From Fallen Trees to Stories

We have never sawed through so many separate nails in one log. It took forever to mill because we had to remove different nails in each slab we cut. In the end, it was still worth it. The customer grew up playing around this tree. If memory serves me correctly, the home was originally owned by her grandmother. There are three generations of memories surrounding this tree. Equipment used - Wood-Mizer LT40 Wide sawmill, Kubota MX5400 Tractor, Stihl 441 Chainsaw.

There are some days where things just don't go according to plan. This log took forever to get on the mill and mill up. Some of the problems were self imposed . . . like not sharpening your chainsaws in the morning. Others were just part of sawing up family trees. But, even a rough day at the sawmill is still a good day overall. In this video, I take a little extra time to explain what I am doing and why I do the things I do. The final product came out great! It just took a little time to get there. This video was actually recorded months ago, but we have been blessed to have our plates full. Until now, we have not been able to sit down, edit and publish this video until now. We milled the log with our Wood-Mizer LT40Wide portable sawmill and used a Kubota MX5400 tractor to logs and lumber around. For more information about us, please visit www.meriwethermillworks.com

Who needs a gym when you get to move 1,000's of pounds of lumber every day? This video is part of the ongoing documentation of the building of the furniture for the co-working space going into downtown Woodstock. Here we are breaking the boards down into more manageable parts to start building the desks. We milled the wood up with a Wood-Mizer LT40Wide and kiln dried it with the Wood-Mizer KD250 Dehumidification Kiln

As part of the ongoing documentation of the building of the furniture for Woodstock Millworks, we loaded up the Kiln with the lumber we recently milled from the property. Unfortunately, the kiln cart had developed a defect. We could not risk that defect negatively impacting the kiln drying process. Since the purchasing one was a 1 to 2 month wait, we had to load the kiln up ourselves. The wood was still green (filled with water) and it weighed 7 tons! We were exhausted after moving all this wood. This video was actually recorded months ago, but we have been gloriously busy and have not been able to sit down, edit and publish this video until now. We milled the log with our Wood-Mizer LT40Wide portable sawmill and used a Kubota B2650 tractor to move the logs to the mill and remove the finished lumber from the mill. We stack and sticker the green wood for 3 to 6 months to air-dry before putting the moving it into our Wood-Mizer KD250 Dehumidification Kiln to finish drying the lumber. For more information about us, please visit www.meriwethermillworks.com

As part of the ongoing documentation of the building of the furniture for the co-working space Woodstock Millworks, we finish milling up a Big Scarlett Oak we had started the day prior. This video was actually recorded months ago, but we have been gloriously busy and have not been able to sit down, edit and publish this video until now. We milled the log with our Wood-Mizer LT40Wide portable sawmill and used a Kubota B2650 tractor to move the logs to the mill and remove the finished lumber from the mill. We stack and sticker the green wood for 3 to 6 months to air-dry before putting the moving it into our Wood-Mizer KD250 Dehumidification Kiln to finish drying the lumber. For more information about us, please visit www.meriwethermillworks.com

We finish up mulling the Hickory that was full of rocks and had damaged the last saw blade. We also milled up a mystery log. All the bark had fallen off and we could not tell what it was until we had finished milling it. Of course, it had more than one surprise . . . unfortunately.

While milling up more lumber to build the furniture for the co-working space going into Downtown Woodstock, Georgia, my saw blade ran into a first. I sawed into a rock that was inside of the bark about 14 inches into the log. I had to rip back the bark to get it out. I had never seen that before.

Can't let the cold stop us from getting more logs to mill for the Co-Working space.

We continue to mill the logs from Adair Park Woodstock that will very quickly become the furniture in Woodstock Millworks, a co-working space in downtown Woodstock, Georgia. This log had been sitting a little while and parts of it had become rotten. We had a little difficulty moving it only because the logging tongs kept tearing the wood. We did mill some beautiful boards out of it.

This is one of the logs we received from the property at Adair Park Woodstock. In this video we mill it up into 2 inch thick boards. We will be drying this wood and turning it into desks for Woodstock Millworks, a co-working space being built in Downtown Woodstock.

This video is the start of a 6 month journey. We are going to take on a challenging task, but we think we are up to the challenge with our LT40 Wide Wood-mizer sawmill, KD250 Wood-mizer kiln, and a shop that is being rebuilt and re-powered.

Often this final step is the most exciting! You get to see all your hard work payoff when you apply the finish and the wood colors and grain really come to life. After applying Walrus Oil, we allowed it to sit for 12 to 24 hours. Then, we applied Walrus Wax. To finish it off, we manually screwed in the handles.

Most of our boards will have handles. Thankfully we had a template to use to speed things up. Having live edge, while really pretty and cool, makes placing the handles in the right place a little of a challenge. It is more of an art than a science.

Many woodworkers really hate sanding. It is very tedious. You spend hours upon hours upon hours progressing through multiple 'grits' of sandpaper to reach an almost glassy finish on the wood. I look at it as an opportunity to listen to a great book . . . or 10 great books when you are sanding this many boards.

In this step, we are using epoxy to either reinforce a soft spot or fill in a hole. We don't won't food particles falling in the hole.

One of the challenges of working on a multitude of boards in a confined space is having a place to place the boards as they move through the process. As a result, we had to pause from time to time to build additional finishing and assembly tables. While it pulled us away from productivity that day, it dramatically sped things up after the table was built. This was the third one we built so far and we need to build one more. Of course, the only costs in the tables were the pocket holes screws and the casters on the bottom. All the wood came from our Wood-Mizer LT40Wide sawmill.

Between the sawmill, the drying process, and the flattening process, the boards can look a little rough. Additionally, many have the bark still on the sides. In this step, we use heavy duty sanders and remove all the rough marks from the boards. We also remove the bark from the boards. We remove the bark because often it falls off over time and we feel it detracts from the overall beauty of the wood. Tools used during this part of the process: 2 Bosch 6 In. Dual-Mode Random Orbit Sanders Dewalt 13 Amp Corded 4-1/2 in. Angle Grinder Kutzall Extreme Shaping Dish - Medium, 4-1⁄2 #Wood-mizer #LT40

The third part of the Charcuterie Board Process starts with removing the dried slabs from the kiln. Using a couple pre-made templates, we measure out the best parts of the slabs to cut into Boards. Once cut, we start the long process of flattening and sanding each board. Despite anyone's best efforts, wood will move as it dries. Sometimes it is very little, other times the slab will develop a 'cup' or a 'twist'. A 3.25 horse power router connected to a slab flattening mill does a great job of flattening out each board. We developed a jig that allows us to quickly swap out each board to shave some time off the process. In this video you will see the rough sanding where we remove marks from the sawmill and the slab flattening mill. Unfortunately, the live edges really tear up the sandpaper, so we buy sand paper in boxes of 50 so we don't run out! The major tools we used for this part of the process include: Kubota B2650 Tractor Milwaukee 10.25 inch circular saw (it is a beast) TrueTrac Track Saw System that turns our monster circular saw into a tracksaw - https://www.truetracsaw.com Triton 3.25 Horse power router Woodpecker Slab Flattening Mill Pro -https://www.woodpeck.com/woodpeckers-slab-flattening-mill-pro.html Micro-Jig Matchfit Clamping Pro system - https://www.microjig.com/products/dovetail-clamps-pro

The second part of the process to make 200 Charcuterie Boards for Christmas is putting all the live edge slabs in the kiln. We use a Wood-Mizer KD250 Dehumidification Kiln. The kiln removes the moisture content from the wood and sterilizes the wood at the end of the drying cycle. While I love how insect damage to trees can actually help make beautiful wood, I don't want those insects coming inside our house. The sterilization process makes sure that their contribution to the character development of the final Charcuterie board is finished 😜. The live edge slabs can spend between 15 and 30 days in the kiln, depending on the wood species and thickness of the boards.

We had a great time making this table as fast as possible so we could have it ready for Christmas. We just barely made it. My wife was beyond thrilled with the result!

About 30 days ago, we began the labor intensive process of turning logs into Charcuterie Boards. We started with what some might call 'ugly' logs. These were logs that many would have had hauled off to a landfill or chopped into fire wood. They have been locally sourced and set aside just for this project. Once the logs were slabbed, we scrapped off the sawdust, stacked and 'stickered' the slabs. The stickering process allows air to flow through the boards and start drying before they enter the kiln. We are planning on posting new videos from now until Thanksgiving detailing the process involved in making these awesome boards. We hope to have at least half (if not all) of them finished by Thanksgiving so that they can go on sale after Thanksgiving. I may have some finished earlier. We have already started a list for those who are interested in buying one (or several) of these Charcuterie Boards for Christmas presents. Each one will be unique and different. I am attaching a couple pictures from some that were made last year.

This job had a special challenge for us. In order for us to get the oak logs to mill, we had to travel into the customer's woods, cut up the fallen trees with chainsaws, and drag them back to the sawmill in order to mill. One of the logs was so big it almost flipped the tractor (with me on it). Of course, we love a good challenge! The trees yielded some fantastic boards. We quartersawed most of the logs, but a couple we also slabbed for the customer to use on future projects.

We recently milled up 6500 linear feet of 1x6's for a customer to use to build a long horse fence. We used the pine trees already on his property. Even with our time involved, he still saved money over buying the wood from the big box store.

Not only do we turn logs into lumber and live edge slabs, but we resaw boards too! A recent Customer had a couple tons of live edge slabs that had been sitting for years not being used. He wanted to build a little art studio out of the live edge slabs. So we re-sawed his live edge slabs into 2x6’s, 2x8’s and 2x10’s. The toughest part of the job was lifting all those slabs by hand on and off the sawmill. There were a few that were easily 300lbs even though they were dry. And, yes, I paid for it later with a series of acupuncture treatments on my back.

Last week a customer was kind enough to present us with a somewhat challenging job. When we got to his property, he had about 50 logs for us. The challenge was that they were actually the branches of a huge Live Oak tree that he had recently taken down. The wood was absolutely beautiful and we are so thankful to have had the opportunity to mill it up for him. He plans on turning the lumber we milled into cabinets, a barn door, and hardwood flooring in a cabin he plans on building here soon. There are several things that made this live oak a challenge. Live Oak is a very hard wood (over twice the hardness of Red Oak). The branches can extend out dozens of feet and hold thousands of pounds of weight. The branches are usually not straight. The average length of the logs we could find that were straight were five and a half feet. Five feet is the minimum length I need to lift the log on the mill. I can cut shorter logs, but have to use special equipment to get them on the mill. The shortness of the boards meant that I could not use my hydraulic braces to hold the logs in place while I milled them, so I had to use the manual braces which significantly added to the time. But, even with the extra time, he still wound up saving significant money by having his own tree milled up, AND, he hill have a story to tell about his future cabinets and floors. If you have a fallen tree that you would like to turn into a story, you can find us at www.meriwethermillworks.com, or call us at 770-740-2684