Getting wood from the source (Pictures)

[Allen]

My mate back in Canada that I use to work with on weekends doing salvage work just sent me some pictures that some of you might find interesting. Makes me a little homesick looking at them though

He has a salvage license to take dead and down wood from some forest management areas around my home town back on the West Coast about 100 miles north of Vancouver. These pieces are from 2 trees that were blow down from some big storms during the winter. One was 6 feet in diameter, the other 8 feet. They would be second growth, since this entire area was clear cut from the early part of the 1900's to present. These would also be considered to be very small trees if they were first growth.

[Kim]

Thanks Alan,

Very interesting photos and beautiful country side, no wonder your feeling a little home sick.

Would they be Sitka spruce from around that area??

Cheers

Kim

[Bob Connor]

Great photos Allen.

Is there any usable tonewood in that lot?

Bob

[Allen]

There is some Sitka, but it's predominately Douglas Fir, Hemlock, and some of the biggest Western Red Cedar you can imagine. Lot's of other species as well. Maple, Alder, Yew and Arbutus. There was many times that I was working with him that we came across a Red Cedar that was laying down and covered with centuries of leaf littler. Had to dig out the log and many were over 12 feet in diameter. Kept us working for weeks on one log.

My mate just emailed me to say he's got some Cedar Music wood that he's had sitting around for ages, and I can have it if I want....

What do you think? I've only had wood shipped in dimensioned form. I think that this stuff will be large billets, since that's the way he handles it to fly it by helicopter out of the bush.

[sebastiaan56]

Hi Allen,

Its is an amazingly beautiful part of the world. But you cant in all honestly tell me you miss the cold. I was in Calgary when the wind came in from the Rockies, late Jan. Went from 40 degrees f to 2 degrees f in about 15 min! Bloody cold. I also spent about a month on Vancouver Island, nice place!

Im with Bob, any tonewood?

Edit Yup Im in

[Bob Connor]

I'd definitely go for it if its quartered Allen.

Bob

[Allen]

Great photos Allen.

Is there any usable tonewood in that lot?

Bob

I really don't know Bob. It's hard to tell from the photos. Most of his salvage work is either for the roofing industry in Cedar shakes and shingle, or flooring and furniture grade wood.

I helped him pull out some Douglas Fir from this lake that I turned into flooring for our family room. It was first growth sinker logs that were too small for the old time loggers. They built a railway along the shore line of the lakes and fell the wood into the lakes. Using steam donkeys to then skid the logs onto railway carriages. The old photos of the time show 1 log per carriage that would be at a minimum of 8 feet diameter. It seems that anything smaller than that wasn't worth the effort.

I tried to count the growth rings on some of the flooring pieces and most were so fine that you couldn't count them. I did get to 50/inch on some, but most were just too fine to see clearly. I kick myself today

[BillyT]

That's some great pix! Those logs are HUGE and make Hesh horny......

[Allen]

I worked in a sawmill for 1 winter when I was first married and money was really tight. $5/hour and we got to go home when it hit -40 Celsius. It was just too hard on the equipment at that temperature. They weren't concerned about the men. Metal traveling at high speeds tends to shatter like glass. So the short answers is NO F'N WAY DO I MISS THE COLD I've had frost bite too many times.

These photos are from a fresh water lake. There are 32 lakes like this within 1 hours drive from the center of our town. The town is on the main land, but it's like living on an island. It takes 2 ferries and about 5 hours to get to Vancouver, or 1 ferry and 1 1/2 hours to get onto Vancouver Island. And the road stops there. If you want to go further up the coast, it's in a boat or sea plane.

[Allen]

This just in. My Mate and I have a friend that has been building guitars for years, and seems that he's been selling tone wood as well. I can have him cut tops etc, so it's looking more like a go.

He said he has about 1/2 cord of wood. Thats 4 feet x 4 feet x 4 feet. How many tops are in that?

[Bob Connor]

Shitloads.

Bob

[Sam Price]

Wow!!

Brilliant pictures, Allen, and congratulations on the find!

[Hesh1956]

That's some great pix! Those logs are HUGE and make me horny......

Man Billy that was a weird thing to say..........

[Rick Turner]

Those logs must be morning wood to some here...

[Sam Price]

You lot...



I need to get out more...I have just spent 10 minutes chuckling at the evolution of those avatars over the last week....

[Dominic]

There is something really nice about an open log. All that potential and opportunity.
When i lived in Margaret River in SW WA we would go out and slab up huge old jarrah and karri logs that had fallen down or been pushed over during clearing etc. Sitting on the newly cut face of a log is strange. That place has been occupied by the other part of the tree for hundreds of years and then along comes a human with his cruel tools.

For those who are not familiar with these trees, here is a pic the karri forest where we lived for 12 year. This is close to the beach with great surf with the wine and dairy regions only a few km inland.


This forest is regrowth from the 1920's. Karri trees can grow to over 100m with clear straight trunks for 3/4 of that. These are younger trees around 50-60m. The area was clear-felled and much of it was sent to the UK for road and underground building. The jarrah forest is more open. Both woods are very hard and strong and both trees only occur in this very small part of the world.
Canberra has very open sparce woodlands with few tall trees. I miss the forest as well.
Dom

[Kim]

Here is one of 3 Jarrah flitches cut from the same trunk.






This was just a big log, nothing exceptional though just happened to be on the bed when I walked past with a camera. Big suckers for hardwood though but they did get much bigger than this one.

Cheers

Kim

[Rick Turner]

And right there is the problem with those circular saw mills...

You'll not be seeing much quartersawn timber out of that log. That's why I prefer to see portable band saw mills being used, or even an Alaska-style chain saw mill to break down the log to begin with. This nibbling boards out of a log is great for building houses, but not so good for instrument timber.

[Kim]

Because of checking, this log had been tagged by CALMS for firewood tenders. The guy who claimed it had to bid against the firewood carters. He had the wood pre-sold for scantling or roofing timber and was breaking it down accordingly.

The sad truth is that once, any jarrah with curl or figure was considered reject material. There was so much wood around that they even had trouble moving it for firewood because the curl made it difficult to split with a block splitter.

The answer was to simply poor a gallon of diesel over the log and touch the lot. This is not bullshit, the furniture and joinery trade did not want figured wood, nor did the building industry, it even got rejected for use as railway sleepers.

This is the kind of stuff I am talking about that got burnt.







Pisses me off to think about it realy, tons and tons and tons just burnt in a big pit at hundreds of mills all over the south west of WA


Kim

[Dominic]

Yep it is very sad, a lot of the wood we used to mill using chainsaw mills had been cut down and was simply pushed up in wind rows from farm clearing ready for burning. But then humans have a very poor record. They also used to shoot wedge tail eagles and anything else that moved. I think in terms of stupid destruction, WA is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. It contains a large proportion of Australia's bio-diversity and has also lost more species to extinction in modern times than anywhere else in the world. This is likely because humans just took longer to get to WA on mass than other places in the world but still. You think we would learn. The early British settlers even rounded up and killed most of the previous inhabitants in SW WA.
One nice thing is that when used well, WA timbers will last a very long time. Bakerwell (I think from memory) tube station in London had very old and still beautiful jarrah panelling all along some sections of the tube last time I was there and it had plaques to say it came from WA forests. And as i said, they used blocks of it to line the streets and make railway sleepers. Imagine how much of it could have looked like Kim's pics with that lovely curl. Lost to humans forever, like so many other things, due to greed and carelessness.
WA, and its remaining forests, are also the most vulnerable region in Australia to climate change. If the rainfall patterns shift a little further South as predicted, the forests have nowhere to go and may struggle to survive and be reduced to a small number of pockets.
Dom

[Serge]

Hurtin' with you guys, this is so sad that this awesome wood was burnt, i quit working in forestry because i was disgusted at he way our forest of small trees were poorly managed here, makes me want to cry sometimes...