Last time on my blog we discussed quartersawing these giant sycamore logs by the bolt method. This time we will give it a go with the more conventional quartersawing method that many of you may be more familiar with. My Amish friend thinks this will be a lot slower, but I don't. I bet your wrong Melvin! I am so sure that I am right that I will feed your pigs if I am not.
First, after we wrestle one of the giants onto the mill, we have to adjust the mill frame so the saw blade runs right through the heart on both ends of the log. Since one end of the log is smaller than the the other that small end has to be jacked up. This is the same procedure we used as on the bolt method, so no starting the clock yet Melvin.
Here we are ready to go.
Next, we break out the log peavies, and flip the top half off the mill, again same as the bolt method. We now have a half which needs cutting into a quarter. Now you can start the clock Melvin. In the bolt method we left the half on the mill, and just slightly rotated that half a little, and cut off a bolt. You can review that method in the last blog I wrote if you like. Below we are cutting the half into the quarters. Picture got rotated, but you get the idea.
Next, off comes the top quarter off of the mill leaving us with the bottom quarter. We shall now finally begin to actually cut some boards.
We cut some nice 12/4 that would be 3" thick planks off the quartered faces. After this first cut was done we flipped the remaining quartered piece, and cut off the other face. There is a lot of more log peavy maneuvering going on here than there was with the bolt method. I am starting to think maybe Melvin knows what he is talking about. We still have another quarter get back on the mill, PLUS the other half that has to be quartered, and cut as well.
We tried this way for two more logs, and it ended up being over an hour longer than the bolt method. Melvin won, and I had to go feed the pigs for him. I don't think he fed these pigs in a while either. The boar kept running into my legs trying to get me to fall down, and drop the feed bucket before I could get it to the trough. Melvin kept rooting for the boar to knock me down too. Hard to believe a guy like Melvin goes to church on Sundays.
After 60 man hours of quartersawing and edging we are done with the sycamore. It is very important that if you ever cut sycamore yourself to end the seal the boards, or they will split like my son after he spills kool-aid on my wife's white carpet. I use a commercial end sealing wax, but old latex paint will work too. You just want to keep moisture escaping from the ends faster than than it comes out of the middle. We ended up with about 1600 bd ft of quartersawn lumber. The tally of the logs, flats sawn, would have been close to 2900 board feet, so we lost about 1300 board feet by quartersawing. That is probably a little more than when we quartersaw oak, but we kept cutting off thin slices to cut for maximum effect. You can see what I mean by reading the prvious blog.
I stacked the lumber pile in my barn with spacers (stickers) between the layers, and had some fans blowing through the pile for about a month as there was no room in the kiln. This also means I get to stack the pile twice! If air drying lighter woods, NEVER shut the fans off, or you could end up with stained lumber.
I talked to three experts on drying sycamore, and got three different kiln schedules! I decided to dry it at a moderate pace with lots of air flow, so I put more fans in the kiln. If we dry it too quickly, it will split, and crack. Too slow, and it will stain.
A few months later after that cold February week when we cut the logs, the first of the sycamore has arrived. Here is what it looks like all cleaned up. The colors range from white to orange to red. Some call this red sycamore. Although very heavy when green the lumber dries to light in weight. Easy to work, and soft. Maybe a little softer that poplar, but some of the Amish here use it for flooring, and it is still hard enough to stand up to abuse. Quartersawing produces the elongated to lizard scaling that you can see below. I have, or soon will have this in 4/4 (1") thick stock 5/4 (1.25") thick stock 8/4 (2") thick stock, and 12/4 (3") thick stock).
Below are some candle stick holders a customer of mine turned.
Thanks for reading
Kevin Koski
Dry kiln operator
