On the way home from the beach I had the chance to drop by one of my old favorite sawmills in hope of finding materials for my tiny tables. This sawmill is located in Perry Fla and has had a lot of very large cypress slabs, pecky and birds eye along with antique sinker cypress. One of his sawmills is very old, it once belonged to Alabama's gov. George Wallaces father. (If you have a problem with the Confederate battle flag this might not be the right place for you!) It is powered by a 440 Chrysler engine and is driven off one very large flat belt. Quite a show to watch run but really scary with all the open belts, blades, shafts and rolling logs. For the cypress I picked out 3 ea. 2x6 and 4 ea 1x8 s, and picked 3ea. 2x4 and 3 ea 1x8 yellow pine. The mosquitoes were about to eat me alive so I just threw the wood in the boat and tried to escape with out lives. In the following months I hope to reduce this wood to Tiny Tables.
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capncarl your not kidding.. Over in Coeur d'Alane Ida they have old logs they are salvaging from ponds the WareHauser mills . Your stash reminds me of that or old barn wood. cant wait to see your tables. -
I started planing the wood into usable boards today, SUPRISE, this was not what I wanted! I went out of my way to go to this old sawmill because I knew that he had really nice sinker cypress, not something you can find just anywhere. When I planed the 2x6 it was not cypress! It is cedar. Now I have about 20 BF of planed 1x8 for table tops and no materials for legs. On the up side I can re-saw the 24 lf of 2x6 cedar and make boxes like Durango Dude. The grand daughters will love them!
Another thing that I learned about this wood. Don't buy wood that is cut by a 100 year old wore out saw mill unless you just want it. There was not a single board that was cut square, every piece was cut tapered and was a real pain to plane. At least it was cut over size allowing me to mill it down to a size I was happy with. It just took all day!
The pine is trash, basically firewood. It is old yellow pine with some obvious worm damage. Just right for my Tiny Tables. When I planed it the slight worm damage turned to power post beetle infested. It looks like it was shot by #8 bird shot from 10 feet. Not usable for anything I can think of.
Lesson learned. Buy newly kiln dried wood from my local sawyer, precision cut with good new equipment. A little more expensive that the old sawmill but still reasonable priced and a lot easier on me and my equipment.
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Photo of 2x6 cedar
Nice grain, some has lots of sap wood though. Will probably re-saw nicely.
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That is some beautiful cedar!Hank Lee
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted!
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