I received a call from one of my Amish friends, Melvin, that he found some curly cherry for me at his sawmill, and wondered if I was interested in it. I am always interested in curly cherry as it is one of my favorites.
There is another Amish mill that is part of the same company as Melvin's, so I stopped there first since it's on the way. The lumber grader at this mill pulls any figured lumber for me. His name is Simon. First thing I noticed when I pulled in is that my other friend Paul is grading lumber, and not Simon. Paul owns the Amish sawmill that I am writing blogs on now. His brother Chris owns Melvin's mill, this one, and one other. I knew something must be up for Paul to be here instead of overseeing his own business. Paul told me Simon won't be grading lumber, or doing much of anything for a while. It seems he was cleaning wood chips out of the edger with a stick. The edger was off, but the blower that sucks the chips up was still running. This is just like the blower systems you woodworkers use, but MUCH bigger. The stick he was using to clean the chips out of the nooks, and crannies of the blower hit the running fan blade of the blower. This threw his stick, and it smashed into his face. He broke his jaw in a couple of places, broke his cheekbone, and pulverized his orbital socket. Paul said he was in surgery today to get the bones put back where they are supposed to go. I asked one of the younger boys there if he had lost any of his teeth as well. The young guy replied " Yeah, all of them." I said with a shocked response, " Dang, they were all knocked out?" He laughed "No, he wears dentures, he had them all pulled out about 4 years ago" The young guy thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, shut off your blowers when removing the chips. I have been to many sawmills where they do the same thing Simon did.
Dangerous job. The log truck driver at one of the sawmills that I frequent had another kid, so he thought it would be a good idea to get some life insurance. For occupation he wrote " Log truck driver". He was denied coverage as his occupation made him a poor risk. The grader at this same sawmill the log truck driver works in tripped, and broke his leg. One of the other workers got hit with a board, and broke his nose. Another tore his shoulder muscles. All of this happened in 2010 not to mention all of the broken fingers they all suffered.
Well off to Melvin's mill. He was right when he said he has some of the best curly cherry he has seen in a long time. That's saying a lot beacause this is the only lumber Melvin ever cuts. Cherry eight hours a day six days a week, so Melvin sees a lot of cherry! There was almost 200bd ft of it there, and almost all was at 8/4. The load weighed around 1100 lbs. One is over 19" wide x 10' long x 2" thick. It weighs 175lbs by itself. Here's a couple of pictures of the first layer:
The second one from the bottom is the 19"er. The darker spots on the one next to it is the moisture from the wood still. These boards were just cut a couple days ago, and have a long ways to go before they are dry enough to use. The 19" board alone will lose 70lbs in water. I have some fans on them 24/7 to get some of the moisture out before they go in the dry kiln. Probably keep them this way for a month, or two. I reverse the fans every few days, so they blow into the other side of the pile as well. We do not want any dead spots in airflow. These won't be ready for sale until mid winter at the earliest.
I would bet that there aren't too many curly cherry boards in the entire country that are equal to these right now, especially considering the sheer mass of each of these monsters. There was another layer, and a half like this one. Off to wax the ends.
Thanks for reading
Kevin Koski
Curly Maple Wood
Dry Kiln owner/operator
