Cutting & Drying your own Lumber

I am hoping to take you through the various stages of lumber cutting, stacking & drying Lumber, and eventually to the long term storage and milling of your valued lumber. The Blogs will be broken down as follows.

1. 1. Overview (this blog)
2. 2. Lumber cutting Commercial saw mills
3. 3. Lumber cutting Home saw mills
4. 4. Lumber cutting Band saws
5. 5. Drying, Stacking and Long term storage.

Why cut and dry your own lumber?

With the ever increasing costs of lumber, cutting and drying your own lumber is becoming more and more popular and affordable. In addition it gives you the chance to get some really unusual lumber that is always available.

Why is the lumber becoming so expensive today, well most recently the obvious increase in transportation costs due to the increase in gas prices around the world. The basic value of the tree in the ground has not increased that much in the past years, but, then there are so many third parties between the tree in the ground and the wood on your bench, they all want their share of the profits, and you & are paying for that.

• The tree felling and transport to the Sawyer
• The Sawyers cost and transport to the wholesaler (which may include kiln drying)
• The wholesaler's costs and shipping to the retailer
• The retailers cost’s and possibly shipping to you.

Typical cost of 1 cubic meter (423.78 board feet) of Birch, which is straight edged, 25mm (4/4), kiln dried to 8% is about 976€ ( US$1520 or $3.60/bf)

Cost of logs delivered to my door 50€ (US$78)/cubic meter - you do the math!

I am not certain how trees are priced around the world, I guess every country or region has it own methods, here in Finland, we pay by the cubic meter - that is the tree felled and stripped of it’s branches - with the logs cut into your required lengths. Of course there are other sources of wood:

• look in you own back yard
• Ask your friends & neighbors
• Contact the local municipality
• Contact local tree surgeons
• Contact somebody who sells firewood (a great source for unusual species and odd shaped pieces)

I am lucky I have an agreement with a local farmer, I build/repair things for him & his family and I also work on the farm sometimes, in return I get loads and loads of wood.

So you have found your nice piece of wood what are we going to do next.

You now have a choice, you can store your log in a cool, dry, well ventilated place for a number of years (remove the bark) or you can cut it immediately.

  So lets assume that you re going to cut the log into planks ready for a project. The methods used for cutting the logs, really depend upon the size of the log you want to cut or the machinery/facilities you have close to you. 

The methods of cutting up logs are:

• Sawyer (either a circular or Band saw)
• Chain saw mill (self cutting)
• Conventional Band saw (smaller logs only)
• Hand saw (the good old days in the bottom of that pit!)
• Chain saw hand held (not recommended)

  For this series of blogs, I am going to cover the first three methods only. Tune into the second Blog for more information.

Tags: lumber

Categories: General