Some wood harvesting pics

Ian Abraham

Member
Messages
97
Location
New Zealand
Hi Folks

Just a few pictures of what I've been up to.
Not strictly woodworking, well it is I guess, but starting out with a tree.

This is a large macrocarpa cypress tree at a friends farm. They were planted as hedges about 70-80 years ago. They are now a bit big for that and become a hazard, dropping limbs and falling over in storms etc. Fortunately the wood is very nice to work with :)

The pictures show before and after, the stump measured 52" and the log was still 31" at 42 feet up. My calcs have about 2500 Bdft of timber in there. The chainsaw in the 2nd to last pic is running a 28" bar, to give an idea of the size of this thing ;)

I got it bucked into 3 logs today and hopefully we can wrestle them out of the swamp with a 12 ton excavator tomorrow.

Video of the tree coming down is here.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR91YyPKPK0
A lot of camera shake and wind noise, but the end result is there :thumb:

I will post some more pics as we get the logs out and start sawing then up.

Cheers

Ian
 

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Tad bit of wood there Ian :thumb:

What is Cypress like to work?

Will it just become 2x4 stuff or.........?

Which Dolmar did you use to bring that bad boy down, at about 52" that is no tiny tree. Is the one next to it coming down too?

Cheers!
 
Hey Stu

I thought the logging pics might get your attention :D

Probably cut a lot of it into 1x (4-6-8) for furniture I build. Some 2x for the heavier pieces, a few live edge table tops and will do 6x4 landscape timbers from the rougher stuff.

The cypress is a softwood and you have to use it as such. The wood is hard enough for furniture, but tends to split out if you try and get fancy with the joinery. Works good in heavier pieces or as T&G type panels. The wood finishes up real nice and has good colour.

Saw is a Dolmar 7900, 80cc with a 28" bar. It's a NICE machine, and really rips into the softwood, but I think I'm going to need a bigger bar on it for some of those trees on the background. They are all coming out eventually so the gully can be re-fenced and planted with some new trees. It's the boundary line between my friends and her neighbours and the fence is pretty well stuffed. No point putting in new fences with trees like that falling on them.
But we are waiting on a 20ton digger to move the logs :D

Cheers

Ian
 
This is the work in progress in my kitchen, breakfast bar and panelling from the macrocarpa. The bar top is one 2" slab. Give you an idea of what the wood looks like finished anyway.

Ian
 

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Hey Ian, that sure does look nice, and the price, well you can't beat that! :thumb:

I've heard so much good and bad stuff about Dolmar, you, I gather, like them?

Cheers!
 
I've heard so much good and bad stuff about Dolmar, you, I gather, like them?

I think the saws are VERY good, German built with mostly alloy instead of plastic. I think there were some difficulties with the change from Dolmar to Makita, who now own Dolmar. They dont have the dealer network that Stihl or Husky have, but the saw are at least as good. The 7900 beats any Stihl for power to weight. Bore cutting into that tree was like hot knife in butter.:)

Ian
 
Thanks for the info Ian :thumb:

So Makita now own Dolmar, does that mean that Makita saws are rebadged Dolmars? :huh: :rolleyes: :D :thumb: That could be cool......

Most of the problems I'd heard were mainly aimed at the whole dealer net thing, in the US.

Cheers
 
When did all of this happen?

I've seen some decent looking Makita saws on the auctions, not that old, but not "new" for prices that are WAY lower than the Stihl or Husky saws.

I'd like to get a smaller saw for cutting up bowl blanks, the Husky 185 is just fine, but a 50cc or so saw would be of use, if I can get it for a fair price.

Sorry to highjack you thread like this :eek:

Cheers!
 
Made some more progress. Got the tree limbed and bucked into logs, most of the tops sliced up for firewood and dragged the logs out into the clear yesterday so I can mill them. The 12 ton excavator was struggling to lift the butt log, it's a fair size :D

Next step, milling :)

Ian
 

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Ian, that bar sure Finished out nice with just the right amount of grain showing. Did you have to stain it, or is that the natural color? I hope you get some good shots when you mill the logs.
 
No Stain there, just 3 coats of oil based Poly.

It is a very nice wood :)

I have organised a milling mission for tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday, and I promise to get more pics of the process. It's summer holidays for the schoolkids here, so I've got the teenage sons to help with the milling.

Cheers

Ian
 
Hey Ian, I VERY much look forward to the milling pics :thumb:

Now to go totally off track..........:rolleyes:

I've always wondered what it is like to celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer :huh: But I guess if you were born there, it has always been that way, so I don't matter much :D

Just curious.

Cheers!

PS PLEASE don't forget them pics :wave:
 
Now to go totally off track..........

I've always wondered what it is like to celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer But I guess if you were born there, it has always been that way, so I don't matter much

Just curious.

It is a bit strange because we have christmas cards and decorations with snowmen and santa and reindeer etc. Then have a barbecue or go to the beach :D Sunburn and too much food / beer is the main Xmas hazard.
It does work out good beacuse it's the main annual holiday, the weather is nice and the country pretty much closes down for 2 weeks.

It is strange how traditions are both carried on and evolved.

Anyway I'm off to move the mill and cut some boards :thumb:

Cheers

Ian
 
I have been following this thread for a bit now, but with the baby in my arms its hard to type. In any case I love to see other people harvesting lumber, and the fact that it is on the other side of the globe is even better (That goes for you to Stu)

New Zealand just facinates me and it is one of those places I would like to visit. For starters the culture and the terrain, and because it is one of the few places where you can snowmobile 365 days a year...from what I hear anyway.

It might be a bit though before I can get there. Alaska is up first, followed by Iceland, incidentally all places where you can snowmobile there 365 days a year as well.
 
New Zealand just facinates me and it is one of those places I would like to visit. For starters the culture and the terrain, and because it is one of the few places where you can snowmobile 365 days a year...from what I hear anyway.

Dont know if you will get 365 days, but I think that the snow farm down in the South Island has snowmobiling for most of the year. Snowmobiles aren't very common here, snow is usually only up on the Mt's, not where we actually live.
NZ is one place you can surf and snowboard the same day though :D

Anyway, more pics.
Lots of minor breakdowns to slow us down, but we eventually got the number 3 log sawn. Started on the butt log and had a screw come loose on the saw and no allen key driver that would reach :doh: So we called it a day and hauled what we had cut home. The pictures dont show the 200bf of 6x4 landscapeing timbers we cut from the roughest 3rd log.

Cheers

Ian
 

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Good to see you guys online again :wave:

Got some more sawing done, attacked the big butt log this time.
Was a mixed assortment inside, plenty of knots and bark inclusions, but plenty of nice clear timber too :)

A few more Pics

1 - The log opened up properly

2 - Closeup of a nice clear board

3 - Whats left of the log, and a stack of 6x4 landscaping timbers sawn from the rougher parts of the log

4 - Another load of timber to come home

5 - Stacked up to dry in front of the shed. A couple of months there and it will be pretty dry and get moved into the shed.

Cheers

Ian

P.S. Merry Xmas everyone. It was close to a White Xmas here, snow down to 4,000 ft on the Mt. On the LONGEST day of the year even. Travis might get a bit of summer snowmobiling in after all :D Sure but a dampener on the BBQ scene though :eek:
 

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