Hey TFG forum.
My names Adam from Minnesota, Ive met some of you guys in the past on previous events with the TFG and Heartwood. Here's the dilemma, I'm interested in buying some white pine or possibly oak for a small frame.
Ive recently purchased a mill and would like to mill my own timbers for the project. The loggers I've talked with are not interested in delivering small amounts. They are selling by the truckload, approximately 10 cords. If I purchased a truck load, I'm sure I would use it in the future, but wonder about storing logs or timbers, particularly the pine.
Are any of you storing logs or sawing timbers and letting them season for years. Are any of you milling your own timbers? How are you acquiring the material?. Thanks, Adam

What make is the mill?

Would you be purchasing logs by the cord or by board foot, read, scaled logs? Have it weighed on a truck scale if sold by the cord.

How big is a " small frame"?

Keep looking for a logger who will fill your order. Can you go to the yard and have them load the logs on a trailer, yours or borrowed from a friend? You could offer to pay extra for the logs you need.

Have you considered you may just need a truck load. Once the frame is built it needs to be closed in and so you need planks and more. Saw them in to a variety of stock, siding, boarding, scantlings, blocking, shingles, some to sell to recoup and pay for the mill, fuel, log cost etc. Don't try to keep them in log form, they are perishable, and so need to be converted, processed, refined,

A general rule, 2 cord per 1000 board feet. That truck load is about 5000 bf for recoverable wood. Just a quick estimate, it varies with the size of logs and species.

If you're not in a hurry and don't mind scrounging, build a relationship with some of your local tree service folks. Not sure how close to an urban / suburban area you are, but this is an option. Just keep in mind when sawing you do run the risk of encountering metal objects from yard trees.

Hello,

Get as much as you can, in as great a length as you can and as thick as you can. That's the basic principle. It should go without mention this implies you can prepare & store it up properly for the intended use.

And then once you have that, get a little bit more.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Hi Adam;

Some large sawmills prolong the life of their log inventory by keeping the log piles wet with sprinklers or keep the logs in ponds. Keeping the logs wet prevents the hatch of some (all?) insects, checking, fire, blue stain, and keeps the logs "green" which is easier to saw than dry wood.

Good luck;
Jim

Also if logs are ponded and fully submerged, they will be largely anaerobic, they can last there for hundreds of years.

You can still pull logs out of bogs in Denmark that were put there over 1000 years ago to build longships the next summer. Guess their plans must have changed

This makes me feel better.

Hello,

It was about 1000 years before that, so around the time of Jesus Christ, that this black colored oak wood was floated down the Rhine and got sunk there to be pulled out some few years ago now only to be used in this box I have made
The loss of total wood from each plank being about 90%, that is 10% usable wood.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff