Good logs or not?

Hi. My friend has offered to give me a couple of logs from trees felled when he started building his new house. They're white pine, maybe ten feet long, 12" to 14" in diameter. They were cut down in August, but have been sitting there for a couple of years with the bark on. How likely is it that these logs would be any good for milling into lumber? I'm hoping to get a harvest table out of them, plus more for other projects already on the go, if possible.

I'm imagining that there could be severe checking, but could I get 6' lengths of good wood? How deep could I expect insect damage to be under the bark? Should I be hopeful that they'll really be worth the trouble? I'm looking forward to the chance to build something out of wood that I didn't buy pre-milled. (His 1.5km fully-snowed-in-last-Sunday driveway might prevent us from doing this for a few more months, unless we get a big meltdown before winter really settles in.)

Thanks for your thoughts.

- Owen -

Reply to
Owen Lawrence
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more then likely the worm holes will be thoughout the wood also will have blue stain and may be soft textured by this time. i sawed some old white pine logs a couple years back, had grub holes about 3/8" in dia. ross

Reply to
Ross Hebeisen

Hello, Owen. I have seen the tables on the 'net about what you will get when you harvest a log, and it ain't pretty.

Add to the fact that they have probably been sitting on the ground for a season or two, and you will have even less lumber available. If the borers weren't there (or even if they are) I think Ross is right about the discoloration. And pine doesn't usually discolor in an attractive way, either.

Cut the end of of one of your logs, and split it. You should have a vague idea of what you will be getting.

But unless you are milling it yourself, you should check on the costs of having the portable mill guys come out. It ain't cheap. Likely you could buy much more white pine lumber of good quality for less money than it will cost you to have one of those guys out.

YMMV.

Reply to
nailshooter41

Wed, Dec 19, 2007, 12:31am snipped-for-privacy@iosphere.net (Owen=A0Lawrence) puteth out: =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0Hi. My friend has offered to give me a couple of logs

I wouldn't count on 'em being usable. But, you'll never know until you check. If nothing else you can throw a large marshmallow roast.

JOAT I do things I don't know how to do, so that I might learn how to do them.

- Picasso

Reply to
J T

Well, that was the plan, borrow a mill from the neighbour and mill them ourselves. Alternatively I could try to put them on my trailer bring them to my wood supplier who also has a mill; it would add something like $0.40/bf to the cost, plus whatever extra I had to spend in transportation. But I'm not sure that alternative would be worth the effort. If I had some exceptional hardwood logs then I might do it. There's plenty more trees where those ones came from, but it's going to be awhile before we can get at them. (No roads yet, and no hauling equipment.)

Thanks for all the responses, guys. I'll keep my expectations very low.

- Owen -

Reply to
Owen Lawrence

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