with drawers .