Thread: She-Oak

Originally Posted by stewart59

Hi!
I have a couple of lengths of casuarina cunninghamiana (River she-oak) about 1 metre long and maybe 40cm diameter. They are unmilled and still have the bark on. They have radial splits down their lengths from drying.
I've seen some very attractive figure in pieces of this timber. Small pieces for boxes or pens would still be useful.

Is there anywhere I could get these logs sawn? I could have a go myself but I have no idea how one converts timber in the round to flat bits.

Thank you

Stewart

Hi Stewart, More info needed. Do you have a chainsaw or a bandsaw? You can split it down to smaller manageble sections to be cut with a small bansaw or table saw. If you have some one near by with a bansaw mill they might be able to help you out.

...Mark

Thanks, Mark. I have a small electric chain saw, the Metabo small bandsaw, and a Triton table saw.

Stewart

My experience with she-oak has been those very same splits and as a consequence only small sections are available for uses such as pen blanks and knife handles.

I would look at cutting the log lengthwise into quarters with your chainsaw and then with a little more trimming you may be able to saw with either your bandsaw or the triton. If you use the tablesaw you may need to flatten two opposite sides so you can saw from both sides giving a cut of around 125mm if you have a 235mm saw.

A big bandsaw would probably be the way to go if you know somebody. Backsawn oak produces a more interesting figure than quartersawn. As you will probably only be sawing into small sections you will soon work out which looks best.

Regards
Paul