Black gum, cherry and poplar

My BIL has been felling trees on his property. He asked me if I wanted any for boards and I replied maybe. This is the first one:




Was hollow at the bottom but he said this log is solid. Apparently American Chestnut. I plan to get up there this weekend w/ the 394 and a 28” and mill it. Anyone have any experience with this species?

Second is a cherry. He did show me pics but I don’t have them to share right now. It looked like it wasn’t very straight but pics can be deceiving. Hope it pans out well. Cherry makes awesome boards.

Hopefully more pics to come. There is a break in the extreme heat this weekend but a 50% chance of rain. Fingers crossed.

 

That's a real shame about the American Chestnut. Might as well put it to good use at this point. That should make some really nice (and valuable) boards.

 

Not AC, black gum.

 

I’ll get him to share a pic of a leaf. I had no idea what species. Sure did mill fast.



This was cherry. Didn’t get anymore cuts besides the first. Weather and a wife that was ready to go home stopped me.

 

I have some vids to upload. I let him make a few cuts.


This is how we got them out of his woods. An old Wheel Horse and wagon.





Started out at 1 1/4 but realized I wasn’t going to have enough mix to keep going that way so I opened up the mill to 2” and finished. I think we’ll get one more log of it and then some of that cherry, then move on to a big ole poplar he has bucked into 8’ sections.

 

I don’t know AC but I don’t see any black gum

 

Not sure what you have there Jason. Found these 2 pics of AC on a woodworking forum I visit.

 

BIL went out and ID’d some leaves. He has that app that does it from a pic. Sent me this:



Good call PA Mountain Man ! What you win I’m not sure, lol.

 

Thanks. When doing small crick crossings would keep an eye out for gum. They typically go hollow and make a good pipe. Also make good den trees.
You got to that one in time to get some nice lumber.

 

So I had the title changed to reflect what we milled.

Back @ it today! My BIL bucked up that poplar so we milled it up. Produced some real nice boards! All were 1 3/4” thick. buZZsaw BRAD here’s the logs I mentioned.


This angle makes it look huge.







I was completely fatigued @ this point. I let him do a bunch of the cutting. This is the cherry.




Sorry, kinda out of order but I wanted to show my experience with 2 brand new loops of Oregon EXL. Ported 394, 28” b/c. After 1-2 cuts they both stretched to the point that once it started jumping out of the rim and skipping like a motorcycle with a worn sprocket!


After re-tensioning, which with this saw I had to pull it out of the mill, it pretty much stayed close after more cuts. I really like EXL but this is the first experience with major stretch.

And the final stack:

 

Some nice lumber. Ive always been able to spot TP in pallets based on its color. Big box stores sell it as finish lumber 1x4, 1x6 etc. How long does it take to make one pass with the saw? I watched buzz-saw use his band saw mill for the first time today. Made some nice boards.

 

Here some of the black gum. The poplar milled crazy quick. I’d say I/we made about 5-6 cuts per loop and I changed it out. Really wasn’t blunt yet but cuts were slowing down a little and I like to be able to just give chains a a swipe or two with the file to get them back to razor sharp.

 

And a quick one of poplar.
https://youtube.com/shorts/TlrsbOjthO4?feature=share

Not sure what’s going on w/ that. Won’t let me post it like a normal vid.

 

About a year and a half of air drying and my BIL found a place to surface plane these planks. Same guy that band milled my walnut a couple years ago, basically let us in his wood shop to use what appeared to be a 25” Grizzly planer. My BIL wanted some saw marks left for a rustic appearance, so we didn’t go crazy for perfect. I snapped some pics to share. These were stickered in his attached garage till he needs them to make a bar in his newly finished basement. Moisture readings varied from 13-20%.



Pics don’t do this rainbow poplar justice.


He’s going to point a box fan on these for a week or two, then randomly till used.

Top weights were old pieces of railroad steel.

 

Some nice stock. That poplar must be pretty as boards. I stacked the rest of the TP splits from my score and there was some pretty colored ones. Kinda wish it couldve been saved for milling. There's more left at that score. Gonna try to get back there this week. Maybe ill see of any can be mill fodder. Hopefully its still there. Dang rain 2-3 times a week is starting to aggravate me. Better than snow i huess.

 

Idk how I missed this thread, but that's one mint broncoII in those pics. brenndatomu

 

Thanks...but what thread were you looking at? No BII pics here...

 

Look up a little bit. From may. It was photo bombing. You can clearly see it's a clean BII, if you know what you're looking at. And I know you do .

 

O I C...I thought you were talking about pics of my old one...but yes, looks to be a survivor there!

 

That one is more than a survivor. It's a thriver.