One of the (many) reasons I enjoy chainsaw milling is the unique sizes and grain patterns that you can get in the wood. It's always a bit of a surprise/thrill when I first cut the slab, and then again at the end of the process when it comes out of the kiln and gets cleaned up in the planer. Freshly cut slabs often have spectacular colours that fade over time and cannot be brought back. But once the wood is dried and cleaned up, a more subtle look often emerges, although the loses can be discouragingly high in some species.
I mentioned in my last post that the oak I took from my kiln was 'splitty". In fact the main problem was that most of the pieces kind of "folded" down the middle a bit, like a really wide V shape. Most of the splitting was confined to the fold area, so it was a simple matter of cutting the pieces in half, which yielded two decent pieces.
Oak Slabs Freshly Cut
Oak Slabs Faded Quickly After Sitting Out a Few Days
Oak Pieces Cut From Dried and Kilned Slabs
Some handsome wood you have there. What do you plan to do with it?
ReplyDeleteHey Dan, glad to see you are still at it. I am almost ready to use that elm I cut with you a year and a half ago (dries fast in Boise!)
ReplyDeleteNot sure what i will do with this specific wood, other than store it for now. Some kind of furniture eventually. I have five slabs, three or four of which I will have to cut in half, so I will wind up with a fair bit of it. I really like the tone of the wood, it's quite dark for oak.
ReplyDeleteDan, great to hear from you! Glad you managed to get that wood down to your new place. Did you take some of the magnolia also? We are missing you these days with some of the bigger pieces we are cutting up. Take care!