Pictures from the yard

Here are some photos of lumber we have had come in from our sawyers:

Natural edge spalted maple.

Here are some others dry and ready to go:

The cherry slab inventory is full:

Big wide quartersawn white oak table top material - these are extraordinary:

8/4 osage, some of it quartersawn:

Spalted QS sycamore:

Elm slabs with burl figure:

Huge thick heavy oak slabs (those are keys, for scale):

Another shot of the elm on left, oak on right:

Box elder turning blanks (kiln dry):

Last but not least, crotch figured chunks in a number of different species (above the mantle pieces):

Pear turning blanks

There are few woods as fun to turn as pear. We rarely have any blanks of any size in stock, so I am mentioning now that we DO have pear in sizable chunks for turning. We started with some big sections:

 

Some became thicker boards:

Some became bowl blanks:

A couple of the bowl blanks include some swirling figure:

    (The white is wet Anchorseal). Some blanks are only $5. Come and get 'em.

Scenes from the yard

Let's see if this new smart phone camera is any good. Here are some recent shots from the Lumber Logs' headquarters:


We finally bought fork extensions for the lift and can load the kiln without sweat:

We just got some nice wide cherry table top material from the sawyer. The biggest are 20" wide (before drying):

We have some green pear in sizable chunks:

Some pear still needs to be sawn into blanks:

If you want a piece of osage orange to turn then Joe will chainsaw off a chunk for you, leaving a pretty sight (if you like yellow):

Speaking of Joe, he has decided to decorate his workspace with a portrait of his niece. She is showing that you can pose with a (plastic) chainsaw and still be pretty.

Lumber Logs makes its Disney Hall debut

Two members of the LA Philharmonic recently joined the four members of So Percussion  for a performance of "Timber" by Michael Gordon at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The members of So made the walnut pieces being struck from Lumber Logs' wood. How cool is that?

photo credit Lawrence K Ho of the LA Times

 

The Problem,The Opportunity

According to Stephen M. Bratkovich from the USDA Forest Service:


"In the United States over 200 million cubic yards of urban tree and landscape residue are generated every year. Of this amount, 15 percent is classified as 'unchipped logs.' To put this figure in perspective, consider that if these logs were sawn into boards, they theoretically would produce 3.8 billion board feet of lumber, or nearly 30 percent of the hardwood lumber produced annually in the United States."


In most areas - and in St. Louis until 2004 - only a small percentage of those unchipped logs get sawn. Higher grade logs of desirable species have always gotten attention, but even all of these do not get used. (Nothing ruins a walnut log like a deeply buried bolt). It is keeping the gnarly pin oak from being dumped into a landfill that we at Lumber Logs are most proud of. Pallet boards, railroad ties, and blocking are not glamorous ends, but they all beat a landfill.


The reason these lower grade logs rarely get used is that collecting and getting them to a sawmill is simply not economic, at least not without the 5-10% that fall into the desirable category. By taking all of their log waste stream, we save tree removers time and money. By supporting Lumber Logs by buying your lumber from us, you are a key part of The Solution. I thank you for that.

working notes: persimmon

Persimmon is an extraordinary wood in several ways. First is its hardness. As the only domestic wood in the ebony family, this is no surprise. No wonder it is the wood used in golf club heads. This means you need to be super sharp to work it with hand tools, but it is not as difficult to work as its hardness suggests. In fact, it melts away beautifully under a rasp in any direction, I suppose because it lacks any of the stringiness you find in oak, hickory or black locust. This lack of stringiness makes it an excellent carving wood (much like ebony is) because you can come at it from most any angle and it will leave an exact track of what your gouge has done. This may not always be a plus if your carving skill matches mine, but it is incentive to up your carving game.

Once it is shaped, it will take a very high polish, so sand it to the highest grit you own. It will shimmer like marble.

Contributing to the marble-like appearance is its coloration. The only jet black parts are inevitably near a check, so the usable wood is mostly a cream color with wisps of smoky grey streaking through it. I find this attractive on its own - like marble - but compared to the clear single color of a nice maple or gingko some might consider it "dirty" looking. Personal preference I suppose. Even more than the maple or gingko its lacks any prominent grain or annual rings.

Not that you will be making many loom shuttles, but this wood has high wear resistance, probably due to its high silica content. I am guessing this is another side of the high polish characteristic. In any case, if you have a situation calling for lots of rubbing, consider persimmon. I have used it for drawer sides and runners and I doubt they will wear in my lifetime.

Persimmon moves a lot when drying but I have noticed no particular issues once dry. As mentioned above, the black heartwood is a very small portion of a board and this part inevitably checks as it dries, so between warping and these checks, finding high grade boards can be a challenge. We do our best, but we end up with a number of smaller boards as a result. If you want to make a table top of persimmon, expect it to include character. This can be very effective. Take a look at the vanity one of our customers made from persimmon:

You can dress it up too. Here is a crotch piece with a blackwood accent:

We get a few persimmon logs and saw it 8/4 most of the time to assure we have something usable after it warps. The pieces are certainly larger than any ebony you might find, and at $5/bf, it is much cheaper.

I personally have very little experience with ebony. I am put off  by its environmental reputation, so I am glad that my experiments with india ink and sanding to high grits are a very successful substitute:

I hope you can tell that I love persimmon. It is a favorite discovery in domestic hardwoods.

working notes: rift sawn oak

Whether you like it or not, a ring porous wood like oak, ash or hickory will always have a prominent grain affecting the look of your project. This can really make or break the look of what you have made. Wood is a natural material and its grain is part of that, no doubt about it. But there are times when a prominent grain becomes a distraction to the overall design. I have an entire blog post on this subject here and will not repeat it all, but let's just review the visual differences in how wood can look depending on how the log was oriented on the saw.

First, a sample of PS white oak, the most common and cheapest cut (where the board face is parallel to a tangent of the log round):

Here is a sample of PS red oak:

Next, a sample of QS white oak (where the board face is along a radius of the log):

Here is the QS cut in red oak:

Here is today's subject, a RS sample in white oak that comes from a board that is somewhere between the two cuts above:

A RS red oak sample:

You can see at a glance that the RS wood has a quieter grain with the vertical lines of those annual rings lining up just so without the medullary ray flecks that the QS wood displays. I think this makes rift sawn oak easier to work into a design than either of the other two cuts. And not only for the frame in frame and panel work; see how well mannered it is as panel too:

[photo missing]

 So the answer when you want to use an oak but do not want the prominent grain shouting over the overall design is to use RS wood. You get oak's strength, more stability in use than PS stock, and a quiet unobtrusive look that lets the shape of the design get a word in edgewise. A table leg is another obvious situation where this becomes important. In fact, I'd prefer RS wood for the table's rails too. Only for the table top would I consider one of the other cuts, probably preferring the QS material for its stability. Save the PS wood for panels or pieces that go into sight-impaired homes.

In any case, if you pay attention to grain patterning in your work, the results will be visually more pleasing and you will find yourself searching for RS wood. This is why we have our red and white oak inventory segregated by cut.