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Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3658 01/24/07 01:47 AM
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northern hewer Offline
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When you look at this original question by Rudy "when is the best time to cut timber" I am sure that you will have many variations of answers, depending on the country, temperate zone, and many other factors.
I personally live in a farming area where the only time that was proper for logging was winter. the sleighs were brought out of storage, and they were drawn up and down the bare roads to shine up the metal steel runners, and then blocked up to wait for the first snow fall, boy what loads you could pull when the conditions were right. Also don't forget that logging was only part of the equation, fire wood was a by product of logging a necessary item then as well as a cash crop.

If you lived where there was never any snow then your response certainly would be different, and then you could go on.
I am sure that in England and Germany the seasons created different approaches to the question originally posted by Rudy, but each in its own a valid response.

NH

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3659 01/24/07 06:52 PM
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Roger Nair Offline
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Perhaps the agricultural season of spring to fall frees up labor in the winter and workers would head off to logging camps for a winter influx of scarce cash. I also recall Hermann Phleps touts the superior value of winter cut wood.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3660 01/25/07 01:13 AM
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The larger logging camps as I mentioned before floated their logs to the mills, and after milling the cut lumber was in many cases delivered to the docks and ship via wooden aquaducts, that incorporated water as its propelling system, no one seemed to care about the moisture content one little bit it seems.
NH

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3661 01/27/07 06:12 PM
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John Buday Offline
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Rudy

Sorry to be remis in replying...a bit busy here
A bit of internet research brought me to the Royal Navy Libraries web-site Library-Royal Navy
They have an information service that responds to queries. They do caution that you could be awhile waiting for a response. I think I would be inclined to piggyback as much as I could.
Remembering the term "live oak" used in referance to construction of the frigate USS Constitution I did a search for that term and learned about the evergreen oaks of the SE states. Probably no news to many but new to a West coaster were the trees are tall, pointy and evergreen (mostly). This would tend to lend credence to the idea of regional diferances in practice.
I think that Ken has some very valuable input regarding regarding the historical record and for my part I like to see experimental evidence to back up tradition and custom before adopting.
Sometimes folk wisdom is just folklore.

If an experiment was conducted what would be measured? Strength, workabilty, stability, longevity? All the above?

And about that cannon carriage.
Would we have the part that goes BOOM!?

I am so there

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3662 01/27/07 09:46 PM
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Don P Offline
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I've forgotten how we got here from there or where we're going, but if there are hubs on hell, they are probably live oak. On Old Ironsides it returned the incoming cannon fire smile .

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3664 01/28/07 04:40 AM
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Don P Offline
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My understanding and observation with most softwoods is that within the range of about 6 to about 40 growth rings per inch most strength characteristics revolve around the percentage of latewood. The greater the proportion of hard, dark rings, the denser and stronger the wood. This is loosely what the grading rules are looking for when they seperate dense from common.

Can't say much on the pitch accumulation other than fatwood will outlast stone. Pitch is usually an injury response. Those cells can be some of the last to shut down, under the right conditions they can keep producing resin for months after the tree is felled. Not pitch bleeding, resin production, never say die.

The earlywood, lighter ring is put on in about a month's time, around here on EWP it does that burst around June. You can almost watch them plump and shoot up. The darker latewood ring is laid down over the rest of the growing season.

My science on this is weak, but what I think you are seeing in spring Derek is starch converting to sugar, which pulls bound water out of the walls into the lumens and causes flow. I don't mind being corrected there.

To keep edging out on that limb, that has to be part of how softwoods survive embolism. Somehow using that sugar pull to re-establish their water column. Usually the freeze induced embolism is what causes the range limit for species as you trek north. Finally getting far enough where the hardwoods can't survive, to where they laugh at the cold, keep their needles, and reboot themselves after being frozen solid. Now that's a tree.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3667 01/28/07 10:21 PM
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Timber Goddess Offline
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?

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3669 01/29/07 04:04 AM
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I've seen them, but only from the air... unfortunately my super human powers do not include eagle eye vision, so could not tell the condition of the trees.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3671 01/30/07 05:28 AM
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Don P Offline
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Look again from this viewpoint.
The board on the left has more than 40 rings per inch and a very low proportion of darker latewood. Usually this wood, although pleasing to the eye, is not very dense. I envision a tree fighting for light under a closed canopy and it just never got much ooomph going.

The righthand board has a large proportion of latewood. The latewood cells are thick walled, dense and strong. The ring count falls within normal growth range, this was a good tree, it would grade as dense. Look at the right of the board as the tree ages and had to fight harder for food and light. More rings is better is another myth. A good dense piece of wood is usually what you want. Weight generally equals wood, so strength.

Resin production is an injury response and knows no season. These are the epithelial cells (resin ducts, sometimes visible to the naked eye) being triggered by some trauma. In grading classes they teach you to find the cause of massed pitch when you see it. I've seen it accompany timber breaks, shake, borer damage and nothing. I've also heard that what we call fatwood or lighterd, a truly pitch filled tree found in the woods, is the result of lightning. I can't say on that.

Tracing the resin ducts is one way to see slope of grain.

Re: When is the best time to harvest timber? #3672 02/06/07 12:03 AM
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I'm surprised no ones qouted Hermann Phlepps "Craft of Log and timber Construction" on the subject of time for timber harvest. This book is the holy bible of timber and log joinery. In it he qoutes one old adage " If in Yuletide days your felling , ten fold the lifespan of the dwelling. By Fabian and Sebastian (Jan. 15)sap is on the rise again." I believe they where refering to conifers primaril.Another adage claims "When the larch is cold (and bare) timber feld is true and fair. These guys where definetly European cause they haven't seen the marginal larch we have here in upstate NY. Phlepps indicate that many if not all conifers have multipal sap runs, probaly triggered by warm spells. Or as suggested earlier it never stops just slows with temperture.(conifers only) Up here in NY the easiest time to remove wood from the forest is winter. I'm on Tug Hill though and we get deep snow, or we use to. Any one who atemps summer logging will quickly relise why the old timers did it in the winter, its hard work. A great video was produced by wnpe public tv in Watertown NY on winter logging on the Tug, it's wicked cool!


Timothy W Longmore
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