I have a friend with 3 very large cherry trees that were blown down a few years ago. The wood is still in great shape, it’s not rotting (yet). With that said, they probably will not be good for live-edge projects due to the bark starting to get loose. There is a lot of wood there, my estimate is there is over 8,000 board feet of lumber in those trees. In addition to the cherry, there is some white oak, sassafrass and silver maple.
He is not a woodworker, so I’m on my own if I want the wood. I can get it for almost free (I promised to make him a cherry headboard), but there will be a lot of work and expense to turn those trees into usable lumber.
So, to hire someone to mill the trees, then to air-dry it for a period of time, I’d need to partner with interested folks to spread the cost out. Anyone interested?
I would be interested in some 2’ and 5’ straight logs of any of the wood. I’d be interested in some air dried lumber as well, but even a 1000’ of lumber would tax my limits for storage.
Cool. That is what I’m most interested in at this time is how much interest there may be in this wood. I’m open to creative ideas on how to harvest and divvy it up.
I worked with a guy who had a portable bandsaw mill (Aaron Cross - Cross Cut I think is his business) to turn a big elm into big boards a couple years ago (they are still drying in my barn). Yes, it does take space. He did a great job and it was quite reasonable, I think I paid $400 for the whole morning’s worth of work.
I could be in for a portion. Might have to move some elm first… Sassafrass would be cool to work with.
Sassafrass would be cool to work with.