Surprise! Awesome figured maple (I DID NOT EXPECT THIS!!!)

hey guys I gotta tell you I think I have got one of the best logs that I have ever cut on my wood-mizer here with me today this is a figured maple that I had a customer bring me and again they had a difficult time finding someone that was willing to do this log I'd cut some other things for them before and it was one that I asked them if they would please bring it here to me at my home so that I can saw it here and have a little bit more time and more tools and things available at my resources to move it around this thing is gigantic and so as they brought it to me I understood that I was going to have to do a little bit of chainsaw work to it to get this whole thing able to work out and I'm gonna walk here on the log here a little bit and show you just why this is kind of challenging but also at the same time what we want to use as much of our capabilities as possible to cut this thing because there's tremendous value in this figured maple log that they brought me let's take a look at it right now as we approach this log this figured maple you can see all these kind of Burling and figure around the outside of the log and it is absolutely everywhere all the way around it and then when we get to this side you'll see where the customer started cutting it down on the side there and even at that when we look up close you can see oh my gosh look at all of the figure that is in that so this is going to be quite a fun project to do back it up a little bit here and you can see kind of how that was cut now the challenge is a Sawyer when we look at something like this is that first of all it is too big for my mill as it currently is the wood-mizer lt40 that I run can handle a log that is up to thirty six inch diameter that's a bit early around it's not rounded as curvature to it and other issues that would affect the ability you saw this properly so what I have to do is I have to go ahead and get out the chainsaw and do a little bit of work clean up where they started cutting and cut that off and I might take that and turn that into some bowls or something because it's not going to be really useful for lumber but I think that we're gonna have a good time today cutting this up so let's get started [Music] as you can see now that I've cut that it is certainly a lot straighter I've gotten rid of that bump on the bottom as we walk around here you can see the color difference from the old to the new from what I've cut there so I'm gonna go fire up the skid steer and tip this thing over I'm going to try to set it on the mill and it's going to take a bit of craft to cut this one down let's see what happens [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] now that I have this awesome maple log up on the mill I have to go about starting to cut it so this is now approximately chainsaw down to the maximum diameter that this mill can handle you're gonna see that I'm gonna have to still rotate it and take cuts around the outside just to get it to a reasonable working size and they're still chainsaw marks from the other side from where the customer had cut it across before so there's a little bit to work around but we have a lotta log to work with here so there's going to be a little bit of scrap but there is I think we're gonna have some very beautiful wood in this [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] well guys I got to be honest I thought after I did don't tell my wife how I did this video and it went crazy with I think we're almost at 2 million or over 2 million views now but I would kind of be done doing stuff like this um little wood dust in my mouth but this is the kind of thing those videos have a lot of power in the fact that they bring me work I get to do that other people would never get to do and have a lot of fun doing it so let's continue cutting this log [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] I want to share something with you guys about cutting a log like this a little bit of insider information some of you watch this video because your Sawyer's yourself and you like to see different techniques and you like to see how other people do things some of you are new to saw milling and you want to know if certain things are possible if you can really do them ya with enough motivation you can do just about anything and with enough time and enough chainsaw chains and gas and lubricant you can pull off just about any job jobs like this are difficult and one of the reasons is because of all the work you got to put into them but there's always a point in time when I know I finally got the job licked and that's when I'm reaching this point that I'm about at now you eventually reach a point where you've got it straight enough and you've made enough cuts around that now you know from here on out there's probably not going to be any more chainsaw work there's probably not going to be any more funny rotating the log around or anything like that and I think that I'm just about there now so let's go let's finish it out [Music] [Music] [Music] okay if you can see here on this last cut I hit a nail right there and shiny thing right there and that nail will dull blade so I need to change the blade out right now to finish cutting this log all right so this log is officially a pain in the rear now I thought I had hit a nail but it was very robust whatever I hit and I'm trying to dig this out of here now to see if we can figure out exactly what it was it is stuck in here but whatever it is it's very substantial so I'm gonna go get another tool to try to pry this out and cut it out of here all right this is the picture of what it is here you can see that is a thick metal strap that is embedded into this log I have no idea how far it goes through all right well I'm gonna keep going on this let's see where I get all right after digging in this for a little bit longer I discovered that this metal strap has a twin there's one right there and there's the other one so I'm gonna have to make an executive decision here I realized that this is really too far into this log to be able to cut this and have any success without going through every blade that I have and so the decision that I'm making now is that I'm going to cut this log right about here cut down with the chainsaw in the hopes that those straps are going that direction and then I can cut the rest of this into short stock which should be just fine for whatever purposes that we have in mind for it well guys this log is what we call a butt kicker there's nothing else that I can say about it that metal strap in there is going somewhere I cut it where I thought would be a safe distance away from that strap and I got about four inches into it and I obviously hit metal so now my chain on my chain saw is ruined so the next thing to do is to try to cut even higher yet - probably like about another six inches above that and see if that metal strap is continuing to go up there I have other commitments today so I got to come back to this for you watching it will make a difference but for me I got to come back to this that's supposed to rain all day tomorrow and I work outside cover of the mill up at night and so it's gonna be a couple days until I can even get back to this so then I'm gonna have to resume recording for you all when I get all my stuff together and be able to do this so we're two sawmill blades in hopefully the third one I put in is the last and I'm just saying this is what you get into when you get into some of these large logs that come from a person's house or neighborhood you will cut into it relatively speaking you'll cut ten or fifteen years into that log and then you'll find something that someone nailed or strapped in there from I don't know 40 years ago and there you go so we'll come back to this and you'll see me in a second which will be a couple days take care guys okay I felt inclined to say one more thing before I come back in a second to finish up this log don't give up sometimes things are just difficult and there's a lot of life lessons to be learned and this is one of those don't I don't get this hardened when this stuff happens it doesn't bother me it used to but it doesn't bother me anymore because there are serious lessons learned in something like this and so much better than this victimization ideology that seems to exist today where everybody thinks they've had a hard life but have really overcome nothing except for maybe the sofa in their parents basement this here is stuff that grows life in commission and it grows good character and so these are the kind of things that I want to raise my kids in maybe not sawmilling but I want them to know that when things happen you don't blow up and you don't get irritated but you fix the problem and you move on so there you go there's the moral of this whole story let's finish this log [Music] [Music] okay guys it's time to show you why this wood was worth saving this is something I know that you all want to see look at that you can see guys all the figure that's in this wood is just absolutely crazy now I got another big piece that I want to show you here real quick here's another couple pieces [Music] here's some close-up shots look at that just absolutely stunning hopefully you can see that one thing the sawmilling business has taught me is about never giving up every now and then I'll get some young guys that are working with me and we'll ask them the question about halfway through the day when they start thinking like oh my gosh this is really tough and moving these heavy boards is awful and I'll ask them this one question I'll say son what do you think sawmilling is about and has usual I get kind of a dull look in the eyes and I say sawmilling is about winning every time that you approach something you're going to run into difficulty you know I think that work is about teaching life lessons as well it's not just about monotonous labor that goes on and on and is this mind numbing thing that you never get any enjoyment out of work should be enjoyable and it should be a challenge and you should have a lot of joy in overcoming those challenges and so that's part of what I've learned about doing this business it's just finding joy in what you do yeah it can be difficult work at times but it's worth it and so that's why I've kept doing this over the years this maple log was absolutely beautiful and it's a shining example of why it's worth putting in the extra effort sometimes to get something that's really worthwhile guys I hope that you've enjoyed watching this video if you like what you're seeing here please go ahead and subscribe I have woodworking videos I saw a million videos guys if you would go ahead and subscribe that would be awesome hope you have a great day calculator

Channel: Southern Indiana Sawmill

Views: 1,898,438

Rating: 4.7119203 out of 5

Keywords: Log, Oak, Ash, Walnut, Cherry, determination, hard work, dangerous, chainsaw, sawyer, sawmill, Wood-Mizer, Orange, sawdust, woodworking, genius, field, blades, sharp, lumber, wood, timber, plank, furniture, flooring, working man, bobcat, wow, exciting, winner, win, Figured maple, maker, diy, surprise, production, homestead

Id: NiARHO2d3Rs

Length: 20min 2sec (1202 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019