I am having one cut down this upcoming week, any reason to save some of the trunk?? Probably about an 8 foot section with no limbs/knots.
Heartwood might be nice if it is still solid. But if it is yard wood it can be tough finding someone to risk hardware to slice it up.
I don't know.. when I contracted a guy to come board out a black walnut that was dropped here, he asked if it was a yard tree. I told him yes, he replied that if it had nails and ruined his bandsaw blade we'd discuss if it was worth going forward. If I wanted him to go forward, I would agree that all blades after that were "mine". They broke, I'd pay for them.. I agreed. I guess it depends on the sawyer, and the customer. edit.. he did have an initial setup/travel fee that was to be paid regardless, and an hourly rate that was agreed upon. I'm sure he took into account the first blade, had it been broken, within those charges. But it was a fair rate from a top notch guy.
I have thought of a use, possibly a dining room table, book matched. 5x8 maybe for the family gatherings. Now if I can get someone to mill it if it is solid when they drop it.
If you decide to have it milled, or even consider it.. then determine what you want to get out of it before it's ever felled. Once it's cut, you can't undo it. I would leave an additional 6" or so on each end just to help ensure you can get the boardage you want. Once it's down, they say you should preserve/paint the ends to help reduce any checking till it can be boarded out, and it will also be easier than painting/preserving the ends afterwards. If you don't do that it can/will check really badly on the ends and could split straight up the middle.
And aside from a matching hutch, I couldn't see how you could go wrong with that plan with some old growth pine.
I bet Shawn Curry could give you many ideas on what to do with the wood, and advice on the tree if ya snapped some pics.
the size of that table is just amazing to me.. I have a hard time imagining the cookie monster tree that that cookie came from. Not a fan of the chairs, but the table and bench look awesome.
I made a hall tree a few years ago for the wife. I appolagize I’ll have to find the rest of pictures these aren’t vary good. It’s not made of boards though it’s plywood stained and polyurethaned. By wood working standards it’s done wrong with the grain going opposite each other but I liked it so why not...
My grandfather liked to build Early-American style furniture from pine. Most of he wood he used looked to be some nice old growth stuff - very narrow growth rings and nice wide boards. I have a couple of his pieces - this cabinet is in our laundry room. If I had some old growth pine, that’s probably the style I’d build. It’s also traditional for Shaker pieces. If you’re looking for a sawyer, wood-mizer has a database on their website you can search for local guys to hire in your area. You’re going to need to find a biggun for that size log. Depending on your tastes, the next problem you’ll run into is surface planing those nice wide boards. Of course, back in the day they did it all with hand planes and that’s still an option. But what I usually do is rip the boards down until they’re narrow enough to at least get them thru my lunchbox planer, and then glue them back together. You’ll want to leave the boards a bit longer than your finished length as the match will usually “slip” a bit as you plane the boards.
I would want to keep the width without gluing the boards together, kind of defeats the intent. I have lots of free time to hand plane and sand, not looking for "perfect". My initial thought is book matched live edge, we will see what actually happens. Starting to think I might have to save some more trunk for what I want to do. First 8+ feet is clear after that plenty of knots, mix and match.
In that case, Lie-Nielsen and Wood River both make some fine hand planes these days. You can just sand them smooth too but you don’t want to skip too much of the planing because the surface may end up feeling “bumpy”. A dining table in particular is something people will place their hands on regularly so you will probably want it to at least “feel flat” to the touch. A big dining room table top is going to be a lot of work by hand. You will have a whole new appreciation for the skills of our forefathers. I totally agree with you on wanting to keep the look of the wide book matched boards though. I ripped these ones in half to get them across my jointer - so I had 4 boards before I glued them back together. It takes me a few seconds to find the seam. If you can pick a nice straight grain line to rip along it can disappear entirely.
Any type of latex paint can be used to seal ends- You can figure about a year plus per inch of thickness for air drying time before working the wood. Make stickers ( pieces put between boards when drying from other parts of tree as strange stains can appear when unlike species are mixed. Need to find someone with a mill of at least 40" or more capacity.
