Thread: Looking for advice on what to do with this beam

Any idea what timber? Pine or something soft, or hardwood?

If the timber is reasonable, you could do lots with it.

If you get a dedicated rip blade for your table saw, you could do the 6" deep rip from both sides without the bandsaw. It's no problem if your saw is big enough, I couldn't tell you how many times I did it at work. What table saw do you have? You'll want a decent amount of power to prevent stalling.

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

If you get a dedicated rip blade for your table saw, you could do the 6" deep rip from both sides without the bandsaw. It's no problem if your saw is big enough, I couldn't tell you how many times I did it at work. What table saw do you have? You'll want a decent amount of power to prevent stalling.

I have a 10inch, 15amp Delta. I did buy a ripping blade and try getting a board out of the 6in side, it was extremely rough on the cut side. I don't have a planer but I'm guessing a decent one would be able to smooth it out

No idea. I have about 50 of them right now and if say there are several different species from hard to soft wood. Some are very dense and heavy while others the same size I can pick up with one hand.

I used to have a guy who would go to a big yard West of Melbourne here in Australia and collect the crate timbers that Tractors and other big Farm machinery came crated in from the US . It may have been John Deere ?

The timbers were high quality species like US Red and White Oak, Ash and US Cherry . 4 x 4inch beams sometimes 6 x 4 " from 4 to 8 foot long or longer roughly . They had bolt holes which needed removing, cutting off or plugging up at the ends.
These timbers were the heart of the saw logs which are pretty much a waste product from a saw log. The round heart of the tree is still in the middle so the piece splits out from the center with any heat or humidity change and continues moving .
Sawing them in half through the heart would solve that problem though.

I used them as table legs in rustic country style furniture and wedged filled the cracks with same species filler wedges . They all got used up and sold off. I saw and repaired one of those tables years later that came back in and there had been movement in the legs around those wedges. The piece was so rustic any way that it didn't really look so bad. It suited that use.

Ive worked on a 300 year old original English table made around 1680 that had huge 6 to 8 " diameter legs made the same way from the branches of an Oak tree. The heart of the tree in the center of each leg. Wedge filled cracks just the same . Repaired a number of times . It was a high quality piece with a lovely original lift off top all with nice original patina that the elderly lady clients mother had bought from a London Antique dealer in the 1920s. The leg turning style had a cup and cover then carved design. Legs of this period were not normally made this way but someone decided to give it a go on this one . If your interested here's a link to the style of the leg of the Antique . Cup and cover turned leg - Google Search


I was told later the company stopped letting people go collect wood from the source as they were sick of the mess that was left and of the possible danger of injury to people removing it coming back to cost the company .

Rob

Thank you so much for your advice