If anyone wondered what the boards would look like from these logs, I started sawing one of them last Saturday. picture The wood looked better than I expected.
That’s as far as I got. My sister came to visit with all of the kiddos right after I took this picture, so the sawing got preempted by a fishing trip to the pond and a “big adventure” through the woods and a hot dog lunch.
Nice looking grain on that piece. You’re going to have some beautiful furniture from that.
Call a lumber yard and ask. Maybe an arborist can point you in the direction of someone looking for wood.
Lovely post, Tully. I have a deep appreciation for trees, specifically since I had to plant 99% of them on my property. Conifers, mostly.
We have an oak tree in front of our house that is enormous, I wonder if there is anyway to guesstimate the age of the tree by measuring it.
Anyone?
Heh. Tully’s standin’ there with his wood in his hands.
This is a major WAG, because the variations in growth rings are huge, depending on rainfaill and type of soil, but here goes:
Figure the average ring is 1/8" thick and there are two thicknesses in the diameter, this means each ring is 0.25" of diameter. The diameter is circumference/pi. So, the number of rings would be:
circumference(inches)/pi x 4 rings/inch
The tree in the pictures averaged about 32" in diameter. Using this guess, you get 128 years. I counted 147 rings. Not a bad guess, I guess.
Tully - coming late to the party.
Just wanted to thank you for the post and pix.
I really envy and respect so many aspects of this - not the least being able to go from a growing tree on your land to a beautiful piece of furniture.
Really inspiring.
I’m waking up an almost zombie thread, but I manage a couple of hours of time on Sunday morning to partially saw one of these logs (picture) . The interior of the log was a little dissappointing as there was a little decay and quite of bit of splitting that was likely wind checking (picture) .
Being in a pensive mood, I realized, trees are like people. When you first see the cross section, you get so excited about the potential. “Oh boy, I can make a lot of pretty lumber from this.”
Then you start taking away the outer layers. Here’s a bug hole. Here’s a knot from an aborted limb. It’s not so perfect, but it’s still pretty. Then you get down to the heart. That’s where the potential lies for the most damage. You may not even be able to use it.
Ah, but trees are not like people. With a tree, you can cut out the knots. You can throw away the bad and keep the pretty stuff (picture). With people, it’s an all-or-nothing proposition. You have to take the damaged heart with the pretty grain.
What to you do when you’ve taken off the layers, one at a time, and you get to the heart and find there’s nothing there for you? You’ve invested all that time and sweat to get to that point and you can’t even make firewood.
I’m sorry Tully, and after all that work you have into it already.
What about the other logs from the tree? Didn’t you get a few off of it? How do they look?
