Replies

1. 
   Ardito | Nov 01, 2004 04:07am | #1

   Silver Maple is a "soft" Maple variety.

   If the tree is a "city" tree, a lot of sawyers don't like to saw it.  They are affraid of nails/fence and other such things that may be inside of the tree from all the years of city life. 

   Dark Magneto

2. 
   Pondfish | Nov 01, 2004 02:55pm | #2

   If you are looking to save big bucks by milling this tree, you can pretty much forget it now.   Here's what you will be up against:

   1) Milling. As the previous poster mentioned, many mills are hesitant to mill homeowner trees because they often have some metal in it.  A nail can damage on of their (expensive) blades and they are loath to risk it. The cost is not cheap, either. And, you need to get the bole to the sawyer, which costs money.  If you use a portable mill service, they still have charges and if they use a chain cutter, you lose a lot of wood that way.

   2) Rot. Soft maple is very vulnerable to decay, rot and bugs.  If you are hoping to let the wood dry for a couple of years (one year per inch, and I expect you will want at least 10/4 green boards), you will lose a lot of the lumber to natural pests.

   That said, I've milled some of my own maple in the past using a chainsaw.  I do it for the fun of having a few boards that I can say I cut from a tree, but at the same time it hasn't saved me much money at all.

   As far as using the crotch wood, I am not sure other than to remark that I haven't seen too many pieces made from soft maple crotch flitches.  Maybe there's a good reason why not...

   Good luck,

   Paul

1. 
   lwj2 | Nov 03, 2004 06:04am | #3

   When I air-dried some butternut a few years ago, I took the advice of the sawyer I bought it from and painted each board down with mineral spirits as I stickered them. A couple of weeks later I re-stickered them and repeated the mineral spirits paint job. Stuff dried nicely in the basement -- moderately dry, 40-50% humidity, less in winter -- with no bug problems. As some of the boards already had bug-holes in them, I poured mineral spirits into each hole in addition to painting them.

   I ripped KD SPF studs to use as stickers, used clear wood without knots for stickering, no problems with staining.

   Good luck.

   Leon Jester, Roanoke VA

   Q: How do you know when a politician is lying?

   A: His lips are moving.

1. 
   JohnWW | Nov 03, 2004 08:19pm | #6

   Leon,

   What was the point to using the mineral spirits?  Also are you referring to ordinary paint thinner or something less common?

   Paint thinner would evaporate in a few days at most, so it wouldn't seem that its effect on checking, staining or bugs would be all that great or long lasting. 

   No matter its purpose, I think this would only be a safe technique to use in an a separate, well ventilated building.  A good size stack of lumber, liberally painted with thinner would present quite a fire and toxic fume hazard in an inhabited building with ignition sources.

   John W. 

1. 
   Treetalk | Nov 04, 2004 02:56am | #7

   Ive cut alot of soft maple on my bandsaw mill . In fact too much because it seems here in WV the bigger red maples are in some kind of duress.I havent had any problem from bugs as long as all bark is removed from flitches and there wasnt apparent infesttion before cutting.My blades only cost about $14 @ so Ill take a chance on yard wood because the size and growth conditions sometime reward you with wood unobtainable in forest culture.

2. 
   robkelly | Nov 04, 2004 03:16am | #8

   Mineral spirits not only kill live bugs/larvae on contact,  but also kill any eggs.

3. 
   lwj2 | Dec 08, 2004 06:04am | #9

   Sorry to be so late responding. Computer problems.Mineral spirits, paint thinner, about the same thing.Purpose was to kill off any larvae, bugs or eggs of same. Butternut seems to be an attractive species for a variety of bugs, I preferred not to find out how well they liked the floors and walls of the house I had at the time.Shop was EXTREMELY well ventilated when I did this. (900 cfm exhaust fan on one window, other side open.) Needless to say, I did it in the summer.Kiln drying will produce the same results. I'd purchased this lumber from a local mill that did not have a kiln.Leon Jester, Roanoke VA

2. 
   adrienne4468 | Nov 03, 2004 08:03pm | #5

   Paul, If you stack up sawdust for sawdust from a bandmill and a chainsaw mill you will end up with almost the same pile after planing. The reason is that the chainsaw wont go around hard spots like a bandmill will. After planing and flatening the board the piles end up almost identical. That said I can get three to six good boards 8' x 8" wide out of a 12" log and at 4 to 6 dollars per board ft. I save tons of money for just an hour labor and stacking the wood for a while. It is very worth it to me as I only do it for hobby and personal use.

   tony

   We already have enough youth, how about a fountain of smarts.

3. 
   BrianF | Nov 03, 2004 02:32pm | #4

   I will say that I had a very good experience doing the same thing this summer. I a large soft maple that I had a chance to get for firewood. The limbs were all piled up and the trunk cut in 2 chunks, one about 8' and the other 6', both about 30" across. While splitting the limbs I discovered really nice figure (curly). I then slit the slab that came off the stump and it was curly as well. I decided it would be worth the risk to have it sawn. I found a small mill and kiln that would cut it for me for $.50/bf plus $20 per nail he hit. I scanned it with a hand held metal detector and pulled about 8 nails but didn't find the 6 buried deep inside. I wound up with 540bf of lumber, about 3/4 of it is very acceptable curly soft maple of varying quality. The best though were 4 beautifully figured consecutive slices about 18" wide and 6' long that I have already made into a table top and they have paid for the rest of the wood. The rest is not figured or has dark stains that came down from a crack in the crotch.

   I like you was really hoping to find some curly crotch figure but that part of the boards are stained dark, and the figure wasn't exactly like my dreams. The crack and stains are pretty nice though and I have plans on using them bookmatched for panels in some spec pieces that I plan to build. I guess I would suggest look at the slab at the stump and chunks off the limbs by splitting them a, looking at the grain. I don't know any way to look at a tree and guess what is inside. When I made the decision I figured if it was unfigured I had a lot of interior framing material and drawer sides. I was disappointed with the amount of figured boards, I'd hoped for more. I got plenty of figure and some really spectacular boards and lots of drawer side material with the poor or no figure boards. It cost me about $.80/bf when factoring in the nails. The real advantage is I painted the ends of the logs with a pattern and quickly re-organized the boards in order for bookmatching before putting them in my loft. I can quickly pull boards and know that I can do a glue up and get beautiful panels with out much hunting.

   Good Luck!

   Brian

   
   

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   Edited 11/3/2004 7:34 am ET by BrianF