Thread: Is this log worth sawing?

Looking at the higher resolution photo, the small cracks are almost straight with the log. Just a small twist to the right Tony. One of the things that attracted me to the log was how straight grained it was.
Cheers. Pat

A bit late to the party and all, but here's my take....

The log isn't worth $800, either in firewood or lumber. Talk to local tree services. They pay to haul logs to the dump, or at best haul it to a friend who makes firewood or lumber.

The work to make it into firewood and then transport it to where they're buying is what adds the value. So yeah, you could get $800-$1,000 once it's all split and stacked and dried in racks at your shop. Agree there.

The same proposition applies with lumber. Once sawn and air dried, I would expect ~$4.00/board-ft rough sawn for FAS, maybe only $1/bd-ft if it's dimensional construction lumber. BUT... That's after you mill it and dry it.

If it was something valuable and exotic to the furniture or musical instrument making universe, perhaps you could get something for it. I'm thinking Tassie blackwood, Wandoo, Jarrah, Native Olive, Sheoak burl... But it's not, and that means you would have to saw it and then do the creative marketing/selling.

So yeah, firewood probably wins, especially since you don't already have an outlet selling your cut wood - say a local woodworking club, cabinetmaker's shop, furniture studio, ebay store, etc.

Nothing I would disagree with there TruckJohn. For me firewood is the winner as my house depends on it for heating. I'm semi retired and have the saw and splitter so processing it is just a matter of work and a bit of fuel. The photo shows the final stage of making firewood of the head of the tree which yielded 6 tonne of top quality wood. The log will be cut into 4x1.5m lengths, carted home where I will clean the dirty pipe up the centre with the pressure washer and then cut up and split. A warm house makes for a happy wife - happy wife, happy life!Sawn log.HEIC-resized.jpg