The LumberWorksForums

O.K. I just wanted to submit some pics of this large Oak that I wanted to quarter saw,, I followed one of the techniques that I red Via some of the info that Treebucker had posted, at the top of this index here,,
Anyway It turned out really nice wood,,, With all the oak I had,, I grade sawed it all, by rotating the cant and avoiding the juvinile wood, and triming any defects,, but I had no quartersawen stock,, this log being large to the toon of nearly 1900lbs was a good canadate.All in all the yield was pretty decent, most of the quartered boards were 7" wide, not to bad,,Under normal grade sawing this log should have yielded around 2oobf I ended up with around or nearly 180bf not all was 1/4ered some rift and still some plane sawn,,I now have an inventory of quarter sawn red oak,, would I do it again? probably, But I would prefer to have a right now paying customer.

Very nice! That's the highest yield of the q-sawing methods. Fine job illustrating it. Looks like a textbook example.

What would you have done without your hoist?

It would have been way more difficult to cut this log, as it was so heavy that 2 people and a set of cant hook I dont think would be able to turn it against the fences, and I'm glad my fences are heavy duty, 1 1/2" quarter wall square tubing.
The over head hoist did the turning, I have a spike hook that I drive in on the top corner away from me, hooked to a small lite chain, I drop that down behind the loog and then bring it back up on my side and hook it to the hoist and hold the button,, I have the line quadroupeld so the lift is over 2600lbs and slower, which is good to square it up against the fences,, and of course with the skiddin tongs, was easy to grab the slab and just lift it......
Now w/o it,,, My log loading turning crane has a 1000lb capacity when the boom is short,,, it may have been able to turn the cant and probably raise the slab,, but GULP,, it would have been much slower and a bit more risky, meaning something could have broke or failed,,or, flip the slab off on to ramps, as the slab width was about 19" which 2 slabs side by side would be 38" and my tracks are 35" apart,, wouldnt wanna drop that on the ground.

Thats the way I do it except I take the cant and boards off as I go, a lot less up and down with the head. Steve

Hey Robert, i cant get the pics up either. I quartersawed an oak log on sunday. I first leveled it up, then sawed a square cant, then i halfed it down the center, turned it 90 and sawed down the center again. I then sawed the quatered face off each of these smaller cants. Got some nice flake.. did i do this right? It was my first attempt and to me, its seems to come out fine. But if ive missed anything, please advise.-Phil

What you missed is you dont really wanna half it in the middle exactly,, you wanna be a couple inches above the center,, and then take several 4/4 cuts down to the center, and then go several more 4/4 cuts down past the center, then remove that large top piece, pull off those center cuts of 4/4 stock, then put your large top hald back to the lower, rotate 90deg, and saw thru at 4/4,, then put those center cuts back on the mill, and cut your clear 4/4 out of that, make several sticker cuts, to get ride of the juvinile wood, and the bottom clear is also 4/4 Q-sawn,,,
You'll have a lil mikx of Rift and Q-sawn, but all fine lumber,,

I was quartersawing today and I took some pics for you. Tell me if I got it wrong.
I started off by squaring the cant. It ended up 15x15

I then sawed out three boards out of the middle taking in the pith of the log. The diagram showed it as four boards but considering my log started out at 20" I made do with three.

I set the three boards off to the side and stood the two cants up together.

I keep a sticker in between my cants when Im sawing more then one, it seems to work the saw a little easier. I then peal my boards off. These happen to be 1 1/2 For a table Im going to build for my wife. Honeydoo #4

I then put the three boards back on the mill and took a 6" off the top and left a 6" on the bottom and I was left with three 1x3s out of the pith that Ill use sometime for stickers. Hope it helps. Id still like to see roberts pics again also.

Thats it Buddy,, thats it exactly,,
See iIm on a different puter now and those pix are proly long gone,,
But yes you do get some nice Q-Sawn boards as well as some that are rift, { Rift being the growth rings start to tilt about 8-15 deg off the face of the board }
I have just finished last week for a customer a table and 2 benches which all the tops were Q-sawn Lumber..
Oh and another thing,, did you notice when handling Q-sawn,, even green, the boards feel different,, theres very little flex to the board as your handling them.

I was milling by myself and things were going pretty slow so I had time to snap a few. Wore myself out pulling slabs, turning logs,loading lumber and running the mill. It was quite a work out. I had all of the lumber in the back of my truck to take a half mile over to my fathers house and lost the whole load half way up my driveway. Had to reload it all on a hill side and my tailgate will never be the same. You'd think a man that lived on a hill for 12 years would be smart enough to use a ratchet strap. I have noticed that the boards seem much more solid. I love quartersawn oak, I wouldnt care if I ever used anything different.