Marlen at WOOD
on:
Quartersaw
Hi Everyone
Hope everyone is doing okay, and all you east coast guys are all dug out.
I bet you are all doing better than my Amish friend here. I went over his house last week, and he had a glove on one hand, and a big mitten on the other. He's the guy with the sawmill that cut up that burl for us. I asked him "What's up with the big mitten?" His reply was that he was just cold, and couldn't find his other glove. After working with him for a while, I noticed he wasn't using that mittened hand too much. This time I asked him "Alright, what's going on with that hand?". He just laughed and pulled off the mitten. He had two big bandages on two of his fingers. He pulled those off, and showed me what was left of those two fingers. Here he was jointing a small piece of wood when it broke. His fingers went through the jointer instead of the wood removing two of them to the first knuckle. The doctor folded the skin over the stumps and stitched them up. Looked like slabs of lunchmeat. Don't think I will be eating any bologna sandwiches anythime soon. I asked him if he planned on running his hand through the planer too! He didn't find that comment as funny as I did. I guess we all have had our woodworking injuries. I had my finger smashed between the sawmill frame and a 800lb cherry log. I pulled off my blood filled glove, and my finger was flat for a second then it swelled up like a sausage! I definitely broke it. I thought I was going to have to go to the doctor for that one. I also had my hand caught in a belt sander once, and it sanded off a couple of my fingernails That hurt a little too. Still tough to tell that story. It was the pain that kept on giving for two months.
Anyway, things are picking up a little here on the sawmilling end of the business. There are still some mills that I work with that haven't cut any logs for over 7 months though. Some are also out of business for good, but most are back at it, albeit at a slower pace.
It would still be a really good time to stock up on lumber right now as prices are still about half what they were at the peak. If you are lucky enough to have a sawmill close by go order yourself some "green" lumber, and dry it in your solar kiln. I have the plans for you on previous blogs. FAS red oak is still around .85 cents a board foot. FAS is one of the highest grades. Cherry was still around $1.50 for the same FAS grade. I was paying $1.70 for oak a couple years ago, and cherry was at $2.50!
Here are some curly cherry billets that an Amish mill found here a while back. These were rough cut by the sawmill to a little over 2" thick (8/4). When the mills cut 8/4 they usually are expected to cut the lumber to 2 3/16" thick. Most of these billets finished off anywhere from 1 3/8" thick up to 2" thick. I like the deep red color that Pennsylvanian cherry is noted for. I definitely didn't get these for anywhere close to $1.56 a board foot though!
Here are some of the pictures from the finished off pieces:
Here's a different one
Here's another
And one more:
We have a really hard time locating any curly cherry let alone 8/4 curly cherry, especially now with the sawmills running as slow as they are. Sure are a lot more beautiful than that ugly burl we cut up last month, and a lot nicer looking than my friends hand!
Thank you for reading, and hope everyone out there has a Merry Christmas!
Kevin Koski
Curly Maple Wood
Dry Kiln owner/operator
