I have the opportunity to get several very large diameter old growth White Oak trees which were killed by a tornado that tore off all of their limbs. There are at least 5 or 6 such trees.

The size of these trees present a number of challenges, since I do not have the equipment to handle logs this big and there are no sawmills locally that can handle trees of this diameter.

Does anyone have any knowledge of how such trees would have been handled historically? When the settlers moved in, how did they work the big trees into usable sizes?

One solution is this:


which has been used in the past when loggers had to work trees larger than their equipment.

I am considering this, but would like to know of any other ways

I am also considering alternate ways of getting the trees themselves down, such as blowing apart their roots in a similar manner. Part of the reason for this is they have a lot of hazardous dead limbs, and cutting them down could be very dangerous.

Seem a little on the harsh side.

My band mill came out of Pennsylvania, the maker of the mill said the Amish used black power to reduce large logs into smaller size sticks which would fit on the mill. I can cut up to 30" wide. They had some big trees to deal with.

I have often wondered about the Lucas swing mill. It has a slabbing attachment to deal with big wood.

Here is some propaganda, they make it look easy with the music and all. The end even has a timber frame built at the Bailey's site. Siding doesn't have to be beveled.

http://www.baileysonline.com/itemdetail.asp?item=LM10+30K&catID=

It comes in under the price of a new pickup truck and will last longer and give additional income, no registration, inspection, insurance. And you can make your own siding.

So, is blowing up dead standing trees less dangerous?

My thought is, if I can set a long fuse and get far out of there that is safer than sawing down a 4 foot wide tree with dead broken limbs bigger than most of the trees around here.

My intention is to use these trees to supply material for hewing timbers, and so one way or another they are going to have to be split. I would have to make sure that the trees are fairly straight grained if I were to use this method.

In that explosive method, do they score the whole log with a chainsaw first? What kind of hole do they make for the black powder? Where does it go in, center, one end?

I believe that they normally just bore a hole near the center of the log, pack it full of gunpowder (use a hammer to tamp it down, like you would tamp the powder in a muzzle loader) insert wick, plug the hole very tight with dirt -this is important, as black powder works better the more compresses and confined it is. Then light the wick and run away.

Black powder does not respond well to an electrical fuse, it takes a live spark to ignite it. Flash powder does, but is not nearly as explosive and is more expensive. The safest bet may be to have a flash powder primer set of by a remote switch, but it would be easier to set up a 20 second fuse and take cover.

I suspect that in most cases the split will happen so fast -in a tiny fraction of a second- that it would be difficult to direct it very much.

With this method, the log is split by the intense pressure generated by the burning black powder (which as I understand it, is not technically an explosion), the gasses build up so fast that they have no where to go, and so they force the two parts of the log to fly in opposite directions, splitting it quite dramatically. For this to work, the charge needs to be as close to the center of the tree -both length and depth- as you can manage to get it.

I have heard that as little as 5 ounces of black powder is enough to split big logs, for logs this size thought I may want much more. The last thing I want to do is blow a charge that is too small, all that will do is cause shock to the wood which is bad.

We all out here are a bunch of hicks anyhow, so this kind of thing is like what we do for sport! Haha..

My black powder rifle manual says that powder may ignite if put under too much pressure. For instance, if one hammers the ramrod into the barrel to pack the powder.

ya you dont pound it, you tamp it! the idea is to get the powder settled.

Hello everyone tonight

Well I don't know if this will worlk for you or not but quite a few years ago we had a very large elm blow down on PARKS COMMISSION property, I believe it was about 4 feet in diameter

We wanted to cut it inro planks using the 1846 muley saw mill equipment at UCV. The saw frame would handle 36" max size logs so to this end I called on the forestry crew who had a chain saw with a 36" blade, and asked them to halve the log.

They were no time sawing full length and then with wedges we split it in half. it actually worked out very good for us

You might ask a tree trimming crew in your area to do the same thing

Good luck

NH

What I think you would need is some fixture to guide a chainsaw to cut a kerf through the middle. Then you can use the wedges as mentioned. I've seen an Alaskan mill, but they seem to hold the bar on the opposite side, which you can't as you need to make a blind cut 3/4 of the way through the log along it's length. I've never tried something like that by hand. I wonder if it would kickback?

Kick back, it will. It is doable with a chainsaw, file the cutters almost straight across to help in ripping. I just whittled down a 44" on the butt pine log 16' long with a chainsaw. I did this without adjusting my chain. Allowing my bandsaw with its 30" throat to pass down the log. I got six, 29"x 4" slabs and one 3" slab. I only had to trim the sides a little. They have more surface area than a sheet of plywood and are 4" thick, it is fun having a sawmill.

Snap some lines on it and rip them from each side, top and bottom.

I hope to join you soon my brotha!

What ya getting?

I'll PM you.

You might check the forum and owner lists at Logosol (http://www.logosol.com/) and see if there's an owner in your area willing to split or quarter the logs for you. It's not as fast as black powder but far less chance of destroying the log or something even more attached to (like an arm or leg).

As far as damaging the logs, black powder has an extremely low brisance, which means that it has a very low shattering factor. It does not combust fast enough to produce a shock wave. The brisance of blackpowder is lower than would damage the wood.

And as far as damaging myself, I know how to handle black powder and higher explosives. a bit of cannon fuse and a planned escape route is more than enough to ensure my safety.

It is not as if you throw a match on the powder and hope for the best, you use a long fuse and get well out of harm's way.

Sawing is not an option, since this wood is intended for hewing stock. Some way or another it must be split.
I know there are sawmills that can handle these threes, and I know I could rip them with a chainsaw, but I need them split. If I were after lumber or sawn timbers, then I would definitely send them to a mill. But I am not, I am after split stock.

DLB

I think most of the really big stuff that was riven was of very high quality. I've heard of gunstock posts being quartered out of one log. If you've got four or five foot diameter low quality logs, you may not be able to split them without hydraulics. I quartered a 14" or so white oak cant that was clear, but had less than ideal grain, and it was no easy job.

From what I can tell based on observing the standing trees, most of this stuff is of excellent, dare I say almost immaculate, grain quality. The bark seems to indicate very straight grain, as the ridges proceed straight upward with no spiral. There are no knots or limbs for perhaps 30 feet (the trees in this woods are very tall and straight, there is some good genes present as well as excellent soil and other growing conditions)

However, I have yet to thoroughly inspect the timber. I have not yet got the clearance to cut it down. This is all based on initial observation. Once I get a good look, I might change my mind...

Plan B for the oaks is to saw them into boards and timbers, if they are not suitable for hewn timbers.

I am looking forward to the opportunity to take my hewing axes to some virgin white oak...

You could score in a few inches around the outside to guide some wedges in. Why can't you quarter them with a saw, and then hew the saw marks off? Do you need the riving to show in the finished timber? Most of my hewn timbers are sawn first to save the jacket lumber. I have some 48' sticks coming in soon, and half the footage of those logs will be high quality side lumber, can't waste it hewing the timber.

Dave, you have an extension on your mill?

Just yesterday I had to rip a 12'x8x8 with the chainsaw, my mill was stuck behind some scribe stuff and there was no way I was going to move the timber. Hewed the chain saw marks off.

Yes, we got a 24' extension, which is just an LT40 manual frame without the sawhead. We are getting a concrete slab soon, and the whole thing will be bolted down. I'll have to slide the logs a little, as the mill capacity will only be 45'. We've got two traditional Dutch floor systems to build, and that requires 18 40' to 45' timbers and 6 26' timbers for the pair.

Dave, part of the reason I want to avoid using saws is because these timbers are for a special project which calls for methods to be as traditional as I can manage along the whole project.

And before you ask, yes blackpowder is a traditional material used in times past to split oversized timber, possibly as far back as the 1500s.

If I were making these timbers for a project I aimed to make money on, I would certainly saw the logs. But these are for a project where historic methods are a priority.

It is possible, however, that I might hew 'doubles', where two finished timbers are cut from a single hewn timber, so for example if I desired 8x8 timbers I would hew a single 8x16 and then saw it in half.

It is also important to note that a good amount of this wood may end up used for instructional purposes, in which case having it sawn would be unsuitable.

I hope I have made my reasons for not wanting it sawn clear.

There is a method of splitting out logs with an axe, even when the grain is contrary. It involves cuting a deep v'd groove all the way down the length of the log, and then chopping at the center of the groove. This allows for a slow, controlled split. With this method, it is possible to split out beveled boards from a tree without continuously halving the wood. The theory beind this is that instead of allowing the split to follow the natural lines of weakness in the wood grain, you create a greater line of weakness that the split will then tend toward. This is a method that would have been employed 100 years ago by the builders of the great Norse longships.

DLB

I often find traditional ways having benefits not realized until after the fact. Peg making is a good example. Riving out pegs and shaving them on a shaving horse yields a better peg than one sawn and turned or sawn many times on a table saw jig. There are slight imperfection which highlight the methods used, which a trained eye can detect. The vast majority of people will never know the difference, but the builder knows.

I once heard Jack Sobon say when things get tough you may just have to pull out a modern card, specifically the chainsaw. I would encourage DLB to continue on the path he has chosen. Our ancestors lived a very different life than we do. Our minds are corrupted by a different technology. We eat different foods, have a different "drive" to a means, we are a different people. If it you come across a hurdle that is a little to high, you may have to cut it down to a more manageable height.

DLB, I can fully understand that you are trying to follow a historically relevant path. Now that I know that, I won't mention sawing again.

Tim, I try to use my hand tools as much as possible working on these two barns, but sometimes I just have to admit that making a couple of long rips with the Big Mak is more cost effective than chopping out a 4' long scarf.

Not only that, Tim, but for this particular project, the process itself is a very important part. In other words, there are a lot of things being done on this project in a certain way largely just to do them that way. The building was designed with geometry, not just for the theoretical benefits of geometry, but for the sake of going through the process. The timbers are hand hewn not just for the theoretical benefits of hewing or for the appearance, but for the sake of hand hewing. The joinery is all hand cut using only hand tools, not for any practical purpose but for the sake of doing it. The actual process itself is something to be enjoyed.

Folks in America today are all about the end product, and the process needs to be made as quick and easy as possible to get to the end product as quickly as possible. But the process itself is something that can, and should be, enjoyed. I am not choosing my methods for this project out of ease and faster results, but out of a sense of history and enjoyment.

In a business setting, we can't always do that. But I still think most of us are too quick to look for the fastest way to get something done. A lot of our 'speedy results' tools end up not making much sense economically, but our 'instant results' mindset convinces us that they are the way to go.

So in conclusion, unless someone has reason to suggest that black powder would be too risky as far as damaging the wood, I will be using this method. Of course, I plan to do some experimenting on some other wood first to study the affects of the explosion on the wood and its integrity.

Should black powder prove unsuitable, my next preference would be manually splitting out large wedges with an axe. You can see why I prefer black powder....

Should the grain prove too contrary to be used for riven timber, the logs will go to the mill and might be used for siding, floorboards, and general lumber and timber.

DLB

I went out this afternoon after work and measured the trees to get an idea of what I would be dealing with, and how much timber I would get. I found out 2 things.
1: I slightly overestimated the size of the trees, the average size is right at 3 feet, with the biggest being 4 1/2 feet in diameter.
2: There are more trees than I had thought. I at first said 5 or 6 dead standing, there are 9.

Overall, the grain quality seems to be excellent. There is one tree that seems like it may have a slight spiral grain to it. If so, that is not necessarily a bad thing, I can use it for siding boards or floorboards, or other such.

There are 2 trees that I am concerned may have some rot in the heart, however I do not think if there is any it would be extensive enough to cause the wood to be totally useless. There is only 1 tree that I found any signs that a squirrel might have been living in it.

One tree has branches on the ground that had been torn off by storm, one was split in half and so I measured it, it measured 3 feet across... From this particular tree, there is a ton of wood just from downed branches, which themselves are the size of very large trees.

I took some pictures as well, and here are a few of them (there are quite a bit more for my records)

The biggest one, with a girth of 14 feet at about shoulder high
The 3 foot branch, which has 3 clear 8 foot sections.
a shot of some of the branches for this big one.
half a trunk... This is what most of them look about like.


the only one that's not straight.
Most of them are in good shape, this one seems to have been dead for longer. The bark is mostly gone and the sapwood is about rotted away. Something tried to claw through it but found the heartwood to be much to tough! You can see pretty good how straight the grain is hear, since it has some cracks on the outside.
Here is one of their living neighbors. This tree has a diameter of about 4 feet. There are many more trees like this in this particular woods, but the live ones are going to stay alive, I am only taking the dead ones for now.

There is in addition to the white oak a number of red oak, ash, hickory, and some smaller sycamore and soft maple that are also dead or near to it. Most are in good shape. But I haven't even bothered with them yet...

Are you going to cut them down and up with an axe?

I am going to cut them down with a chainsaw.

If I had a crosscut big enough for these, I would like to use it. But I don't. I decided that felling the trees with a chainsaw is one bit of modern convenience I will take. In no small part because I am scared to death of these monster trees, which way somewhere in the order of tons. If they were to fall on me, there would be no more me.

My thought is that the felling process has very little affect if any on the outcome of the finished product.

If I were to mill these timbers, and then 'finish hew' them, that would have an affect. As it is, the timbers yielded are likely going to be a bit wavy, which is exactly what I want. Rather than have perfectly straight mill run timbers, I am going to have some crooked natural timbers, excellent stock for scribing but useless for mill or square rule.

I am looking forward to the loud, thunderous impact of these logs when they fall to the ground. No tree I have ever cut down will compare!

DLB

Aw C'mon. Now you're contradicting what you wrote earlier. What happened to being faithful to the original way...
...Just busting your chops. Don't blame you one bit. Chopping down a partially dry oak with an axe doesn't sound like much fun, more like a very exhausting job.

Exhausting is one thing. A very valid thing I might add.

What gets me the most, however, is the death factor.

Chopping down a mature tree with an axe -talking maybe 20 inches here- can be very very dangerous. It is a lot harder to control the fall with an axe than it is with a saw kerf and wedges. Add to that that I don't have a whole lot of experience felling with axes. When cutting down a 55 inch or so tree, it seems like it is just not worth the risk.

Add to that that in order to fell a tree with an axe, you need to cut a higher stump than you would do with a saw, where you can cut the tree off right at the ground. I need to squeeze every inch of length out of these that I can get, because in some cases I am afraid the top several feet may be significantly damaged and split since they were in fact killed by a tornado.

As Tim pointed out, some times we do have to pull out the modern card. We have to draw a line somewhere. Here, the line is drawn for 2 reasons. Sawing the tree with a chainsaw will be dangerous enough, and these trees are not worth my life. Log length is crucial, saving a foot of length or even more by using a chainsaw is definitely worth it.

But I may use my axe to remove the root flare around the base of the trees.. They are about twice as wide at the very bottom as they are at chest height.

After measuring the trees and doing some figuring and so forth, a couple of them will probably end up going to the mill for lumber. In particular there are 2 (at first I thought there was only 1, but after reviewing my pictures there are 2) trees with some degree of spiral grain. I can't get suitable riven timbers from these, so they are getting shipped off to the mill (Or, maybe, the mill is going to come to them)

That's all for now, guet nacht...

DLB

Just be extra careful working with dead wood, it's easy to barber chair.
And my experience splitting dead chestnut into rails is sometimes you walk the wedges pretty much as usual and sometimes it pops violently when you think the first or second wedge is only half driven. Though your trees aren't nearly as dead as blight killed chestnut.

Hi DLB,

These are not timber framing trees.

Trees of this size and girth should go for planking.

Regards

Ken Hume

Ken,

In America trees of this size were frequently used for framing, in no small part because there were so many of them around during the days of settlement.

And as I have tried to make clear, not near all of them are going to be used for framing timbers.

Later this afternoon I am going to do some figuring and find out sort of what I can expect to get out of these trees, and from there figure how many will be riven and how many will be milled.

The thing with tornado damaged trees is that they often times will have some splitting at the top, especially in cases like this where the tornado ripped off the entire top of the tree. If you are going to split them, than this is not usually a problem, and in fact can be used to your benefit, however it can be fatal to sawn boards.

If one or two trees turn out to be total junk, then you can always make some nice split rail fencing out of it. Unfortunately our white oak is not usually well suited to burn, so I can't load up on firewood. It has a tendency to just kind of sit there and never burn, all the while sucking heat from your fire.

DLB

DL, from my observation of local frames 1800 through 1870, I will agree with Ken. Almost all heavy timber, 8 x 8 and larger, I have seen is boxed heart with sap wood and somewhat lesser amount has wane. Logs were selcted for hewing with the end product in mind with minimal waste and effort in conversion. Big stems could end also be used for radial split shingles and siding.

How big is your saw?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYhh_i5wc2o&feature=fvwrel

At least around here, I see no evidence of large timber being used. Even brace stock can have pith in it and wane. This is due the the size of trees we have, though.

I see some evidence of it around here, but there is not a whole lot since many of the extant barns are from around 1900, when most of these were gone.

There is a log cabin in this county built I believe in either the 1830's or 1840's, with the squared log style. All of the logs in it are at least 24 inches wide, totally free of any sapwood.

Here is a couple of pictures:



These corner joints are unusual. I have heard there is one particular builder who built most of the cabins in this county, and this type of corner joint was his trademark. In other words, nobody else (at least hereabouts) used it.

But any way, this is a fine example of some super-sized timber at work. IT is hard to tell from this picture, but in other places it is evident that these gigantic timbers were converted entirely by axe.

Mike, I remember you shared this once before, but I forget, what exactly is this? A summer beam from something I would guess?

One thing that is not obvious from the photos I showed, that is a 2 story log cabin, with timbers the big all the way to the top. How on earth did they DO that?!

In addition to that, I know there are examples from the middle ages where building are built of timbers that were split and then hewn, and also that this method was not at all uncommon during the first half of the viking age, when their ships were built of gigantic oak. Later on this wasn't the case, as the shipbuilding boom exhausted the supply of oak. It took over 100 oak trees to build a single longship...

Summer or swing beam, Oak, from a barn(s) in Ohio, re-purpose project. 12" thick. Close to 2' tall in the center. Gunstock posts in the background were similar size @ the top.

The first bent we picked weighed 2700#s if I remember correctly. 2 posts, 2 braces, that summer beam.

Yeah, I've wondered and marveled at the things folks have done with out cranes and power tools...

I wish I had got a picture of the whole cabin when I was out there, it is an impressive feat. I'll have to swing by and get one some day, which should be easy since it's like 20 miles from me.

This cabin was used as an illustration of what the forests in this county looked like before the land was cleared, records suggest that trees of this size not only existed, but were dominant and quite common -most trees were this big.

But back to the trees in question here...

There is 1 big reason why I want to use at least some of them for framing timbers: because I have them.

If instead of 9 large trees I had 20 small trees, I would use them, but I don't have 20 small trees I have 9 big ones.

My project has certain demands, and these trees happen to be my best option for fulfilling those demands. In fact, by using these white oaks I may have a few options opened up to me that I would not have had otherwise.

Could you trade with someone locally? Someone who could use the big ones and supply smaller logs for your project?

"Horse trading" has been around for as long as trading and horses have been. Hee!Hee!

Hello,

Because examples exist of the use of 20 + inch diameter trees in various constructions says nothing of whether these trees are appropriate for any particular project. Before you get into handling the trees in question maybe it is an idea to sort out just what they will be used for exactly and if or not these are appropriate for that use. There is evidence here that such trees have been used in large barn construction and evidence that large trees have been used in log constructions. I can see obvious rationale in both of these cases relating to use and scale and efficiency. "Because I have them" and "various demands" don't seem so convincing. I have hewn and used oversized trees for clear reason and also for no other reason than that they were at hand and in the later case I regretted the waste and the amateurishness - in the bad sense of that word - of the endeavor.

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

Don, availability is a huge factor. In all times past, people used certain things solely for the reason that that is what was available to them. If I could trade them off for locally available smaller white oak I would. But there is just one problem, there is no locally available small diameter white oak. In this county at least, it is almost non existent. Most of its suitable habitat has been cleared for farming, with only a few stands of ancient oak remaining. It's not all grim though, what we lack in white oak is more than made up for in spectacular black walnut and black cherry.

I have done a lot of figuring into how to best use these trees, and each length of log will yield multiple finished timbers. In some cases a single 9 foot section treated carefully may yield as many as 12 separate timbers. In order to accomplish this, after quartering (and in a few cases only halving) the logs dimensioned sections will be cut out of them. These sections will be slightly larger than the finished timbers, and will require cleaning up with the broadaxe. These will all, of course, closely follow the grain of the trees and as such will not be perfectly straight. The will be scribe fitted to each other.

This method isn't something I am just making up as I go along, it is similar to how things were sometimes done in parts of Germany for perhaps over 1000 years, maybe even more. Up until the point where German forests became man-made by virtue of continuous harvest and replanting.

Small dimensioned timbers can be made from small trees, but they can also quite effectively be cut (with an axe) out of much larger trees, which can often times be the most effective way to utilize such trees with surprisingly little waste.

Let's go back to the cabin I posted pictures of. If you look closely you will notice those timbers are all boxed heart, but are only perhaps 6 or 8 inches wide. I find it highly unlikely that all of that wood was just hewn off and wasted. While it is apparent that no saws were used to convert the timbers, it is likely that the 'waste' was split out to be used for other things, an immediately apparent use being the roof of this very building. Such is entirely possible, and was done in the past.

I won't look for it now, but if you try you can find videos online of old world craftsmen cutting boards -not quartered boards- out of a log with nothing but an axe.

DLB

I was wondering about the all heart/pith noticeable in the pictures. Another aspect I see is a lack of score marks such as present in the swing beam Mike posted. Maybe the white wash is just hiding them? It would be interesting to see if the suggested split off sections were used in the roof or elsewhere.

I have seen rafter stock, 2x6 and 2x5, used in rafter stock, they were wipe sawn from wider stock. The knot patterns and saw marks align showing this.

Don't think for one minute that they didn't have cranes.... that's what a gin pole is all about.....

Just cause you can't see them there and now, doesn't mean they didn't use them....

They had the knowledge for sure....

agreed. when i say 'crane' i meant the modern, powered, heavy, rolling down the highway version of it.

its like when i mentioned to an engineer friend that i'm doing a bike ride this weekend. 'how far' he asks. 'around the lake' i say. 'wow, how many miles in a day?' he asks. 'all of it, 188'. it changes the reference point.

his reference is wonder, much like mine when thinking about cathedrals and stone and timber and barns and moving really heavy things. it can be done. has been done. and much of it was human powered. wandering around florence in 2006 blew my mind. all those things i studied in school, life size and larger. simply amazing.

dl, people climb everest 'because its there'. you can do the same with these trees, but i sense that you have a purpose and goal in mind.

seems like a cool project...

Tim,

You don't see score marks because the carpenter was especially careful to remove them, as they would create pockets for water leading in turn to rot. On a swing beam in a barn, that's not important so you wouldn't spend the extra time.

Like I said earlier, there are a few spots elsewhere on the building where there are some axe marks -broadaxe marks, not score marks. Plus I happen to know that there would not be a sawmill in this county for a couple of decades after the time this cabin was built.

Unfortunately, the original roof is long since gone, probably replaced 100 years ago or so. So there is no telling if the split offs were in fact used for that. However, it seems unreasonable to think that so much wood would just go to waste. The settlers were a lot thriftier than all that, so much more so than their descendants.

Mike,
it is truly a wonder what people were able to accomplish in the past. We should remember, however, that people are still accomplishing some of these things in certain parts of the world -sometimes a lot closer to us than you might think. People can be quite clever when they have to use their wits to figure out how to do something with limited resources.

I do have a pretty specific goal in mind.

There is one downside, my plan requires very straight wood to work. Observation has told me that is what I have, at least in the vast majority of these trees. But if I do not have that, then I will have to go to plan b.

It is possible to split a twisted log contrary to its grain, however you will have to use your axe to cut through a lot of traveling grain. An easy species to split will work out about like hackberry using this method, so it is no walk in the park!

What you do is mark a straight line on the end of a log making sure it goes right through the pith of the log, and then mark a matching line on the other side (similar to what you would do when marking for hewing) You then chalk 2 lines along the length of the log, opposite each other.

You make a score along these lines, maybe 3 inches deep or a little more. This can be done with your axe, or if you want a chainsaw works too.

When you split the log, the split will then tend toward the scoring marks you made, since they create a greater line of weakness than the natural grain lines.

A good example of how this works, if you cut a notch the length of a green timber, a split will about always form right down the middle of that notch, even if the grain does not run right with it.

So you understand my method of cutting out smaller timbers, I will try and make up some drawings. -I will be getting a lot of timbers 5x5, with the biggest 8x8 (which will probably largely be cut from the heart, the smaller timbers cut out around it)-

I am still interested in knowing, however, what are some other methods without modern tools that may have been used to split such large trees? If shakes and clapboards were split out of such logs, they had to have some means of splitting them down to size...

Iron Wood (Blue Beech in my neck of the woods) makes nice wedges, you just size them to the job and toss the in the fire wood pile when they wear out. I recently saw a post on the Forestry Forum (?) where dogwood was being used the same way.


Other than Chestnut fence rails my experience is limited to riving bow blanks where the whole idea is to follow those natural grain lines...

I was wrong the wedges post was here in the tools forum:
http://www.tfguild.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=26140#Post26140

And on the FF.

hello,
And the ones I made most recently were from lilac wood which you know can begin to check right away so I'm letting them dry out slowly in a cool place and then once they are dry will put them to good use although I still mostly rely on the nice forged iron wedges with the twisted shank, real beauties that have sure gotten my ass out of a bind or two, you know, mostly with knurly twisted knots in the way or a crotch there or maybe when a split begins to run astray. Also handy when the froe just doesn't have the meat to get the job done like with those chestnut billets when making shingles - oh boy....

Greetings,

Don Wagstaff

I addressed the wedge issue on that thread, so won't do so here again.. But thanks for coming on board with your thoughts.

I made some drawings, but I need to be getting to bed here soon so I am not going to scan and post them now. They detail just how it is that you can chap smaller timbers out of a large log, if you were really good I suppose you could apply this technique to chopping out lumber as well (which I understand people did in fact do) By doing this, you have surprisingly little waste coming out of your logs.

Pretty much what you do is chop out roughly rectangular timbers by causing 2 splits to go into the log at a right angle to each other. The trick here is the control the direction of the split by cutting a well devised wedge out of the log, and then causing the split to go precisely the right depth. These timbers are a little bit bigger than the finished product, so you must hew them down to the final size.

When you do this, each log will yield several timbers and there is some odd shaped waste material that is perfect for making brace stock and boards or other such.

Another method is to split out what I might call 'quartered timbers' I invented this method when making bowstaves out of oversized trees as a method of yielding the most useable wood out of a single tree. I am sure I am not the first person to ever do this, but I came up with the idea without learning it from anyone else.

You start out by quartering the log, or otherwise sectioning it out into fractional sized pieces.

The next step is to take the quarters and split them in halves or even thirds between growth rings, so that one half contains the heart section and the other contains the sapwood.

Then oftentimes the outer split section can be spit into 2 sections as well.

It is advisable to split off the innermost wedge of the portion of the quartered log heartward, so that this wood can be used for other things.

You now have 3 rough timbers that can be hewn to size.

This of course can be modified to yield blanks of different sizes.

I came up with this method with bowstaves, allowing me to cut 3 blanks from a single wedge of wood where using other methods I would have got 1.

The first method allows you to get more useable wood out of s single timber (less waste) but the second method is far easier and faster, and is more likely to yield the desired results. So the method used is determined by what you have more of, time of material...

DLB

With this method

The verdict is in....

As stated earlier, there are 9 of these trees. I have calculated that it will take 3 or 4 of them (depending on the quality of the inner heartwood) to build the parts of the structure that need to be of oak. These leaves 5 or 6 whole trees for other purposes. The roof structure will not be made of oak.

With this in mind, the building will have an oak shake roof and riven oak siding, which will leave a significant amount of timber for other uses.

HI DL, since you asked earlier about other conversion methods, the following article covers radial riven shingles common to pre Civil War buildings in the Mid-Atlantic.

http://www.apti.org/publications/Past-Bulletin-Articles/Houston-Fugelso-39-1.pdf

Roger, thanks a lot for this. This is very helpful, since I will be making shingles like this for the building. The sidelap shingles are what the Swiss would have used, and this is exactly what I needed in order to recreate the unique look of this process.

Interestingly enough, if you study the modern roofing tiles prevalent in in Bernese houses, you will find that the appearance of the clay tiles is made to approximate that of the sidelap shingles.

Today I cut down 2 of the trees, one of them was the one I expected to be in the worst of shape, and the other was one I expected to be in pretty good shape.

Here is the first one I cut down, it was rotted out in the heart, much more at the bottom than higher up. I cut 1 length of log out of it, and 2 3 to 3-1/2 foot sections to use for siding or shingles. I also cut 2 cookies to use for certain miscellaneous uses, as I do from time to time.
It had a tremendous amount of root flare, so I cut all along the base before I felled it.


And here is the second.

this one was quite a bit larger than the first, and the heartwood is in excellent shape. The pitch is rotted at the very bottom, but I do not think it is higher up at all.
The log on this tree is over 25 feet before the first knot, and probably 35 feet or more to the first branch. The grain is straight as an arrow.
The tree had quite a bit of forward lean to it, and so was a potentially very dangerous tree. I used a split level plunge cut, and cut until the outer strap which was all rotted sapwood snapped and let the tree fall. went down with no issue, no barber chair, no stump pull, etc.
What I was more worried about is that the long forward curvature of the log might cause it to shatter when it hit the ground, but it landed with no incident and the massive log rests quite firmly with no cracks.

I couldn't be more pleased with the color and character of the wood out of these two trees. I certainly want to have as much of his beautiful wood showing as I can.

DLB

I have been reviewing my resources and planning out how I will utilize them, it is important for me to catalog every tree I cut down in order to get the best use of my available materials.

Trees like the second one are the ideal for cutting out multiple building timbers with my system. The very small degree of rot in the pith makes them ineligible for slabs, and the slight curvature along the length means it is not suitable for shingles and not ideal for siding. Out of this log, my first priority will be to cut out the long timbers needed to make the joists.

The first log has a very rich color to the wood, and my priority for it will be to cut out blanks for the exterior trim, since in these pieces appearance is a top priority.

I am excited to see what the other trees will yield, and hope that I can get at least one good slab log.

DLB

Nice, now lets see them on the mill

well folks, I gave in to the pressures all around me...

I got a new crosscut felling saw, and plan to put it to use on at least a few of these trees (with help, of course)

But I may well still use the chainsaw for cutting the face notch... we'll see once