Thread: Spotted gum advice.

Originally Posted by Stookie

.......
These people in olden times must have had a hellish time without moisture meters and Lucas milling saws and the likes. Gives you a bit more respect for the things built with wood that are still standing.....

I don't think they did, really, unless you mean doing everything by hand is 'hellish'. Perhaps you could describe the life of the bottom man on a pit-saw as pretty unpleasant though!

But to be serious, for one thing the old-timers sawed their woods in ways that had long been known to work best. They selected the choicest logs whenever possible, and used species that they knew to be appropriate for intended purpose. Many of our Eucalypts & Corymbias make excellent construction timbers "in the round" & utility items like benches if sawn wisely, but are by & large unsuitable for indoor furniture, hard to work & too dense for furniture parts at traditional dimensions.

It's quite easy to live without a moisture-meter. If you stack your freshly-sawn wood carefully & protect it from weather, it'll dry sufficient for purpose, given time. The old rule of thumb of "a year per inch of thickness" is a bit optimistic for the denser hardwoods & you should double that for anything over 50mm thick. For the more typical uses of very hard, dense woods, MC tends to be less critical because provided sufficient allowance for wood movement is incorporated in the design. It's really not that difficult, the main thing to remember is that heartwood generally does not change in length, only width & thickness as it gives off or takes up water...

The learning curve is steep at first, but you'll soon get the hang of it....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by Stookie

See how it goes fingers crossed.
These people in olden times must have had a hellish time without moisture meters and Lucas milling saws and the likes. Gives you a bit more respect for the things built with wood that are still standing

Stookie

I think woodworkers in times gone by did have problems and I am sure there were many failures, but of course these do not survive so we are completely unaware of them. Also they really did learn how to cope with the medium. Secondly, the trees to which they had access were superior in that they were most likely bigger and more plentiful. A fully mature tree, providing it has not gone past it's use-by date (eaten out by insects or otherwise degraded), is largely free of growth stress or tension. The problem we have today is that these mature trees are few and far between. This is the price we have had to pay for cutting the forests down at an exponential rate. As the supposedly most intelligent species on this planet, we are not really even half as smart as we think we are: Once the realisation began to dawn we compensated by going into denial.

Having become the harbinger of doom , I expect that you will be able to recover some useful timber from your Spotty logs, but it may not be in the form you envisaged. Smaller, shorter pieces will exhibit fewer issues or at least be less obvious.

Regards
Paul

Yes the learning curve is steep and I’m thoroughly enjoying all the info I’m reading. It’s very challenging however I think it’s better to be challenged in your work.

I’ve picked up a lot of tips so far and I really appreciate the advice and information.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know what to ask

Thanks everyone


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From my cracked timber I managed to salvage some wood and turned them into legs for a coffee table I wasn’t planning on making but today it was complete.
It’s my first project completed with substandard tools and made look half decent with some Odies oil.

All the wood used was from a well seasoned tree that was splitting on me all the time when slabbing. The top was from to first cut slab from same log that I was going to burn but I used my home made router sled and linear rails to take the curve off and then cut it in half and joined it.
I need a better circular saw , a track saw or a decent saw table but Rome wasn’t built in a day.



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Hi Everyone,
I'm very new here so I hope joining onto a thread isn't frowned upon but my question is specific to spotted gum and not sure if I should start another thread

Anyway, here goes...
This week I am having a 30m tall spotted gum cut down as it's roots are starting to cause damage around the house. I hate to do it but here we are.

I really want to utilise the timber from it and have already organised when it's cut for the trunk to be left in 2.5m lengths. It's roughly 600mm diameter at 1m off the ground.
I was going to lay the logs out of the way along the fence for a while (6-12 months) before contacting a mobile miller to come and slice it up.

I've read already that I need to seal the ends with Bondcrete (or similar) to prevent splitting but apart from that I really have no idea what to do.
I guess I need to keep it off the ground on some chocks of some sort but don't really know.

Any guidance on how to preserve the logs until milling time to maximise the timber from this magnificent tree would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Brett

Originally Posted by Kaiser42

Hi Everyone,
I'm very new here so I hope joining onto a thread isn't frowned upon but my question is specific to spotted gum and not sure if I should start another thread

Anyway, here goes...
This week I am having a 30m tall spotted gum cut down as it's roots are starting to cause damage around the house. I hate to do it but here we are.

I really want to utilise the timber from it and have already organised when it's cut for the trunk to be left in 2.5m lengths. It's roughly 600mm diameter at 1m off the ground.
I was going to lay the logs out of the way along the fence for a while (6-12 months) before contacting a mobile miller to come and slice it up.

I've read already that I need to seal the ends with Bondcrete (or similar) to prevent splitting but apart from that I really have no idea what to do.
I guess I need to keep it off the ground on some chocks of some sort but don't really know.

Any guidance on how to preserve the logs until milling time to maximise the timber from this magnificent tree would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Brett

Lyctid borers love this stuff!

I would be spraying the logs as well as end sealing

Keep logs up off the ground as well

Log Dog

Although the logs are heavier & harder to manouvre, wood is far easier to saw when green. Sawing the logs immediately also reduces waste due to splitting, which is highly likely if the logs are left in the round (but still seal the ends asap to minimise insect attack and splitting). A 600mm log is not going to yield very large quartered boards by the time heart & sapwood are worked around, so depending on what you envisage doing with it, it might be best to slab it in situ, which would get the job done quickly, but the noise might arouse the ire of your close neighbors if you are on a suburban lot. You'll also have a pile of sawdust & off-cuts to deal with, and you need somewhere to stack the slabs where they are protected from rain, but sufficiently ventilated to promote a steady rate of drying. The oft-quoted time for this is "a year per inch of board thickness", but it usually takes longer with our denser hardwoods & especially if you don't have good drying conditions (due to climate or position of the stack).

As Log Dog said, sapwood is best removed from most species. Apart from borer susceptibility, it is often a source of trouble because there is more linear shrinkage in sapwood than heartwood & that can create considerable tension in boards which contain significant amounts. Lyctus only attacks sapwood (higher starch content) but a young tree growing in relatively good conditions (= quickly) will likely have a thick band of sapwood. It's less likely to cause much distortion in slabs with sapwood on each side because that 'balances' the tension. [edit: But it can cause slabs cut through the centre to split very severely - I've had S.G slabs like that split entirely in two!]

Lyctid borers are fairly easy to discourage with relatively minor chemicals (boron is often recommended) and most normal finishes are protective on completed items, so you can use it under the right conditions, but it's certainly not a good idea to leave it on structural timbers, the little blighters can reduce it to powder over a few years of constant re-infestation.

Milling your own trees is not a simple matter, but it's far from impossible & if the tree has any sentimental value to you, at least the attachment can be prolonged if it's turned into some useful articles or pieces of furniture....

Cheers,

Brett

I cant help much with storing the logs for future use but I can advise you to get the tree down as soon as you can, from experience I can assure you 30 plus mt spottys are much easier to remove before they are in your second bedroom letting in plenty of natural light and rain. Its been 7 months for me and I am still in discussion with the local council who are responsible for the reserve where the tree was growing and NRMA who are responsible for the insurance claim to repair the house.

Have fun, cheers. Rick

Not sure how much credence to give this but old timers say that spotted gum is best milled when the bark falls off am this is generally what I have done. By "best" they mean reduced cracking and twisting compared to if milled immediatley after they are cut down. Much later than this and they start to go hard but not impossible to mill. My experience is the cut ends go rock hard first and represent a significant chain/blade blunter. When chainsaw milling for logs in the 1-2 year range I usually dock the ends off but I dont usually bother on the bandsaw mills.

Wow, I knew it wasn't going to be easy for a rank amateur like me but it might be just a bit too much...

The tree is definitely coming down on Friday. Everything booked and sorted there.

If I get the logs placed out of the way (up on some chocks of some sort) and seal the ends it sounds like I then need to treat it with some kind of chemical to prevent borers. What specific product is recommended for this?

I had spoken to someone on FB marketplace that has a mobile (Lucas?) mill who suggested about a 6 month wait before milling, but that might have been because they weren't available for that time... I'll take WWforums advice over a random on FB anyday!

I was going to have it cut into planks/sticks at whatever dimensions we could get to minimise waste, but it seems slabbing might be easier?
Storage is going to be an issue I think. I was going to leave it covered with a tarp outside both before and after milling (with strapping). If it needs to be under cover then it's just not going to work as I have nowhere suitable. For climate context, I live in north Brisbane.
I hope to have a table saw in the next couple of months which will make working with the timber slabs/sticks in a couple of years a bit easier.

It might be easier just to give the logs away to someone who knows what they're doing???
I might be about to bite off more than I can chew I think

Here's a pic of some Spotted gum I milled a few moons ago

Quartersawn also

It truly is a stunning timber imo

Log Dog

Originally Posted by Kaiser42

Wow, I knew it wasn't going to be easy for a rank amateur like me but it might be just a bit too much...

The tree is definitely coming down on Friday. Everything booked and sorted there.

If I get the logs placed out of the way (up on some chocks of some sort) and seal the ends it sounds like I then need to treat it with some kind of chemical to prevent borers. What specific product is recommended for this?

I had spoken to someone on FB marketplace that has a mobile (Lucas?) mill who suggested about a 6 month wait before milling, but that might have been because they weren't available for that time... I'll take WWforums advice over a random on FB anyday!

I was going to have it cut into planks/sticks at whatever dimensions we could get to minimise waste, but it seems slabbing might be easier?
Storage is going to be an issue I think. I was going to leave it covered with a tarp outside both before and after milling (with strapping). If it needs to be under cover then it's just not going to work as I have nowhere suitable. For climate context, I live in north Brisbane.
I hope to have a table saw in the next couple of months which will make working with the timber slabs/sticks in a couple of years a bit easier.

It might be easier just to give the logs away to someone who knows what they're doing???
I might be about to bite off more than I can chew I think

Don't get too daunted with the process of milling and seasoning timber

Homebrand insecticidal surface spray works a treat

Personally I would quartersaw the logs

You'll lose board width but gain stability

Stack it in a shady,cool part of the yard

Roofing iron on top to deflect heat and rain

And keep an eye on things for a year or two

Job done!

Go for it I say

Log Dog

Originally Posted by Log Dog

Don't get too daunted with the process of milling and seasoning timber

Homebrand insecticidal surface spray works a treat

Personally I would quartersaw the logs

You'll lose board width but gain stability

Stack it in a shady,cool part of the yard

Roofing iron on top to deflect heat and rain

And keep an eye on things for a year or two

Job done!

Go for it I say

Log Dog

Ummm, ok then... Log Dog talked me into it

I'll be looking for a mobile miller then... Is the small timber milling thread a good place to ask for quotes? https://www.woodworkforums.com/f132
Sorry if it's dumb question, but I don't know the forum rules/etiquette yet.

Cheers,
Brett

Google 'mobile sawmillers Brisbane'

A wealth of options revealed during my quick search

Log Dog