Thread: blue gum

Reminds me of the floor we had as a kid.

Great score!!!

Ouch, see that you hit a few nails

all in a short space of timber too

Beautifl slabs there though pjt. half your luck

Nice healthy tree there. Shame about the nails.
Love that crotch wood.

Bob

Dreaded nails, bits of wire actually as they go right thru it, the downside of town trees, beggars cant be choosey
The center does have a bit of a pipe so the center slabs have split air here is very dry atm and hot, not ideal milling time need to slow the drying right down, I am gonna try them with no gap between slab, maybe direct on top of each other or sheet of cement board between just a thought atm, I am seeing what is happening to them over the next few days, doesnt appear to have any stain happening, maybe not a problem in hardwood or might also be just the time of year.
I do want to try something as it is tooo much effort to put into slabbing just to have them split or surface check beyond use
Peter

Originally Posted by pjt

I am gonna try them with no gap between slab, maybe direct on top of each other

I tried that and they went mouldy. Same problem with thin strips of fibre cement, and also MDF. My best luck (and still far from perfect) has been with 3/4" stickers and a loose wrapped plastic cover in a covered but not totally enclosed, low air movement area. Getting them into some sort of a stack (even sitting on top of each other for a short period) as soon as the slabs come of the trunk rather than leaving them completely exposed on both sides and waiting until milling is completed to stack them seems to help reduce splitting. There also seems to be a fine line between growing mould and stopping them splitting.

I think timing is up there with the usual suspects, by that I mean the slabs will be fine sitting on top of each other for a no. of days but if weather changes....rain high humidity and everything turns mouldy keeping the sun off as u say, I must admit I didnt do that for the the top of the stack and the remainder of log for 1 day
and they both split, didnt help having a bit of pipe starting tho, other slabs yet to see, I have them all stacked on top of each other atm some with the flitches on top to keep the sun off.

Peter

Try burying them in saw dust this was something I learned to do with cypress to slow it drying and stop the splitting etc. and paint the ends with thickened oil/wax of a thin grease like consistency.

surprised to see a husky was capable of doing that...lol

just kidding

surprised to see a husky was capable of doing that...lol
like butter just kidding...

Travis, Did u put sawdust in between slabs or normal sticks and then bury them in the sawdust

Peter

no sticker as normal with thin stickers, like 8 to 10 mm thick by about 40 wide then bury in as much sawdust as you can up to about 6" deep and leave it like that for a couple of months. The sawdust slows the transpiration but still allows it to breathe.