The Biggest Log I've Ever Sawn [6' between the guides]

hey everyone my name is Matt welcome to our backyard today are we slicing up this big silver maple so my buddy erik has been telling me he has some big logs that would potentially challenge my mill for a while we finally had some time to get together eric went and picked up this log this morning and brought it by we have a little fun today and slice this guy up so this is the biggest log that's ever been on my saw it is four feet across at the base it's blaze up to a crotch which is about five feet wide and then it continues up to a second crotch at the top the whole thing is tall feet long and to capture the entire shape of the log it's gonna require a six foot cut with the estimated weight on this log is about 7,000 pounds which is a bit over 3,000 kilos for all you metric folk so let's take a quick walk around log and see what we got here since we're just having fun today I normally would probably roll this log a little bit to raise his limbs so it's a little more parallel to the cut but since bris kind of having fun today we're just gonna cut it as a lace right now now up here on this upper cross section where some of the bark is missing you can see some of these like quote lumps here so it should have some figure up in here at least now we walk around to the other side we can see how much of the saws thing is going to take you can see on the left side we're pretty much all the way over and then over here on the right side have a little bit of space left and it does floor out there at the bottom with this being reasonably well positioned we can go ahead and make the first cut the log does have a bit of a curve to it in this orientation so I'm aiming for the first cut to come to the bottom of that curve oh very nice [Applause] it's also just a little bit longer than the total travel on my stuff I think it's actually longer than twelve feet but there is a partial cut at the bottom the little cut until we get into that section and then we can kind of work around that weird bottom half cut section area down there so we're doing with his first piece Labs is set bring them into tabletop and like coffee table sizes so this guy around here is the second slab coming off that's a little coffee table and I don't know if there is going to be a little dining table and there's the other half that's going to be another dining table and then there is the next one off of there so this is going to be absolutely beautiful table very shortly some really nice bark inclusions in here from that extra limb coming off and then we got a second of our conclusion up here which is just absolutely beautiful one thing I like about silver maple is that you start getting some reds and Pink's kind of showing through which is just a really nice and interesting visual look to things this is anger management sawmill style see if this side goes oh thanks and left at us here let me see let me get a good one feels good though all right let's see uh sue begun here oh I love the red yeah that's beautiful so down here what I absolutely love is bar conclusion through here which provides a little bit of figure out towards the top side here but what's absolutely amazing is the hardwood that we're starting into now with the Reds and the blues and all of these little mineral lines through here absolutely beautiful coming to the middle you've got another bar conclusion with some more figure up here starting to get into the crotch area of his limits coming off right here and then back towards the top we're back into some more the heartwood was just absolutely gorgeous so just for fun on here let's get some some width measurements we've got 40 interests down here we're up at 40 here in the middle and then up here on this little little area it's 36 oh man when we get down into here we're gonna be at almost 5 feet so it's let's keep cutting [Music] Wow oh this is nice I like those weed trees there's a little looking this guy getting pretty beautiful and they're only gonna get bigger from here here we go man that just comes to life we're starting got some serious figure over here from this little limb over here here's a quick look at this guy before we can see it's not too bright out here but there is some figure starting to form right here where this bar conclusion is starting to end I'll really get into this crotch section right there which should be pretty cool in the next few slaps and again some really nice figure with all of this streaking through here in the middle as we're getting into the heartwood this stuff is beautiful beautiful okay that's this guy like we're getting some figure up here where this crotch is starting just figure down here oh yeah this is beautiful you got you got check this out you gotta check this out I got some crotch figures starting to form through here just incredible and with a little more this bar conclusion as we're getting into this limb and you're starting to see a little banding of crotch digger coming down through here so that's indicative that we're gonna see some good stuff for the next few slabs not like this is like not good stuff but yeah it's crazy it's so big [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] brakes brakes let's see we got incredible that's pretty ridiculous this is the right up here we got a nice little bit of crotch figure coming through from that limb and then we're starting to get some serious stuff down here Suns not cooperating for me here but see we're getting some serious nice heartwood going on through here with a nice band of a white SAP wood and then this nice bit of figure from his limb coming through here with a little bit of crotch figure trying to expose the self here and it's really awesome bark inclusion up through here beautiful stuff alright got a few more load hum I got three more three more for today right whoa I got a door thinking about that yeah so Eric we're just saying how it's kind of hard to get a grasp on how wide this is this trailer is wide enough to drive a car up between offenders so should give yourself perspective on how wide this thing is visitors cut car in half so we got some really nice figure around this bar conclusions right through here in the middle she's just pretty ridiculously amazing and then coming up here this is cool there is I can't see any things to the Sun so coming up through here we've got some amazing bar conclusion which terminates and as its terminating we start getting into some figure and you can see it transitions into this nice crotch figure all the way down through here beautiful stuff I really like the reddish hues of the silver maple alright see this guy looks like we got a sweet bar conclusion than this one and a bit crotch bigger oh yeah that is crazy nice like a half a heart so yeah look at that we got this is all quarter-sawn so this hole left in my section towards the center here is the pit well towards the center here is the pit for them everything to the right and left is all quarter Sun so they've got some really nice straight green stuff all the way through the whole length here and on this side we start having a nice curve with the grain we got some less bark inclusion with a whole bunch of figure around it which is just really cool and then coming up here we greeted visually with another bark inclusion which has some pretty nice figure around it as well oh my god this last one here for today oh that's big oh I got you probably will nicest one so far yeah a little bit of bark inclusion but some nice crack figures surrounding it just a really nice color and figure throughout the entire slab whoo I went down here we got a little bit of a double kind of thing going on with this really nice long bar conclusion which is beautiful it's been about two weeks so we're gonna get back to saans thing going to be making some interesting cuts this time we'll be cutting out a half inch thick but they're just going to try and make some sweet custom thin six veneer stuff is gonna dry and his fancies vacuum kiln press thingy so this stuff is pretty incredibly thin here's a offcut just for scale that's about a half inch thick booms tape so we're at right at a half-inch thick right now and as far as cut accuracy goes kind of side down the edge here I mean it doesn't look like it's wavering at all so it's pretty reasonably accurate cut let's take a look at the color and stuff stuff is gorgeous so though it's been two weeks I feel like I've already forgotten how nice the stuff looks because I am kind of shocked right now some the heartwood in this is absolutely beautiful that reds and pinks we got a nice bit crash figure here with some bark inclusions and then there's a really nice band of crouched figure above this rot pocket here which is absolutely beautiful too see if this one's got going on so the cuz we're only moving through the log at a half inch at a time there's not gonna be a whole lot of change between these slabs this is kind of a different change of pace but once again got some nice heartwood some nice crotch figure with the bar conclusion and again up here some more nice crotch figure slaps further in now hopefully be something a little bit different at this point how think it's getting nicer straight down we get nicer they get bar conclusion with the scratch figure it's beautiful nice finishes that's so thin you got it there you go there's my slab mover alright I think this might be the last piece of thin veneer we're gonna cut so let's take a like a quick a look at this guy gah there we go yes this is some pretty clear stuff too and I mean every set all the stuff there's that bar conclusion again which is beautiful and they got some more kind of tapering off for the crotch figure up here and that's what's left of it right there and now we're kind of getting through these limbs over here so this has got a complete side and then on this side we're kind of through it all and we're kind of running out material so we're gonna get then on this side and this will be the last thin piece the most whack a few regular-sized slabs oh this thing and call us one good okay I lied we're gonna cut a few more of these thin slabs because they're pretty cool [Music] so it's been a couple of weeks once again and I finally have some time to get out here and finish this thing up so let's go ahead and make the last few cuts on this log to get this thing off my mill it's been on here for like a month you probably saw this one sort of popped as I got out of the cut what's happening here is this top face is missing on the Sun for so long that is dried more than the inside of the log so this area is pulling together and shrinking and the bottom is and so this has a nice little cup in it right now it's not a huge deal because the rest of log was still holding it flat as was making that cut it was only when I got to the end of the cut that it actually went poop and released so the thickness is still consistent all the way down so that won't be reach problem that should come out in the drying process as this thing kind of equalizes and moisture leaves the other side it'll find its way back into flat so let's get these slabs all the way and take a look and see what we got all right just as beautiful as I remember get some water let's take a look this is a nice log a lot of interesting stuff going on okay so you got some nice mineral staining coming in from the cut on the bottom and we got some of these cool mineral streaked things all throughout here beautiful stuff a nice crack around through the crotch here some staining coming through here which i think is a really cool detail a little bit of figure up top up in these parts we got a little knot which is kind of cool and yeah just an overall pretty cool shape it's a shapely slab so that was the last of the larger main slabs so I think I'll do now just saw some of these off cuts and get whatever I can out of them maybe some fun little slabs or or something we'll see anything I can do to avoid cutting more things in the firewood because anybody got time for that [Music] Eric ran all the slabs through his vacuum kill which also features a press which holds the bloomer inside the kiln flat as a vacuum dries it the built-in press allows for this wide stuff to be dried completely flat without turning into a potato chip like they would if they were dried any other way the thin pieces were then sent through the wide belt sander to clean them up and bring them down to a final thickness Eric took a sequential pair of the thin slabs and glued them to the front and backside of a pre hung hollow core door that he got at the home center he then built a form around the door so I could pour in epoxy to fill in the voids and I think this is the first time I've ever ended one of these Samba videos with a completed project so here is Eric's door it's got about a quarter-inch thick of epoxy with a quarter inch thick piece of slab I guess and that is a fully assembled two-sided door with doorknob and everything so that's not a fun concept of what we'd done with a thin slab like this stuff this guy here is also something that he made this is a piece of wall art but it could be a tabletop or really anything else like that this is just a piece of that thin slab that's been glued down to a piece of plywood and it has an epoxy pour around it so some pretty cool and interesting concepts and I'll be sharing more of this in the future as we work on this concept since I'm able to cut really wide and he's able to dry really wide really thin nice and flat it's a kind of an interesting collaboration that we are working on so this was a little bit of a crazier interesting sort of sawmill adventure the biggest log that was up there on the mill cut without a problem and resulting in some really interesting and unique pieces of wood and it's really cool to be able to go from a log to a finished piece like this really quickly this was done about a month after a lot was cut and as things been sitting here for about a month since it was actually built so that's kind of a kind of a cool thing to see what was a tree not too long ago become an actual functional piece of someone's home so I think it's gonna do it for this one thank she was always for watching and greatly appreciated who any questions or comments on thin slabs or anything back in the shop please feel free leave me a comment there's also be happy any questions you might have and until next time half working anybody there whoa

Channel: Matthew Cremona

Views: 422,790

Rating: 4.8918328 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, woodshop, furniture making, matt cremona, matthew cremona, fine woodworking, period furniture

Id: 3RUdsucXJB0

Length: 29min 28sec (1768 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 10 2019