Replies

1. 
   Truejoint | Jan 29, 2007 10:36pm | #1

   I have limited experience in milling lumber, however; it sounds like (unless you're up on the piedmont) you're working with southern oak species i.e. southern red oak, laurel oak, water oak, swamp chestnut oak and whatever grows over there. which can "move" a lot with humidity changes.  Either case, quarter sawing the logs is going to yield a much better product for flooring, especially if you're river house is subject to periods when it isn't being dried out by an ac unit during periods of non-use.  The chainsaw mill is ok to get the slabs small enough to get out of the woods, but a bandsaw mill is going to be a lot better to cut the boards themselves.  You'll save a lot of good wood from becoming sawdust with such a mill.  Quite a few folks buy these mills to cut boards for a house and then sell the mill.  A lot of homebuilding magazines advertise used  band saw mills.  If you know what the wood is going to be used for then you can really save a lot of waste by cutting it to near its final dimensions before drying.  The shorter the boards then the less the thickness will be lost to bending (because your drying boards are only 4 - 6 feet long for your floor strips), likewise, the narrower your boards the less will be lost to warping (3" wide planks for flooring).  I don't have enough experience with the southern oaks to know how much they're going to bend and warp, but you want to make sure you leave enough wood to take this out when they are dry and your ready to mill them into your final product.  Use good stickers (I like dried red cedar but don't know if that's available for you).  There's got to be a small (pecker) mill around there somewhere you can badger about this.

1. 
   hoonboy | Jan 30, 2007 03:30pm | #2

   Thanks Truejoint, for your response. I think you make some excellent points. I actually have a sawmill just down the road that an old fellow runs occasionally. It's an old rotary mill. There are a couple of Bandsaw mills nearby too and I intend to contact them for thier pricing. Thanks again.

1. 
   Ron01960 | Jan 30, 2007 03:46pm | #3

   Hi, you may want to ask this on the woodweb. There is a heading Sawing and Drying. Most are sawyers full and part time.best of luck
   Ron http://www.woodweb.com/cgi-bin/forums/sawdry.pl

2. 
   KeithNewton | Jan 31, 2007 01:29am | #4

   First you should coat the ends to stop them from checking. If you are going to cut it into flooring, you should do that asap. Oak is hard to dry in anything over 2" thick without lots of checking, so trying to dry large slabs will be ruining a lot of good wood. If you can have it QS, you will have a floor that is twice as stable as plain-sawn.
   Here is a link for finding a sawyer, if the others don't work out.http://www.woodweb.com/Resources/RSSDGsawyers.htmlHere is a link to Scott Branburry's site showing how he goes about QSing large trees.http://www.scottbanbury.com/quartersawing.html

   Edited 1/30/2007 5:43 pm by KeithNewton