Into Each Life a Little Rain Must Fall
BobSmalser
| Posted in General Discussion on
“Naw….those fresh batteries for the metal detector can wait until lunch….after all, this is an upper log I’m milling.”
“When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think…that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ –John Ruskin.
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As my kid would say, "Wow man what a bummer!".
The Fates have obviously been waiting for many years for you to cut into that log. It's hard to tell, but it almost looks like the head end of the spike is (was) towards the heart of the tree.
The wood looks beautiful.
John W.
Ouch.
I come across bullets from time to time, but once what I thought at first to be a bullet turned out to be a steel sap spile. That was after the second pass through the planer.
My sawmill buddies tell me glass and ceramic insulators are very damaging,too.
Cement and all manner of hardware are common in house site trees...watch out for the old, forgotten hammer left setting in a crotch. But in these days of metal detectors and safer band or carbide-tipped blades, it isn't all that big a deal...more and more "urban" forester-sawyers go into business every day. I hit it a second time, of course with the chain saw when probing for it....but I expect that with hardware. I was just dumb enuf to assume the upper logs were clear, as running the metal detector at each board deck requires shutting off the mill and removing hard hat and ear plugs. I've found porcelain electrical insulators 36" deep in a 48" maple, and railroad spikes like this one are common as these woods were all laced with Shay mountain railways when the old-growth was first cut in the 1930's....this one probably held some sort of lantern or light 15' up in the tree....over 50 years ago. And watch out for soft bullets thjat don't go "zing" like steel...there's a nail in the center of them that held up the target. “When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone. Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think...that a time is to come when those (heirlooms) will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say, as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, ‘See! This our father did for us.’ “ --John Ruskin.
A tell-tale sign of hardware(at least iron) is black staining in the end grain of the log.
Yeah, that black staining will run 5 or 6 feet down a walnut log. Easy to spot in walnut. You can sometimes tell how deep the metal is from the surface.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)PlaneWood
It's also very evident in Hard Maple and the Oaks, and can run much further than 5'.
Look at the pic of the spike in the madrone...all the iron stain is entirely localized.
Depends on the tree...tylosed trees don't bleed far, either.
Edited 4/18/2004 12:47 am ET by Bob Smalser
"tylosed trees don't bleed far, either."
Don't take that as gospel, though. One time while tailing on a sawmill, I spied one Rock(in the White Oak family) Oak log that had a black spot showing in the butt end. The sawyer, thinking the same as you, decided it just couldn't be iron, so he ran the log. About 6 inches into it, 10 feet above the butt, he found an iron lag, with a ring attached. It was sufficient enough to crack the plate all the way to the mandrel, ruining the blade. A very expensive lesson.
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