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 -