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Sumac is one of my favorites with its olive green color. It cuts very easy, it's quite a soft wood, and it can be found everywhere throughout northern USA and southern Canada. This tree fell over in an ice storm a month or so ago at a persons house a 1/4 mile down the road, so I asked them for it and they were happy to get rid of it. I chained it to the front of the silverado and pulled it down the street and down into my back yard...it was about 20 feet wide and 20 feet tall with a 14" stump. My wife came home right as I was dragging it across the highway...and she was laughing at me all the way home, no surprise. Who knows what the traffic was thinking as I held them all up a minute.
I salvage woods like this all the time, these smaller trees are a great source of free lumber and very simple to manage. I harvested well over $100 worth of lumber off this tree. Cut it up with your chainsaw, or handsaw to managable lengths...hopefully straight runs. Paint the ends with an oil base paint, I buy the paint at the hardware store for 25 cents...they have tons of old useless cans of paint ( I have some great 1950 mustard yellow ) Name and date the logs, shelve them and wait 5 yrs. Then resaw them on a bandsaw, your good to go. You can resaw them now to save dry time, but you'll loose alot of lumber due to cracking and warping. Small dimensions of lumber do not dry as nice and flat as huge boards do. Don't waste time on logs under 2" across...expect about a year per inch, but a 6 inch log will dry in 5 yrs easily. The biggest piece in the pile is 6" wide and 36" long. The stump was useless, full of rot and worm holes, as is typical of a sumac stump.
This is not the proper drying technique for huge logs that are 10" wide by 8 feet long...that's a log that should be sliced into boards right away.
As soon as these logs melt the snow off them, I'll begin painting, labeling and shelving them. They will do some splitting on the ends, usually loosing about 8 inches off each end from checking, so cut as long a piece as you can. If you have a product like pentocryl...dunk the ends in that, and you won't lose any wood from checking...I can't afford that stuff, I'm just using paint.
Fruit trees are the most stressed lumber you can find...they always dry best using this log method.
I currently have logs on the shelf dated way back to 02. You have to plan and think way ahead. Salvaging lumber is like planning your retirement.
I salvage woods like this all the time, these smaller trees are a great source of free lumber and very simple to manage. I harvested well over $100 worth of lumber off this tree. Cut it up with your chainsaw, or handsaw to managable lengths...hopefully straight runs. Paint the ends with an oil base paint, I buy the paint at the hardware store for 25 cents...they have tons of old useless cans of paint ( I have some great 1950 mustard yellow ) Name and date the logs, shelve them and wait 5 yrs. Then resaw them on a bandsaw, your good to go. You can resaw them now to save dry time, but you'll loose alot of lumber due to cracking and warping. Small dimensions of lumber do not dry as nice and flat as huge boards do. Don't waste time on logs under 2" across...expect about a year per inch, but a 6 inch log will dry in 5 yrs easily. The biggest piece in the pile is 6" wide and 36" long. The stump was useless, full of rot and worm holes, as is typical of a sumac stump.
This is not the proper drying technique for huge logs that are 10" wide by 8 feet long...that's a log that should be sliced into boards right away.
As soon as these logs melt the snow off them, I'll begin painting, labeling and shelving them. They will do some splitting on the ends, usually loosing about 8 inches off each end from checking, so cut as long a piece as you can. If you have a product like pentocryl...dunk the ends in that, and you won't lose any wood from checking...I can't afford that stuff, I'm just using paint.
Fruit trees are the most stressed lumber you can find...they always dry best using this log method.
I currently have logs on the shelf dated way back to 02. You have to plan and think way ahead. Salvaging lumber is like planning your retirement.
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