Tree to Table

[oldclaypaws]

We have a lot of discussions about trees, chainsaws, and woodland management which all leads to the production of 'raw' unfinished wood. Most of us will just chop it up and chuck it in a woodburner, but there are some of you out there who'll have made more finished products and be familiar with the kit needed.

I've looked into the felling process and given consideration to cutting the wood into rough planks and beams. (All the different through and through / radial / quarter sawn cuts take a while to get your head round! ) What I'd also like to learn a bit about is the next stage of how 'rough' seasoned timber can be refined into a smoother better finished product suitable for domestic uses in carpentry and joinery. Not sure if I'd want to use some of this myself for domestic use or sell it on, it depends on the costs and space required for tools and wood storage.

Presumably this means kit such as planers and sanders, also various fine cutting stuff like benchsaws, all of which are a total unknown to me. Can anyone who has this kind of kit and has experience of going from tree to table or other 'finished' smooth items outline the sort of kit they use. Maybe I need to do a basic joinery or carpentry course or buy a couple of recommended books (?).

At least I do have considerable experience of the final stage; sitting at tables with a glass resting on it.

[smojo]

Just been reading an article in the SWA magazine that came as part of the purchase package with the wood. Wwritten by a small sawmill owner. I'm sure you must have read up on cutting and sawing into planks etc but what came across as very important is the drying/seasoning process and how you can ruin your logs if not done correctly. I'm wondering if your plans to further process it are a little adventurous and whether that actually adds a great deal of value? How would you sell it on then as finished product?

[oldclaypaws]

I'm aware of seasoning. What I'm interested in considering as an option is whether some of my timber can be turned into 'dressed' timber to either make some basic items myself or being able to offer this to others. You just need look at the price of a shelf board in a DIY store to see that theres a marked difference between the price of a butt and what goes on a timber store shelf. Finished oak is flipping expensive. For example I've seen 25mm x 100mm x 3metre lengths of airdried oak 'Upstand' or architrave on Ebay for use on the edge of kitchen worksurfaces at £70 each, and they've sold hundreds. If you turned one of my single oak butts into that you'd produce approx 400+ of them, worth £28,000. Thats a bit better than selling the butt to a sawmill for £300. Infact at that rate, my oaks could be turned into £3Million !

See the logic? If the spend on a bit of finishing kit enables me to offer end product rather than rough timber, the potential increase in value added is enormous. Also making the odd bit of furniture might be very satisfying and another string to the bow. The obvious way to market it is via the web, I'm not proposing to open a DIY store or timber yard.

When I was looking at mobile saw mills and chatted to the distributor and told him what I was sitting on he said 'that's your pension sorted then; turn it into finished boards yourself and each of those trees is worth thousands'.

I'm sitting on something like 15,000 cubic feet of quality English oak, so its well worth exploring the options. Contractors will fell the trees and pay £5 per cu ft, then after they've seasoned and sawn it they want £25+ per cu ft. The closer you can get to the end buyer while cutting out the middlemen, the more sense it makes. With the bottom line numbers as potentially big as they are I'd be daft not to carefully consider all viable possibilities.

[Wendelspanswick]

Most of the furniture in our house I have made from bought English hardwoods, I am a real tool and machinery junkie and over the years I have traded up my machines till the point I am happy with what I now have. Using waney edged boards can amount to at least 50% wastage so I have stopped buying kiln dried boards and instead buy green or air dried boards and kiln them myself using an 8' by 4' by 4' wooden box and a domestic dehumidifier.
I try and avoid timber mills and instead buy timber from farmers who have had timber converted.
Ash and Beech I can get for £18 a cube and Oak and occasionally Elm at £22 a cube, these are sawn 2" board prices with 1" board prices about 25% more.
Depending on the moisture content these will sit undercover in an open ended shed till needed and then put in the kiln for 1-3 weeks. The kiln has no heating, it just relies on the heat given out by the dehumidifier.
I do buy thicker boards occasionally but rip it into thinner material using my version of the widow maker:

image.jpg (23.1 KiB) Viewed 16834 times

Once dry boards are ripped square using my SCM Universal woodworking machine, this combines a 12" circular saw with sliding table, a spindle moulder and a 16" wide planer thicknesser into one big cast iron machine, with each function having its own 5hp 3 phase motor. (This was my best purchase, paid £325 for it about 15 years ago at auction).
Boards are then planed square and cross cut to length and used either for my furniture projects or flooring.

[Wendelspanswick]

If your planning to convert the timber yourself you are looking at quite a hefty investment in a bandmill and log shifting equipment, as in a 4wd tractor with front end loader.
Happily I have discovered a chap about 3 miles from my wood with a large Stenner band rack saw who is happy to convert any timber I fell for a reasonable price but it does mean I have to transport my logs to him.

[oldclaypaws]

I was thinking about starting off with a 36" Alaskan, mini mill and MS 880 or 660 to cut the fallen butts on the ground into beams and rough lumber to do my building, then if that goes OK and gives me confidence looking ahead to other possibilities. I've a guy I met at a woodfair bringing over his 660 and Alaskan to my wood soon (once the hand is functioning) to show me the ropes and let me have a go to see how it feels. Not intending to run before I can walk (or grasp). In the meantime I can gently research kit like planers, sanders and saws with half a view to longer term carpentry or more finished product. A basic requirement is decent undercover storage and a workspace which I currently don't have but can build, in theory.

I'm aware an Alaskan will have a fair bit of wastage but it has the distinct advantage of being able to go to the tree in situ and avoiding the need for mechanised extraction or paying 3rd parties. The milled timber shouldnt be daft weights and I'm hoping a basic trailer or log arch behind the Westwood should tow it the few hundred feet across the wood to its storage or drying site. I've familiarised myself with air drying and basic dehumidifier type 'kilns'. A woodworker / turner chum has that set up and I'll invite myself over to peruse his other kit.

I'd be pretty pleased to get £22 a cube, that's probably over £2000 a tree versus perhaps a quarter or less of that from a timber contractor buying the butt. That'll buy quite a few first aid kits.

Although I've little experience woodworking I have been a pro craftsman for 30 years, earning a living turning raw basic materials into finished product and selling it direct to the public, so I have a justifiable confidence that with research and practice a degree of success in wood shouldn't be totally beyond me. I'd imagine most of we SWOG types are practical types or we wouldn't be buying woods. I've done domestic electric circuits, carpet laying, fencing, roofing, bricklaying, kiln building, pottery and fused glass , dry stone walling, partial DIY amputation, installing windows, tiling, making gates, plumbing, distilling, gilding and dog midwifery, so how hard can it be to stick a few bits of wood together?

[Wendelspanswick]

I think you lose money if you attempted to mill with a chainsaw and sell at £20 a cube! The slow cutting speed and high running costs (fuel/oil/chain replacement/wear and tear on saw) and down time for fueling and sharpening would leave you paying yourself a pittance as an hourly rate.
The Tom Sawyer band mill at the mill I used to work in could cut a board 30" wide by 12' long and return to the start in about 30 seconds. I guessing with a chain mill you might get at best one an hour with setting up, fueling and sharpening, subtract the sapwood leaves 2 cube an hour or £40 minus I guess about £10 for fuel and oil, a percentage of a replacement chain and a smaller percentage of a replacement chainsaw.
Add on the time for felling and brashing the tree, extraction of the planks and sticking (stacking with battens to create an air gap) and marketing and arranging for inspection and collection of the boards, you could end up paying yourself less than the minimum wage for your beautiful trees.
If I was in your position I would either hire in a mill and operator or invest in a bandmill. I did look at a hydraulically powered mill that ran off of a tractor PTO that was assembled round the log negating the need for extraction but the log still needed to be on a flat level surface for it to operate.
Or you could form a syndicate/co-op to purchase a mill and share the cost!

[oldclaypaws]

I reckon Alaskan's are quicker than you think; I've watched videos and they do make steady progress along a butt, cutting the full length in a few minutes. A bandsaw such as a wood-mizer is a lot quicker with less wastage, but you have the issue of getting the log to the work area and needing to lift it onto the saw bench. Its not easy to get a big Butt onto a bench without some serious heavy gear, and the smaller wood-mizers only handle up to 70cm, most of my logs are bigger. A guy who came to give advice on my wood said he only knew one person with all the kit big enough to handle my logs in the area, and he ain't cheap.

Looking at all the options and pleased to hear any thoughts. I'll have a look at an Alaskan in action on one of my logs soon and be able to see what I think.

[Rich]

I had a look at one of these the other day

http://turbosawmill.com/weekendwarrior/

advantages seem to be that it can be set up around your tree. Problem is there's no CE approval and they are made in New Zealand so not quite sure what the aftersales or support would be like.

[Rankinswood]

An Alaskan Sawmill was used to convert large oak trees at Harcourt Arboretum, Oxfordshire in to cruck blades. Progress ripping down the log was slow and required an ouboard assistant to keep the assembly level due to the great weight of the Stihl 88 chainsaw. I think that this would be a useful low cost capital investment bit of kit especially since the chainsaw can be used for other purposes e.g. tree felling.

Rankinswood