Quote:
Originally Posted by Truckjohn
So after being through this myself a bit... I will say this one thing.
If you want to do this for the fun as an experiment - go right ahead. It's a great way to learn stuff...
If you want to do this to get real life high quality (AAA+) tops on the cheap - you are in for a rude awakening... I have paid for this learning experience....
The massive majority of spruce and cedar simply won't make the cut above A grade.... It has too many knots, twist, sap pockets, and wonky grain... And on the East Coast - it's worse... Most of the stuff you are likely to find much south of Maine and NH is simply too small to get anything useful out... (That's a main reason Red Spruce is so expensive - the trees are still relatively small)
If you are interested in taking a voyage out to Western Canada or Alaska, it might be a different situation... But still - it's difficult to find a good billet...
On my own experience.. I bought quite a few billets that looked very very good... On the inside - I was greeted by sap pockets and pin knots... I spent quite a bit or money on those billets to get a few A grade top sets back out...
So for now - unless my situation changes with regards to living in Alaska or Canada - I will buy tops... Already graded.. In the grade I want... And it's a bargain - because the sawyer takes all the risk on the trees....
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I've gotten pretty prime stuff with western red cedar billets, 2 x 12 joist, spruce spar stock... It's a matter on knowing where and how to look. Go to the building supply or lumberyard that stocks clear cedar framing material, and you'd probably be shocked how much a percentage are well quartered and dead straight grain. And I live in the metro NY area. You can find cedar billets for shakes, but they're usually wet, which is the way you'd want to split it.
To categorically claim that one cannot find high grade woods from billets is poppycock; the log brokers and log buyers and sawyers know how to look just from the outside of a log. They weren't born with an innate ability! People who deal with wood all the time can tell if a log is good and even the figuring. Of course there are always risks, but if you calculated the board feet of a top set - not even 3/5bf (22 x 16 x .18+.07 roughly for thin kerf carbide tooth resaw blade) - hunting down billets starts looking better and better. I believe Sitka spar stock runs about $15-18/bf, so about $9-12 of wood. You can't even buy mismatched sets for that. And if you have a decent resaw blade with a .035 kerf, and you finish off at .14 or so, then your cost per set drops pretty significantly.