Thread: Milled up the Crows Ash at the Mac farm

Well the time finally came for me to mill up the big Crows Ash. It has been down for almost a year and I was surprised how dry it actually was. Hard as nails and the site a bit dodgy , very steep and a lot of loose rock to trip over, not the best footing . This log was too big to move, so I had no choice, had to mill it where it was . I did manage to rotate it , by using a wrapping strap from the car around the log and back to a tree, then chucking smaller logs underneath to prop it. This way most of the slabs were around 800mm wide, the widest 830mm after a bit of trimming at the end, the maximum for my medium milling bar 4' long.

Being at a high angle at least made the milling easier. I set up a pull line to the mill, but gave it away, as this caused more issues than helped and it was relatively easy going due to the slope (albeit slow going). I did have a rope tied from the mill back to the trailer to ensure it didn't get away from me, especially when finishing the cut. I also had a 7:1 (2.5t) pulley set-up from the milling ladder, that was fixed to the slab being cut, back to the trailer. This was to ensure the slab didn't slide down the hill when cut, but I also used it to pull the slab up the log onto the flatter ground above. One by one the slabs were cut and then slid back to form a stack of slabs. I backed the car back to this stack, then simply stood up the slab to lie against the back of the car, then lift the other end and slid it on the tray that was downhill.

I cut a 100mm cant to start with, then a 100mm slab (for legs etc), then 5 no. 50mm slabs, leaving a 150mm cant that I had to cut into sections so I could lift them (for turning blanks anyway). I used the first cant as a sliding slab over the rocks for the remaining slabs. Once up top I cut the 100mm slab along the length of the slab so I could lift it, along a bark inclusion for most of the way, but I was always going to cut it into boards anyway for legs/stringers etc. Most of the slabs have bark inclusions including a relatively big one where 2 branches obviously joined, with a few holes etc. These can all be filled with resin or cut away as needed in the future. The true colour is similar to the first slab photo, but plenty of grain and colour variation in each slab . The photos really do not show the slabs too well , they really are nice.

Now home I have to unload it all and stack it with stickers in the new carport . Have to wait a while though to get my strength back, doing this on your own is not easy, especially for such heavy timber.

I left the camper and trailer out at the farm as next week I am back again to start on the Camphor Laurel logs, the first is ~1100 wide.

Cheers