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Spruce and more spruce. Help me learn!

Started by gcelery, November 23, 2016, 03:29:01 AM

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gcelery

Hey guys ,  new to the forum and new to the milling scene.  I'm a lover of the DIY.  So much so I have bought myself an hm126 from woodland mills. I'm more interested in cutting myself some slabs to make some coffee tables and bookshelves etc... but if I can harvest a few nice pieces I'll also try to sell some to help cover the cost of the mill.  So! To my question. I've read a fair bit on drying and kilns and am fairly confident there, but what I can't find enough information on is wood, mainly spruce. I'm surrounded by it in Saskatchewan. And not much else.  Is there any value in spruce slabs? Is it worth the effort to mill and dry? Is the finish nice? Or should I try to source some different wood , like maple or cedar from a near by province? I think I've heard somewhere that bringing wood across boarder is not permitted? Anyways , if spruce turns out a nice product I'm really in luck.  If not. I may take my trailer and truck somewhere to outsource some logs elsewhere. And put the time and effort into something that will yield.  Thanks guys. Any advice is apprirciated.

thecfarm

gcelery,welcome to the forum.
I had a hard time cutting spruce. Had more waves than a July 4th parade.  ;D   ::) Suppose to use a diffeant degree blade than 10°. I don't have much,so I don't need to saw it. Someone will be along to help out.
Model 6020-20hp Manual Thomas bandsaw,TC40A 4wd 40 hp New Holland tractor, 450 Norse Winch, Heatmor 400 OWB,YCC 1978-79

justallan1

gcelery, welcome to the forum.
With selling wood I feel the number one thing to look at is what folks do with the species you have where you live and see if you can compete or find something that no one else makes with that species in your area and go with that. Unless you have something fantastic that no one else has elsewhere, people don't drive out of their way to buy what they can get elsewhere.
As for using spruce for furniture and tables, it's all in what you like.
Just a heads up, if you by chance are sawing spruce and it's making wavy boards, there's a good chance it's not your mill. Spruce is a soft wood with hard little knots and it makes your blade deviate a bunch.
Good luck in your new addiction.

Chuck White

~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

Kbeitz

I'm in with the wavy cut. It's the hardest logs to get flat
unwavelike curves boards out of and spruce has it's share
of knots.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

Bruno of NH

I like spruce for framing lumber
You need to learn how to cut it every log is different
I use 4 degree bands and some times still get a little wave
Bruno
Lt 40 wide with 38hp gas and command controls , F350 4x4 dump and lot of contracting tools

scully

Spruce is a nice wood in my opinion . I have sawed a fair amount and with care you will get some sweet lumber . Watch for pitch buildup !  I have found that someone always wants lumber for a shed or whatever ,so you my do okay with that part of it . Kiln drying may be a challenge unless you know of a kiln .  Good luck !
I bleed orange  .

DannyLand

Like others have said, welcome, and spruce is going to be wavy.   It makes good framing material but has a lot of sap that can really gum things up.  I retrofitted my 126 with a set of cooks guides and it made a difference in cutting spruce, but still not enough for really flat cuts.  Adding something to your cooling liquid is important to keep the blade from getting gummed up.   I use murphys oil soap when cutting spruce, but Im sure everyone has their own personal flavor. 
    As for kiln drying, it may not be worth it but its certainly possible.  It all depends on what youre planing on doing with the materials.  If youre going to use it  right away, then air drying for a couple of months in the sun and then the kiln will be good, but if youre setting up materials for next years project, its likely not needed.   I built a large insulated box that holds about 1000 bdft of materials and a dehumidifier which dries out the boards quickly.   The best part is I can measure the amount of moisture that comes out of the boards.   Not really helpful in determining the dryness of the wood but cool to see.  Its impressive if nothing else. Also good to learn and understand what the behavior of the boards is going to be depending on how you cut them and where in the log they come from. The lumber almost always wants to pull away from the center of the tree. Wide boards look cool coming off the mill but are more likely to check, crack and warp, so put a list together of what you need and cut to that. I have a book called Understanding wood.  Ive owned it for many years and learned about wood behavior and what is happening when its drying or changing seasonally.  Nothing is more frustrating than milling down an ideal board, only to have it warp and twist into an unusable mess over time.    Good luck and dont hesitate to ask questions.   Lots of years of experience, both good and bad on this forum.  Thankfully most of these guys arent too modest to show off their failures, allowing us to learn from each others mistakes.   
Woodland Mills HM126, Hudson debarker, Jonsered 2171, New Holland skid steer, 1955 International Harvester Dump 132

boscojmb

Old growth spruce from a northern climate makes great lumber, saws nice and flat, no waves.

Spruce from the US lower 48 is the complete opposite.

How far north are you?
John B.

Log-Master LM4

gcelery

Wow, that's a ton of response in a short time.  I'm sawing in mid Saskatchewan and alberta...   I'm hoping your going to say this spruce saws flat!!! I'm really hoping to cut some nice 1and 2 inch slabs!!

ChugiakTinkerer

I'll be sawing a lot of spruce here in Alaska.  No experience with it yet.  I purchased a box of blades from Kasco telling them I will be sawing in the winter.  They recommended the 4 degree blades, and they certainly work great on frozen cottonwood.

Spruce is a softwood and makes great construction lumber.  For table slabs you'll probably find that hardwoods make a better table surface, both from their durability as well as visual appeal.  But if you've got the logs there's no harm in seeing what you can get out of them.  Some spruce burl would probably make nice slabs.

As far north as you are there probably aren't any insects you need to worry about, so kiln-drying would be to speed up the drying process and set any pitch.  I cut up a spruce in my yard a few years ago and it had a healthy amount of pitch in the sapwood.  I don't know to what extent it will be an issue for my planned cabin build.  A solar kiln can be built pretty inexpensively and can probably meet your kiln needs.

Welcome to the forum and the Woodland Mills owners club!
Woodland Mills HM130


dgdrls


lshobie

I just finished dropping and milling 250 spruce sawlogs, lots of work but feels great.  Like the others said spruce is pretty much only good for framing, I wouldnt make 2x4's - they warp like crazy.  I made mostly 2x6s - 8, 10, 12's, and a pile of beams - the beams come in very handy  and people want them.  The issue with rough sawn lumber is how they dry - i find they dry to different sizes so it you want to use to build something nice like a house you better get a planer but if only building sheds and camps etc then good to go.  Some guys mill board and batten out of them but I wouldnt.  If you have really large spruce don't use the butt log for lumber - make heavy beams from it - lumber will warp badly from my experience - large like over 24 inches, but everything from about 10 or 12 feet up will be good.

We cut lots of slabs to sell - no one wants spruce.

Cheers.

Louie
John Deere 440 Skidder, C5 Treefarmer,  Metavic Forwarder, Massey 2500 Forklift, Hyundai HL730 Wheel Loader, Woodmizer LT40, Valley Edger,  Alaskan Mill, Huskys, Stihls, and echos.

gcelery

Thanks for all the welcomes and the advice. It's a great start!

Brucer

Spruce is strong and very light, which is why clear spruce was used in early aircraft.

I've sawn a bit of it and had problems with wavy cuts. The worst was a 22" wide dry cant that the owner asked me to resaw for him. I did everything possible to ensure a straight cut with no luck, so I gave up before I ruined his entire timber. Then I contacted Wood-Mizer for advice. They suggested trying one of the new 7° blades instead of the 10° blades I normally use. The difference was amazing -- cut after cut, dead straight.

I expect a 4° blade work work as well but might cut a little slower.

People are always impressed by thick slabs, no matter what the species. In the last few years I've noticed that live edge slabs are also very popular.

I'd be surprised if you could compete with commercial mills for making framing lumber.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

gcelery

Great advise, im going to look into some 7 degree blades, as ive just put the saw to the ground and theres no way i can look at it all winter and not use the darn thing, so yeah ill look into that. im not opposed to going abroad to find some good timbers i can make into beautiful pieces and like i said, maybe sell a few slabs. anyone here have any idea where a good place to find some .. lets say cedar or maple timbers to purchase, do logging companies ship this? could i take my wife for a BC " vacation " ;) and pick up some nice timbers on the way? would a local sawmill have some types of timber they would sell to a small guy like me?? any thoughts? Thanks again !

PC-Urban-Sawyer

Shipping costs on small quantities would eat you alive...


Kbeitz

Quote from: gcelery on November 24, 2016, 02:20:54 AM
Great advise, im going to look into some 7 degree blades, as ive just put the saw to the ground and theres no way i can look at it all winter and not use the darn thing, so yeah ill look into that. im not opposed to going abroad to find some good timbers i can make into beautiful pieces and like i said, maybe sell a few slabs. anyone here have any idea where a good place to find some .. lets say cedar or maple timbers to purchase, do logging companies ship this? could i take my wife for a BC " vacation " ;) and pick up some nice timbers on the way? would a local sawmill have some types of timber they would sell to a small guy like me?? any thoughts? Thanks again !

From most of the reading I have done on this forum I think the
best blade for the job is 4deg.
Collector and builder of many things.
Love machine shop work
and Wood work shop work
And now a saw mill work

cbla

Welcome! Here in NS a lot of people saw both Spruce and Hemlock for rough 1inch boards for board and batten.

starmac

When I bought my mill, it was winter and I couldn't get to it to pick it up or even look at it until after the frost went out of the ground.
In the couple of months that were in between I found this forum and read all the archives, all we have to saw is spruce, so I was thinking it was a mistake.
We have white spruce, and sure you will get a junk log once in a while, but for the most part it saws great, with no waves unless your blade gets dull. I can saw pieces so thin you can see through them and uniform as can be. Apparently their is a lot of difference in out spruce and that down south.
Old LT40HD, old log truck, old MM forklift, and several huskies.

Peter Drouin

I use 1¼x55x7° and give it some, smiley_whip cuts good ;D
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

Doug Wis

    Is there more than one species of spruce.? I have sawed a few yard trees and they seemed to saw ok. And reading on the processing forum guys have said they won't plane spruce because it didn't come out very smooth, but I ran a bunch  through the logosol 360 and made V- joint paneling. Turned out quite nice. Put it on a garage wall mixed with some other odds and ends of V-joint intending to paint it and I did, but seeing the spruce on the wall made me wish I  used all spruce and had varnished it.
A man who says he can do everything at 65 that he did at 25 sure wasn't doing much at 25.

Cutting Edge

Quote from: Peter Drouin on November 24, 2016, 06:41:21 PM
I use 1¼x55x7° and give it some, smiley_whip cuts good ;D


Ya gotta keep in mind, the original poster only has 9.5 hp with an extremely narrow torque curve/power band paired with a centrifugal clutch. 

He doesn't have enough motor to efficiently pull a 7 deg. blade and get a consistent feedrate. 

Running a 4 deg blade will help tremendously in both areas.

"Winning an argument isn't everything, as long as you are heard and understood" - W.S.


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Jesper Jepsen

Spruce here in Denmark are many things regarding what species it is. We have Norway spruce which can have dead knot full of harden resin that can dull a blade or chainsaw chain in an instant but are very light and strong, use to build strip canoes with it.
In Scandinavia we have used spruce for almost anything, framing, houses (churches), furnitures, floors as it was what we had.  The main problem with spruce is that it's get dent easy and for tabletops that aren't the best.
Treated with linseed oil, and/or beeswax it become very beatiful and ( in my opinion) it just become prettier with time and use.

I haven't hand any problems with wavy board other than the 1/2" thick slabs I cut from a very knotty one but that was to be expected.

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