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quartersawing a post oak

Started by TomFromStLouis, February 15, 2005, 03:36:13 PM

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TomFromStLouis

Our log buyer pays much less (or scales less favorably, I cannot remember right now) for post oak versus other white oaks. The reason given is that post oak has a much higher ratio of sapwood to heartwood and the oak sapwood is not lumber worthy.

1 - Is this valid in your experience? I trust the buyer's superior knowledge and experience over my own, so...

2 - If so, would it make sense to remove the sapwood and quartersaw the remainder, since we net more for QSWO lumber than selling logs, or is there something about the nature of the heartwood which makes it a poor candidate for quartersawing? For example, are the rays shorter so the flecks will show as shorter as seen in red oak?

I am willing to simply give it a try but thought maybe the knowledge base here might offer some thoughts. FYI we are basically a log collecting and selling operation and only have sawn that which gives us a large margin improvement.

ARKANSAWYER

  If my mind is thinking right the sapwood of oak is not a defect.  The sapwood of post oak is on average the same width as white oak in this area.  Post oak does on average have shorter rays and the heart wood is darker,  I generaly will not qsaw it as it will not produce good grade and most are not over 18 inces any way.  Post oak has small "pin knots" in clusters and it affects the grade of wood.  Post oak is sold in the same bundles as white oak and most people could not seperate it out once sawn and dried.  The Buyer may just be knocking your scale because he can not get a good grade to cover the cost of the log and sawing.
ARKANSAWYER
ARKANSAWYER

Bibbyman

We like to get some nice butt-cut post oak logs in.  We can get them at prices we pay for good top cut white oak.  Fast growth post oak makes nice solid fence lumber at a price we can make a little money on.

We once helped a neighbor lady by removing and cleaning up a rather tall and nice white oak that had been lightning struck and killed in her back yard.  We sawed grade lumber out of it and sent it to the broker along with the other red oak and white oak.  On our next trip,  he had a stack of about 100 bf of it waiting for us.  "We don't buy post oak.",  he said, with no humor in is tone of voice.  Ok.  We knew it wasn't post oak and he bought about 200bf out of the same tree.  I think the reason he thought it was post oak was because some boards out of the upper cut were pinker than the others.  Maybe the lightning strike did it?  Maybe the bacteria had already gotten to that section?
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

Kevin_H.

We buy post oak and white oak at the same price, most of what we saw goes into grade stakes so for our part it doesnt make a difference.
Got my WM lt40g24, Setworks and debarker in oct. '97, been sawing part time ever since, Moving logs with a bobcat.

TomFromStLouis

I come here to learn and you folks never disappoint!

efitzgerald

wondering how you 1/4 saw your wood. we have tried everything and cant get it just right.
tougher than a $2.00 steak

Tom

There are many methods to obtaining quartersawn wood. 

My suggestion is to ignore the "science" and depend on the "art".  By that, I mean to go after what you see in the log knowing what the end product is supposed to look like.

Replace "quartersawn" in your mind with the term "vertical grain".  Look at the end of the log and make mental cuts, trying to maximize the amount of vertical grain you see in that log's configuration.  It is an art because no two logs are alike.  As a matter of fact, logs are very different when you reach the point of sawing boards out of them.   

Learn as many ways of attacking a log as you can and apply them, all or part, to the log at hand to produce as much "vertical grain" as you can.

No logs are the same.  No sawyers work the same.  Everyone's eye sees something different.

Be an Artist and be happy. :)

Cedarman

Tom, it sure is an art to saw logs.  I can teach a person to saw in a few hours.  I'm still teaching them how to read logs after a month, because there are so many unknowns.  I guess that is why the big mills put in scanners to take the guesswork out of the sawing.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

efitzgerald

i have ried everything and all we get is riffed sawd lumber. we cant get the right flecks of the oak to show.
tougher than a $2.00 steak

Tom

I have a friend with a circle mill that produces small amounts of quartersawn lumber by approaching a log pretty much the same as these links in the  "how to 1/4 saw" thread. 

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=10713.msg146629#msg146629

I've seen pictures of logs cut up like a pie that  has insinuated that it was done on a circle saw, but I never could figure out how it was done.

We have circle sawyers on the forum.  Perhaps one of them will enlighten us. :)

Jeff

Quote from: efitzgerald on February 26, 2005, 09:53:25 PM
i have ried everything and all we get is riffed sawd lumber. we cant get the right flecks of the oak to show.


That might not be entirely in the way you are sawing, Could be its just not in the log.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

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