Amazing Wood At Fantastic Prices, Harvested Close To Home.
By Dave Munkittrick
When I built my solar kiln (see,“Solar Kiln”, AW Issue #124, Oct. ’06, page 55), I needed to scour up a steady source for green wood to dry. Turns out it wasn’t as hard as I thought. I live about an hour outside of a major metropolitan area and a little digging in the Yellow Pages turned up a wealth of green wood sources. I found everything from ordinary basswood to spectacular maple cr otches, to enormous walnut trunks (some of these can be seen in the original solar kiln article). All were at unbelievable prices. I began my search in the Yellow Pages with calls to custom sawyers with portable sawmills. They put me on to a couple of good sources for green wood, which included private tree services and municipal maintenance departments. They have a ton of wood and some of it is quite amazing.
Finding green wood may take a little digging, but you’ll find your sources will grow naturally. My first contact quickly blossomed into several other contacts. Before I knew it, I was reluctantly turning down offers for wood because I simply had no place to store it.
Custom Sawyers
I visited a small custom sawmill, Dan’s Wood Service, located in western Wisconsin. I was looking for an easy-to-dry wood for the a test run in my solar kiln. Dan offered me some clear basswood for seventy cents per bd. ft. That’s about a third of the cost my local lumberyard charges for kiln-dried wood. I took a friend along for help with the stacking.
When we got to Dan’s place I was surprised to learn that my wood was a standing tree in his woodlot! Dan harvested it in no time (Photo 1). The tree trunks were then cut to length (Photo 2) and transported to the nearby sawmill on the property (Photo 3). Sizeable tree trunks are really heavy and present the most difficult material-handling dilemma for folks like you and me. Fortunately, most custom sawyers like Dan are set up to bring their mill to your tree so there’s no need for skid loaders, huge trucks and big cranes.
Photo 1: I was looking for some green wood for my kiln but never dreamed the wood I ordered would be cut on the spot. Dan is a custom sawyer who specializes in small orders. He has a small woodlot where he harvests trees like this basswood. His portable sawmill can travel to you and your tree wherever you are.
Photo 2: Dan cut the felled tree into 8-1/2 ft. lengths for the sawmill. He left a large shoot growing from the stump. A basswood shoot will grow to become a mature tree that can be re-harvested in another 10-20 years.
Photo 3: A skid loader picks up and carries the heavy logs to a portable sawmill set up on the property. For off-site work, Dan brings the sawmill right to the tree.
The bandsaw mill made quick work of our tree (Photo 4). An in-line ripsaw took care of the bark edges (Photo 5). Soon we had the wood stacked in the trailer and were on our way back to the kiln (Photo 6). Believe it or not–from tree to trailer took less than two hours. I was amazed.
Photo 4: The basswood logs are cut into boards on a bandsaw mill. I found several sawyers with portable mills like this in the Yellow Pages.
Photo 5: A ripsaw removes the bark edge leaving two straight edges. This makes stacking for drying a lot easier because you don’t have the uneven bark edge to deal with. You can use your own bandsaw to remove a bark edge, too.
Photo 6: My buddy and I load the boards onto my trailer. The basswood went from tree to trailer in less than two hours. Green wood can deteriorate rapidly so we wasted little time getting back home in order to stack the wood for drying.
Tree Service Boneyards
We checked out a local tree service’s boneyard to see what was available. Tree services and municipalities are no longer allowed to burn their trees or take them to landfills. Commercial mills aren’t interested in trees from populated areas where human activity leads to buried nails in tree trunks that ruin a sawyers’ day. So where do all those trees go? They go to the boneyard, where most are chopped into mulch. It’s kinda like an animal shelter for trees. If no one comes to take them away, well…it’s the chipper.
Boneyards toss out an amazing amount of wood every day (Photo 7). A little poking around yielded spectacular finds including maple, oak and walnut (Photo 8). The service was reluctant to let us bring a mill onto their property for liability reasons. However, they were amenable to dropping the logs off at my shop where a mill could be brought in later. Now my biggest problem is finding a place to store all this wood. I better start building some furniture!
Photo 8: We found some amazing trees destined to get chipped into mulch. A little bargaining can land you some fantastic deals on some fantastic wood. It just takes a little poking around to get the ball rolling. We had Dan saw up some of the logs we found here.
Urban Lumber
by Seth Keller
Harvest great wood in the heart of the city.
I live right in the heart of the city. By accident, I found great wood right under my nose, in the midst of a bustling metropolis. My first adventure as an urban lumberjack began with a phone call from a friend telling me that an old red oak in his backyard was struck by lightning and was bound for the chipper. “Do you want it?” he asked. “I’ll be right over”, was my reply. I borrowed a Logosol portable sawmill from a friend and headed over to my buddy’s backyard. Once word got out that I could turn doomed trees into useful lumber, I had more offers for free wood than I could handle.
Photo 1: A friend called me about a red oak tree he had to take down. The main trunk was nine feet tall, weighed over 1500 lbs. and was about to hit the ground when I arrived with a portable sawmill.
Photo 2: Let the fun begin! Getting the log up the ramp and onto the sawmill was a bit of work, but once in place, sawing the log into planks was pretty simple. It’s about 10 minutes per slice, though.
Photo 3: This log was over 26 inches wide! Each cut was like opening a present: I never knew what to expect, but I was never disappointed. It was particularly fun to see quartersawn pieces emerge from the log.
Photo 4: Within a week of sawing my first tree, I got a call about a downed birch. This tree had some amazing figure, especially near the base. Every tree I cut is a treasure. I never lose that sense of wonder as a beautiful plank is cut loose from a tree that would otherwise be destined for the chipper.
Source information may have changed since the original publication date.
Sources:
Logosol Portable Chainsaw Mill, (877) 564-6765, www.logosol.com, M7 Woodworker’s Mill, $2,400 (chainsaw not included)
Wood-Mizer Portable Bandsaw Mill, (800) 553-0182, www.woodmizer.com
July 2007, issue #129
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