How long can I keep cedar logs ?

[Daren]

I have a few questions about ERC. I saw a little and do some hack woodworking. For some reason I can't build cedar stuff (chests, garden-patio stuff...) fast enough. I have lucked into just enough cedar logs to keep me going. Here lately I have had to turn down work because I didn't have the cedar (I have 2000 bft of 13"-19" wide clear walnut I can't get a bite on, they just want cedar) If I was to buy a load of cedar logs, what is the best way to keep it if the trend slows. I sawed a few logs into cants for later awhile back ( everything I do is custom I didn't know exactly what I needed) and some cants got some pretty bad cracks and they are stored in a pole barn. I had one log that some grubs were working on even after I opened it up and had it stacked in 3" thick slabs. I know the best thing for the lumber is to saw it right away, but I can't hang myself. I just sold 2 peices 3" thick, 14" wide and 5' long to a contractor for fireplace mantels for $125.00 each. That is $7 bft for cedar and all I had to do was cut a slab I already had sawn in half. I guess my questions are, can I just stack the logs till later and how long without loss? I am guessing the bark does provide protection. My inside storage is limited. As a side note, any help with ERC sellers to central Illinois would be a help, 1/2 dozen logs at a time just ain't cuttin' it now.

[Daren]

If you get a chance and are bored click on my "member's gallery" ( would put the pic in this post but my 'puter is not working right) and check out my "hackmanship" posted 6/20/05 a cherry turned bowl, walnut and curly maple walking stick, cedar chests, wormy white oak and walnut chest, cedar and sweet gum "Shaker" style basket, oak corner table with candle and curly maple bowl with walnut lid I sold this weekend at my yardsale (not before I got a pic).

[lord_kenwolf]

  i have seen cedar logs wait to be sawed for over 2 years and their wasnt any wast. on our logs we mostly pile the logs on cedar 4x4's to help keep them off the ground. my uncle had cedar logs just piled up for 2 1/2 years and they were just like when they were cut. didnt even have any bugs in them or anything.

[Ianab]

This stuff here you mean?...

Looks pretty good to me  

And I believe most cedars are pretty forgiving about sitting around, especially if you can keep them off the ground.

Ian

[Tom]

Don't hesitate to saw it up.  You will use one inch boards more than anything else.  You can cut a few live edged slabs along and along, but get it cut and stickered under cover.

The reason is that the sap wood will yellow fairly quickly and then begin to rot.  To take advantage of all the sapwood inclusions that exist in ERC you need to get it sawed and dried to preserve the white color and retain the contrast.

Sawing boards from old logs that only retain the heart is OK, but is an effort in salvage.

Slabs cut for mantle pieces will dry too, giving you resawing opportunities.   If you decide to go that route, do it minimally and saw thickness with resawing in mind.   For example, don't cut 3 inch slab.  Cut 3 3/8 "  to 3 1/2" slab which will allow for saw kerf later.

Cut 4 1/2 " slabs and you can cut 1x4's later.

You will still be better off cutting 1" boards for the most part.   I generally am requested to make 7/8's thick boards.

[Daren]

Ian, thanks for posting my pic. Tom, you are right, if I hadn't got lucky with the mantels I would have got a little more sawdust and one less board that I needed on the 3" slabs. My little bandmill doesn't eat much, but I still need a pointer now and again that is why I ask you guys.

[Rockn H]

I was given some cedar about 7 years ago and just left it laying.  About 9 months ago I pulled a couple small ones out and found very little waste.  I still have a few left and it does look like some of the sap wood has started to decay now.  So I sawed about a 2" slab off the end of one and found it to be only surface deep.  I'm going to saw them this week and will take pics before and after.  These have been laying out on the ground.

[Bibbyman]

Cedar does not shrink much if any but it will twist and warp – if only a little.

We cut some 8 and 10' 6x6s down to 4x4s for a customer a couple of weeks back. Just to look at the 6x6s,  you couldn't see the crook and twist.  But it showed up once it was put on the mill. It was a close call on a few if we were going to get a "clean" 4x4 out of them.  Straightened them right up though! 

6x6s were what the customer had and 4x4s were what he needed so he was happy.  But if you were looking at it from a yield standpoint,  it was a loss because we basically trashed over half the volume in the re-saw process.

[Cedarman]

Depending on the time of year the logs are cut, there is a beetle that will invade the sapwood and make a lot of holes.  This beetle only works under the bark and will do so on any board or cant that has bark.  The adults come out in the spring of the year and lay their eggs, so spring cut logs are probably ones that should be sawed and not left to lay around.  Late summer cut logs should be fine.  If you saw up cants, oversaw to allow for kerf, and do your best to keep the pith in the center. 

I saw a lot of logs into 3 sided cants, leaving the bark on one face.  The side opposite the bark face just skimmed giving a flat side.  The outside of ERC is usually low grade anyway so if I have waste it is with low grade matereial.  When I need lumber, I simply put the 3 sided cant on the mill and resaw. I am left with no shim board this way.

I can shuck out a lot of boards quick if a walk in customer comes in and wants some odd thickness lumber out of these 3 sided cants.

I very seldom get much twist or warp in our cedar.  Cedar in your area may respond differently.

Keep the logs off the ground and they should be good for several years.

If you get in a bind for lumber, we can get you some quick.

[Bibbyman]

I've often wondered about why on some cedar the sap rots away quickly and the sap on others last for many, many years. 

I've seen ol'timers rack fence post in crossed layers and cover them with something like sheets of tin.  I wonder if that promotes quick drying and thus prevents the bugs from getting into the sap.

[Kirk_Allen]

What a coincidence your post is Daren.

Just yesterday I donated my time and labor to a church pastor south of us in exchange for some logs.  They are trying to build a new church building and several trees had to be removed but they could not afford what the tree service folks wanted. 

They got my name from one of my cards that my wife hands out at the farmers market she sells stuff at.  Well anyway, this Cedar was just over 70' tall  8)  The tree folks wanted $500 to bring it down.  Power line on the north side, house on the south side.  Couldn't get the whole tree in the pic but rest assured its big!


Any other tree and I would not have touched it but this was a NICE cedar!  I put on my climbing harness and played monkey for a day yesterday!  I climbed up to the 60' point and tied off my rope.  Had my wife hook the other end to the winch of the truck and then I came down about 16' and made my notch cut.  Told her to put on the tension and then I made my back cut.  WOW.  How them boys out west top those giants is beyond me.  When that top came free from that tree lets just say I was real glad I was strapped in!   ;D  Top came down right were I wanted.

I cut branches on the way down and made another notch and cut off another 16'!  8)

When I got to about 25' from the ground I figured I could drop that in one piece so down I came.


We dropped the last section and cut all the limbs off.  My wife kept almost ALL the limbs for her rustic furniture projects!   8)


Loaded up the logs and cant wait to cut some lumber!  The base was 36" at the widest point and the first 8' log was 24" on the small end.  Now I dont know squat about ERC but this seems like a real whopper to me. 


After getting all that loaded up and cleaned up for the guy I cut down this Poplar.  Dropped it between his sons house and garage.  Came down perfect! 

I cut down a dead pine, and a Ausi tree and then called it a day. 

I have to go back later in the week and cut down two sugar maples that are 24" DIB and one WHOPPER of a walnut that is 40+ DIB 8) 8) 

We saved the church over $1000 today $500 once we get the maples and walnut down.  Those will be a piece of cake compared to the cedar. 

Had it not been for all those great climbing branches on the cedar I would not have touched it, although next time I WILL get a smaller saw!  A 372 XP just dont cut it up high in tight quarters 8)

We Got-R-Done though and the folks were real happy and so were we.  Got some nice logs to cut up! 

[Daren]

Kirk I don't know much about cedar either, but it is safe to say that was a whopper! Kinda makes my mouth water. Good idea to keep the limbs, I can sell a little basket made of twigs or a picture frame (even a toilet paper holder) like it was made of gold not sticks. I have a lawn chipper I swapped for that I grind up mill waste for hunting dog bedding, landscape... I even save the planer shavings and put them in a panty hose for peoples campers and closests and such. The market for cedar byproduct is only limited by a guys imagination (and with some of the little,egg shaped, twisted, knarly trees I get- I had a bunch of byproduct). Sort of off the subject, a few months back I posted a cedar question. Some one was making fun of Cedarman and said something like "He can't even smell it anymore" I though that was funny, but I think it can happen. I will be working on a cedar chest and someone come into the shop and make a big deal about the great smell, when I had not even really noticed it. Wonder if I broke my smeller?

[Bibbyman]

Sort of off the subject, a few months back I posted a cedar question. Some one was making fun of Cedarman and said something like "He can't even smell it anymore" I though that was funny, but I think it can happen. I will be working on a cedar chest and someone come into the shop and make a big deal about the great smell, when I had not even really noticed it. Wonder if I broke my smeller?

Yep,  we can saw cedar all day and not even think about the smell.  The only way I can smell it is by sticking my nose to it and taking a deep sniff.  Same way with walnut.  We'll be sawin' away and have a couple 3-4mbf fresh sawed stacked around, sawdust covering a half acre when someone will drop in and say "Muuuuummm!  Smell that walnut!"  : We don't.

[Tom]

It's not that your nose is broke, it just tells your brain to quit acknowledging those  overpowering smells.

I smoked tobacco for 26 years and couldn't smell the wreak after the first week.   Now I can smell the acrid odor from a hundred feet away at the sawmill when a board handler lights up. 

I think your brain turns your nose off as an effort in self preservation.

I can smell cedar until I've got about 4 hours of sawing it under my belt and then the smell wanes.  It doesn't stop my sinus' from swelling and my eyes from watering though.  Those are sensations that I live with for 2 or 3 days after after a cedar job.

[jrokusek]

Is this a specific allergy to cedar or is it a general allergy to sawdust?  If it is general to dust or sawdust, try a Claritin-D or one of the generic equivalents.  For the first time in years I've been able to taste food & drink, smell flowers, etc.  I can always tell when my neighbot's dad stops by - I can smell him smoking his pipe. 

If it's specific to Cedar....I think you're stuck.  Just a thought.

Jim

[Timo]

My sister (a carpenter) can't work with cedar much any more, she developed an alergy to it from too much sawing and sanding. The same thing that keeps the bugs from eating gives us a hard time as well, it's pretty powerfull stuff. I Don't know that much about Eastern Cedar, but out west here our local tree last a long, long time. I regularly salvage wood that was dead and down 80 years ago.  Lots of fire killed trees still have a 30' stump of good wood left. The tops got burned off, and often the rotten middle burned out, but the outside is still perfect.  Some of these snags are 12 feet through and you can walk around inside them. Much like the red woods. We used to split it with a fro and mallet - really nice boards.

Many of the old houses around here were built with hand split cedar - one place I grew up in was 3 stories, about 3000 sqft. All out of one tree, or so the rumour had it. Bit of a fire risk tho' especially with a wood burning cook stove!

I still see lots of smaller stuff left in cut blocks. 12-20 inches or so, fire killed snags. I often wonder why the loggers don't clean it up - seems like a waste of good wood. I'm think I'm going to have to get a permit and try to salvage some of it.....

Anyway, my point is that Western Red (and Yellow) Cedar seems to last very long, on or off the ground (although the sap wood will get attacked by bugs in some fresh logs if the bark is left on). Is Eastern Cedar less bug resistant?

[Cedarman]

Good solid red ERC heartwood will last many years in the ground.  I know of sawn fence posts still standing after 100 years.  The heartwood has its own built in fungicide.

I make a good living off of what other people consider waste. Cedar in some parts of the country is a big weed problem and we are grinding into mulch and getting paid to cut the cedars.

Twenty years in So In  most farmers would give you their cedar to make pasture room or open the woods up to grow hardwoods.  Now that the demand is up of course the price is up.

We take 6 to 9 inch sassafrass and split into fence rails.  Most consider these small trees as waste wood.

I would be getting those big WRC and let my imagination go wild and think of all the ways it could be marketed. If your cost is only the labor of getting them out of the woods.  I call that beginning phase R&D.

Yup, I can hardly smell cedar. Pine, I can smell a mile away.

[Tony]

  Well, once again the FF has paid off. I just got a load of 31 cedar logs that have been cut for about 18 months with more to come later. The log owner wants me to cut on the "halves". ;D ;D

I guess my main concerns about cutting the ERC are the runny nose, watering eyes, and overall congestion. ( dumb?) Would a mask help?? :(

              Tony 8) 8)

  P.S. He wanted to know if I wanted oak also? Duh, yes!!

[Bibbyman]

I guess my main concerns about cutting the ERC are the runny nose, watering eyes, and overall congestion. ( dumb?) Would a mask help??

We don't use a mask but it don't bother us any too much.  Maybe it halps that we have a dust blower hooked to the mill and have Command Control where we're a little back from the actual sawing.  Also,  we have a fan right above our head blowing down the back of our necks.

But we've sawn quite a bit of ERC before we had all that and it didn't bother too much.  Blow a little red out of the nose the next morning but otherwise fine.

[Kirk_Allen]

Tony, just some food for thought but in regards to cutting on halves, depending on the wood and the help given I have gone as high as 70/30.  I use to cut on the halves quite regularly and it became more work than it was worth.  I ended up bringing my logs home to cut and once Im home there is no help to get my half cut, thus I ask for more than 50% if Im not getting any help cutting.  The other issues is while we cut their half and hit a nail, they pay for the blade.  If that happens while cutting my half I have to bite the bullet. 

The power company has beried me in WRC and I now will only do it on a 70/30 split and they are still VERY happy and fully understand.

Good walnut & cherry - 50/50
Red Oak - 60/40
White Oak - 50/50

[Tony]

     Thanks Kirk,

I wanted to ask about %shares, but I didn't want to ask 2 dumb questions
in one post. I've got to stand by my word this time ;D ;D ;D and next time
also, but will make a more educated agreement. :P

                                   Thanks again,

                                       Tony 8)