Thread: Cut some boards from what I think is Juniperus virginiana or Eastern Red Cedar

Nice, did it having a really strong smell to it when you were milling?

Looks and sounds like what I've milled in the past.

Here's a link to thread showing what I got from my two small logs.

https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132/picked-wood-mizer-168437

Shame you had to use the chainsaw as you would've lost a fair bit due to the cut , whereabouts in Melbourne are you based?

Nice shots of the cedar. Bigger log than we had. Do you know how the boards were used?

The saw is fitted with the low kerf ripping chain so it doesn't waste as much as a normal chain - and the milling is a bit easier on the saw - but it still wastes a bit more than a bandsaw like your Woodmizer. And I don't think I could get veneer widths like you show in your thread

But I can't afford a Woodmizer so that's moot. These logs would have gone for firewood or mulch otherwise so even with a bit of kerf waste, milling is still a better use IMO.

I live in Camberwell. The saw is a Stihl MS660 that I bought - on special - from the helpful lads at Dawn Mowers in Surrey Hills. I have done some small milling jobs in the backyard. When the Stihl fires up I think that most of Camberwell, large amounts of Hawthorn and parts of Glen Iris get to share the experience. We live in a heritage overlay area which attempts to maintain some semblance of what the original development back in 1930 looked like. I've suggested that sawmilling is a heritage activity and is thus within the ambit of the heritage overlay. But I don't think this would fly with the council bylaws officers so I only rarely use the saw at home and try to pick times when neighbours are out. We have a large park behind us so other than disturbing pampered pooches taking their constitutional we don't bother neighbours there.

We have some land down in Sth Gippsland that we're planting with a load of trees in an agroforestry approach. And once you get to know local farmers there's a bit of wood available from windthrow and so on. I aim to have a Woodmizer or similar down there at some point but that won't be for a few years.

On that note, there are occasional threads on Woodworkforums about length of time it takes to get trees from seed to millable. This is highly dependent on rainfall, soil, aspect and species and what the wood is for. We have silver wattles (Acacia dealbata) on our block that are under 10 years old and already at 30cm DBH. If they maintain this growth rate we will have millable trees in less than 20 years from seed to harvest. And it's a nice timber. Some of the eucs in a good site can reach 50cm DBH in under 25 years. And some of the northern hemisphere conifers and broadleaf species can get somewhere near that growth rate on a good site in Australian and New Zealand. In some cases, the timber will have different characteristics to native forest grown timber and may require different milling approaches but that can all be dealt with.

Originally Posted by MAI

Nice shots of the cedar. Bigger log than we had. Do you know how the boards were used?

Boards are racked in a mates shed, no real plans for them yet, the book matched pieces will be made into a coffee table and I may also make some salt and pepper grinders as well.

Silver Wattle is nice stuff, haven't actually milled any myself but have seen some being milled up.

Eastern Red Cedar....I have plenty of that stuff!


Looks like bacon on a board sometimes!! Raw logs on the left, and milled stuff on the right.



More raw logs, these are small and heavily tapered due to growing in the middle of a field.




The stuff always smells great, my neighbors definitely know when I'm milling it! Let's see some more of your photo's though!!





Scott (didn't know y'all had the ERC) B

Did it look like this inside? Nothing done to the photo, this is how this stuff here looks when you crack those logs open. The purple will fade some over time...but WOW!!!













Scott (ERC rules!!) B

Some nice timber there, Scott. What do woodies in the US use it for? The heartwood colour and contrast with sapwood is so dramatic that you'd think it would make for some nice pieces.

Re the aroma, there were some plants in the US extracting the aromatics for various uses. And I've read some US farmers use the heartwood for fencing posts as the wood is quite durable.

ERC is an exotic in Australia. Seems to grow OK in some places. We might plant a few at the block on general principles but I don't know how long it will take to grow a millable log. I would like to plant a few of the true cedars like Lebanon cedar and Himalaya cedar. I've seen some good sized trees from those species in the Dandies. Our block in Sth Gippsland has similar climate.

Originally Posted by SDB777

Did it look like this inside? Nothing done to the photo, this is how this stuff here looks when you crack those logs open. The purple will fade some over time...but WOW!!!













Scott (ERC rules!!) B

I've seen this timber used for everything from chests, pens, bottle stoppers, small boxes, mantles for fireplaces, if you can think of a use for timber in general....you can pretty much use ERC for it. The timber is supposed to be very bug resistant, but I have seen ants make a fine home out of a log laying on the ground, mostly in the sapwood. Fence posts will last a long time. When I was first cutting ERC with a chainsaw...I would sometimes 'noodle' the timber to get long slivers of shavings for the mesh bags to sell as potpourri. It smells great.


It is a very long lived tree. I was asked if I wanted to purchase one that had been growing in a cemetary...it had moved a headstone over two feet from its origin location. The butt-end of the tree was 48" across at the cut! I lost count on the growth rings at 125...and there was about a foot or more to go. Slow growing, unless in a furtile field, and some of the best coloring in the timber comes from 'poor soils that are near a lot of limestone'.



Scott (more photo's) B