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Getting into milling my own lumber... neighbor took down a massive maple... Any way to tell what type?

SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

So I'm starting to mill down my own lumber and this morning I heard the neighbors across the street taking down a ridiculously huge (more than 6ft diameter base... multiple 12"+ spawn trees shooting off it) maple. Talked to the guys doing the cutting and they said sure I can have the wood... but as I don't have a forklift or anything to move the 12ft+ sections... I still wind up paying for the truck to haul it the 200 ft to my property ($350). Might be overpaying for the value of the logs... might not... but I like the look of the wood, so if I wasted a little money I can live with it as a learning process.


So, spent an hour driving my little truck back and forth hauling away the hunks of the base... all told it's probably 3000-4000lbs of 20-600lb chunks. Waiting on the lumber hauler to show up and move the bigger logs now.... but from the chunks of the base; it's clearly wormy maple... anyone able to tell what the variety of maple it is or know how I can tell (Can't remember what the thing looked like last summer... it was behind another tree so I couldn't really see it from my property).
 

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rbscebu

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
The easiest way to determine the type of timber in a tree is by examining the leaves of the tree. That may not be possible for you now.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

Yeah Unfortunately not. My guess is silver maple... as that's what seems most common in my neighborhood/what I've got loads of in my yard... but Not positive... comparing bark vs pics suggests red, silver or sugar... The stuff is scaly/flaky in ways the other varieties don't seem to get in the example pictures I've found.
 

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Darth Scandalous

Darth Scandalous

SliceOfLife said:
I remember this from the old meme "Yep that's wood" I'll see if I can find a copy in the library.
Click to expand...
Same. I was talking to somebody online the other day (in the context of the meme) and they said they had come into a bunch of random odds and ends hardwoods from an estate sale and they found the book to be quite useful.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

Good option. My suspicion is that since the tree appears to have no real reason for being taken down... and was probably 2 centuries or more old... that they are not "tree people"... but can't hurt to ask.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

Thanks. Comparing the sawed faces to the finished lumber examples... by color I think it can be narrowed down to Sugar or Black Maple (Other varieties are much browner)... assuming the stuff doesn't turn out to be super photochromic and darken considerably during drying. I'd say Black maple is a better match (Really good match in fact), but I'll try and mill out a slab to I have a clean face grain view to compare.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

DrStrange said:
It's also possible that most of the leaves on the ground from last season
might still be identifiable.
Click to expand...


Yes, sadly all my neighbors bag and haul their leaves away each year... which I think is insane; I'm about to buy a leaf grinder and offer to let them dump their leaves on me... Free carbon and nitrogen for my trees. Im swimming in coffee grounds, so the nitrogen they'll tie up early in decomp is irrelevant.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

Took my lunch and sanded down a bit of one of the stump chunks with 40 grit to get a look at the character. Still some chainsaw scars as I didn't clean it completely, but starting to show what it looks like.
 

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SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

You think spalted? I assumed wormy/ambrosia. It wasn't dead and hasn't sat. My understanding was fungus from borer beetle tunnels = ambrosia/wormy... fungus from sitting wet/on ground after cutting = spalted. That's just based on google info though.
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

I'm definitely not going to cry if any of it does spalt; but yeah my assumption was wormy just from comparing pics and the woods' history.

For the time being I'm going to move the logs that are small enough I can into a better spot (currently in my side yard), and start milling the ones that are too big to move without a skid or front end loader... so some of it will definitely spend a little time sitting and my yard is a fungal paradise. The base chunks are covered in the wormy streaks; so figuring out what I can salvage and turn into turning blanks/etc vs just firewood will be part of what I'm doing... but there's also a handful of good lumber logs that are wormy too... so excited to see what they look like once slabbed out.
 
Ad Astra

Ad Astra

The Instigator
Pretty wood, glad it's being saved.

Can't believe what some people burn - olive wood, for instance ... I would pack-rat all of it!

I went through the effort of handling a knife with our local live oak wood - and while durable, it's isn't real pretty ...

AA
 
SliceOfLife

SliceOfLife

Taken a couple more slabs down and it's got sparse but consistent Wormy character throughout (1-2 streaks at almost every point of the slab).

Working with some guys at a chainsaw/lumber forum to try and figure out how to tune the saw in properly; and have a cant hook on order, then I'm hoping to mill down 1-2 logs a week until I get my sideyard back. Then I will probably break the chunks into turning blanks and other smaller project pieces.

Got a solar mill 90% built that will fit the <8ft slabs. Just waiting on my buddy to come over this weekend and help me mount the door; then I will paint it and bring him back to put the roof/greenhouse panel on it. Should be finalized the weekend after next and ready to load up. The larger stuff is getting stacked in my basement to air dry.
 
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