Red Oak blowdown salvage

[Farmer Jim]

I am part way through getting a good sized Red Oak out of the woods.  When it went down it took 7 Red Maple of smaller size, sapling to 12" (which shows curl), with it, sort of, some are snapped part way off some are nearly tipped over. The removal has been "interesting" as everything is tangled.  Managed to get an 18' 8" log out yesterday that scales 496 bf Doyle. It will make a decent 10' and an 8' with a sound crotch at the end.  An 8' butt log is still partially hooked to the root-ball as using a 24" bar from each side didn't get me through, going back with a 36" when the monsoons quit. Now my question,  would you saw the boards wide and thick? With the size I don't really want to make small boards out of it, but I have only dried a small amount of Red Oak so don't really know what I'm doing. I would like to make something nice from the wood and am trolling for ideas.

[hackberry jake]

From the sound of it, I would quarter it with a chainsaw and saw each quarter for the best ray fleck. Quarter sawn red oak is beautiful. I would go with 4/4 or 5/4 depending on what you think the final end use would be.

[GAB]

I agree with Jake.  I quarter sawed 3 red oak logs last week for a customer.
Got some beautiful lumber for wood working projects.
If it was mine I would saw some different thickness material.
1"+ for table tops, 2"+ for book matching, and 3 or 4" for table legs.
Gerald