Wood Working 101

I know you all follow Rod on Facebook.

And he already posted a bunch of pictures

about our fun weekend activities.

But I took better pictures.

LOL

It's hard to believe those logs were

out in the yard for 2 years!

Seemed WAAAAAY longer.

Hahahahaha

The whole reason we cut them down

in the first place was that one of them

was dead (or nearly there).

We were worried it would fall

and land on the neighbor's house.

But in order to get to the dead one

we (ok, Kyle) needed to cut down

the live one in front of it.

SAD FACE!

They were HUGE roots.

The hole was DEEP.

 He started it with Doug's tractor

and finished it up by hand.

A LOT of digging by hand.

 My phone says this was April 18, 2016.

So... then the logs were out in the yard.

Eventually they dried enough that we

could peel the bark off.

And then they stayed out there some more.

Until this weekend.

It was windy.

And a little chilly.

But mostly Kyle was wearing his hoody

up over his head to keep the wood chips

out of his hair.

And eyes.

And ears.

But it still went in his boots.

They measured.

And trimmed the branch stubs off.

They started with the tree that was dead.

Lots of rings on that stump!

The wood was still wet.

From sitting out in the rain.

More measuring and then they installed

the frame to make the first cut.

The chain saw is in an Alaskan Wood Mill

holder thingie.

That's the technical name for it.

The frame holds the blade at the right

height and keeps everything safe.

It's quite the contraption.

I took lots of pictures of what it looks like

cuz I thought Dad might be interested.

I also took a bunch of video.
I'll have to upload those to YouTube and

put the link in here.

I'll do it tomorrow.

This is already bordering on War and Peace length.

Hahahahahaha

This is what it looked like after the first cut.

I really liked the way it looked.

Lots of worm holes,

lots of texture,

I loved it!

Isn't it pretty?

They cut a beautiful 3" slab for our mantel

and then Kyle cut a bunch of 1" slabs 

so he could build some furniture.

(He wants to build a TV stand for his room.)

They carried it into the shed

so it could sit and dry out.

And then it started to fall apart.

Which was a bummer!

Meanwhile, Kyle brought over the

other log - the one from the tree that

wasn't dead before they cut it down.

He's pretty handy with that thing!

Went through the whole process again.

Measuring, setting up the frame,

etc etc etc.

Now THAT is some beautiful wood!!!

After the first cut they don't need the frame anymore.

The chain saw and it's frame just sit right on the wood.

This log was so much nicer!

And we have 16 more feet of it!

They cut me another 3" slab for a mantel

and a bunch more 1" slabs for Kyle's projects.

And then it was getting dark so they stopped.

Oh,

and the other wood ended up on the burn pile.

Which was sad.

But honestly, it wasn't good for anything.

Pretty though!

I'm excited for the next step!

(and see the rough top behind it?

I think Rod is going to turn it into

a coat rack or something...)