Peeling pine log and sap question

Started by CjAl, March 28, 2013, 09:04:42 AM

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CjAl

I cut down a large pine that was too close to my build. I would like to peel and use a 16' section in my cabin. It has been on the ground a few weeks and these little green bark beetles have started at it. I really dont mind the little patterns they eat into it but i peeled a small section to inspect it and the next day it was totally covered over with sap.

How long will sap run like that? Is it just time needed to wait for it to stop?  I am not too far away from where i will need it so im not sure if i have that much time.

Would it help if i cut it to the 16'  length i need? Right now its full length laying on the ground

OlJarhead

Where are you located CJ?

Pine takes me 8 weeks to dry enough to plane and work with etc, but will still have some sap to deal with for a long time after that in pockets.

It's best to peel right away if you can and to wax the ends of the log to help prevent checking.


CjAl

South east tx. May as well be louisianna.

What do you use to wax it?

I need to get it cut to length and up on some supports off the ground but dropping it killed my chain saw and being recently unemployed buying another one isnt on my priority list untill i find work

CjAl






Think i need to get it moved. My little red headed friend there is eyeballing it i think.





Redoverfarm

You can eliminate the majority of the sap if you peel the bark down eliminating the route that it travels(bark layer)until you reach the actual wood layer.  I would peel the entire thing (in your case) and then later cut to length.  What bark you leave when dried will curl later.  This will effect the stain or finish. You can tell when you have reached the better wood as the color lightens in comparison to the bark layer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRCTXrz1sDw&list=UUeTi-PMcRDvERThoKSowv4w&index=25


OlJarhead

Sorry about the wax comment!  I have a big 5 gallon bucket of Bailey's end sealer ;)  I answered without thinking that you might not do more then one or two trees!  LOL  So, best bet is to NOT cut it to size until dry so you can cut off the checking on the ends.

Sorry about the saw damage!  That sucks.

I'd say try to get it up to 'working' height (which may just be a foot or so) and then get a draw knife and start peeling it.  It will dry faster that way.

CjAl

Thanks guys. The tree is 70' long or more, the last 15' of it is laying in the neighbors woods so i cant get the whole thing off the ground. Sounds like i will cut it with a few extra feet so i can trim it to length after it dries more.

Fortunatly between this morning and now i became employed again so mabey i can buy a saw now.

OlJarhead

Glad to hear about the employment!!!!!  WhooHoo  [cool] c*

As for cutting the log long, give it 6-8" and that should be fine :)

Redoverfarm

Quote from: CjAl on March 28, 2013, 01:21:14 PM
Thanks guys. The tree is 70' long or more, the last 15' of it is laying in the neighbors woods so i cant get the whole thing off the ground. Sounds like i will cut it with a few extra feet so i can trim it to length after it dries more.

Fortunatly between this morning and now i became employed again so mabey i can buy a saw now.

You really don't need to raise it up to peel the bark. just have to roll it over occassionally. But it will need to be raised up to keep it from ground contact once it is strpped of the bark.  If you do peel it lying down always leave bark on it to sit on as you move down the log. Sap doesn't like to come out of clothes very well.  ;D


Don_P

Tell me about it, your jeans kind of get up to greet you  :D
Sorry to hear about the employment situation, that really cuts into the project time. Getting it up and peeled, free of that sweet food rich cambium layer Redover mentioned before it warms up will keep it looking much brighter and bug free. You can roll logs up ramps to get them up on stuff just always be aware of where you are with a log off the ground.

What died on the saw?

CjAl

I believe the motor blew up. It started by not running unless it was wide open then it started to bog out under load and wide open. After a bit i was having to feather the throttle and constantly lighten up on the psi. I cut about 5 trees that day and half way through the last one she just quit. Now when i try to start it the motor just rattles, not a good sound.

CjAl

What sucks is i had two identicle saws except one was about ten yrs older.. It was just a cheap poulon.  When we moved we went from a house with large storage building to a motorhome with a medium size storage building so we tossed or sold everything we didnt need. One of those things was the second chain saw

Don_P

#12
Ooh, that sort of sounds like my uneager beaver, last seen going head over heels down the mountain :D
I do like buying the same thing and keeping the old one for parts but it does take space. I've picked my ols Stihl down to about scrap keeping the "new" one running. The old one just wouldn't crank after I drove over it... ooops.

The most check free drying is going to be good airflow but shaded from direct sun, you can hear a log tearing itself open on a hot sunny day. Bluestain is a fungus that really likes fresh wood. If its above 70 and the wood is green it is there. Getting the bark off and the surface dry stops it. although not environmentally right diesel will cut pitch and stop fungus, it is an old time log builders trick for keeping the logs bright in hot weather. The smell usually dissipates after a few hot bright days. Bluestain is kind of an indicator. It is a fungi but it is eating the sugars within the cells. If you see it bloom it is not really hurting the structure of the wood till it gets pretty bad. What it is telling you is the wood is at the right condition for the bad fungi, the rotters, to move in. It's saying "you're drying too slow in warm conditions, hurry up or you'll see shrooms next".

In the 1830 census a number of my ancestors reported their occupation as "turpentine", tapping the resin of longleaf southern pine. I guess we come by the term Tarheel honest. Their clothes must have been kindling for the next winter  ;D. I lit the fire in the shop today with the drawknifed bark and cambium of some timbers I sawed last week. You can light the stove without paper and just a match with a little of that resinous stuff.

BTW, way off topic, a ramble surfaced  ::). That occupation does not appear after the war. There is the story down through the family of the night of the blood red sunset. One son was laying in a field outside of Petersburg, it was the breakout and he had caught canister and grape in both legs when they ended up in a 400 yard run across an open field in the crossfire of two forts. Another general was bearing down on the folks at home. The light was from him burning that turpentine forest for torchlight to march by. The war ended a week later, I cannot imagine how they must have felt, if only it had ended a week earlier. When times are a little tough here I remember they knew how to really dig in and push. I sure don't want to get to the big fishing hole and have everyone slide to the far end of the bench  :).

CjAl

This is logger country. The family all has stihl and with the colapse of that industry the pawn shops are full of them but i dont have enough trees left to justify spending $400 on a used saw regardless of how good it is


Don_P

A bowsaw is always handy for camping, cheap, and will do a log or three. OK my ancestors will just have to understand, I've seen gay Paree, power tools  :D

CjAl

 hahaha! Might even work off a few of these pounds im carrying around too

Don_P

 It's good for you, not neccessarily good to you  :D

A little more bark sap stuff came to mind. I used the term cambium for that layer of slippery inner bark. That is a misnomer but is the common use, it's really inner bark and it is carrying food as well as lots of protective resin ducts. When you peel that layer off set some aside and watch it for a day or two. as it turns brown think about what else you know that turns brown after you cut it open, lots of sweet fruits. You can survive on the inner bark if you've run out of shoes to eat, don't think I'd smoke after a meal   :P.

The cambium technically is one or two cells thick and is right at the interface of bark and wood. That is where growth is happening. As those cells divide one moves in to become wood and the other moves out to become bark. In the spring when that dividing is really going on the bark "slips" easily. You may be at that point down south where the loosening had begun. Enzyme triggers go off inside the tree to signal "its spring, fire it up" and it lays down new bark and that wide, light colored, low density, springwood ring of wood. It takes the entire rest of the year to lay down the dark "summerwood" ring of dense, thick walled cells. If you're looking for a strong board you're looking for a high percentage of dense rings compared to light ones. A tree that couldn't roar into the spring moisture and sun but was tempered a little bit within its stand of neighbors. A field grown tree often is largely wide low density springwood.  In the winter the bark is as tightly bound as it is going to be and then a few weeks later in that spring flush it is as loose and easy to peel as it is going to be, I've gotten the bark off of a large poplar log in one piece in early june, looked like a culvert. For those of you that play in the woods, pay attention to the slip and the summer solstice and get back to me, I suspect those weeks around that time trip the tighten up trigger with the changing light. Soo, you're going to know where that tree was at in its' growing season pretty soon here  :). I hope it slides off easily rather than having to be about chipped off.

Off to try to convert the 6v posi ground tractor to 12 volt... lets hope I don't let the magic blue smoke out  d*

CjAl

Okay this job sucks. Couple hours and only have four feet of one side done. Guess its not ready yet.
Bark comes off easy enough but that under layer sucks. And it is starting to blue stain just a bit. Its mid 70's here. I dont mind a little staining i guess


Redoverfarm

Not real sure what you are using to peel but I found a draw-knife works best.  It has to be sharp otherwise it will just skip over the slick stuff.   Generally I had to go back over where the larger bark was to get the underlayer(sap layer) at the same time.    Given the length you have to work with I would probably cut it into manageable lengths that you will be using.  Makes moving (rolling over) a lot easier.

Don_P

I've been getting sticky the past few days, this is a pic showing the outer and inner bark of some younger bark in white pine, I'm way up the tree here, much easier than what you're dealing with in several ways. I have the knife at a cutting angle to get the outer bark loose and can usually hold the drawknife about upright and scrape the inner bark off.


Yours is as ready as its ever going to be, the only thing that will make it looser now is bugs and decay... you're in a race with them as it warms up. Blue explodes above 80 degrees.


There is a special kind of fun when a circle mill hits a huge pocket of liquid pitch. Let's just say
it was more than good lye soap could handle, I had lamp oil in my beard before it was over  :D. I gigged back and set an old jar under the strongest flow and have some resin... for something  ???. The reason I'm showing this is that lumber graders look for what they call massed pitch. Fatwood, lighter knot. Look at the wood alongside the damage to the left. The wood in that area is totally saturated with pitch, there is what to keep an eye out for. It's a telltale of damage to the wood structurally, look closely for splits, cracks, insect damage... what caused it? This is essentially a wicked puss pocket in that tree, remember we can heal trees cannot they can simply encapsulate, cover, and move on. This tree filled that damaged area with antiseptic to keep wood destroyers out. If you see massed pitch find the cause. There is another board I lost track of, if I see it again I'll post a pic. A round spot of massed pitch and little balls of lead, somebody had shot my tree. Judging by the spread and depth, I think I know who did it  d*.

Did pretty good with this tree till I got to the butt log, it's my first honker in over a year. Michelle helped with the first two turns and I didn't want to pull her down from the garden for the third. She calls it testoterone poisoning  :D. A direct conversation with some body parts said "that ain't bright".


CjAl

A friend of mine is sending me a set of draw knifes. I was actually just real bored yesterday so i went at it using a machetie to get the main bark off and as much of the under layer as i could. Then i went at it with a hand plane. Got that far before i figured i would wait for the knifes to get here.

There is a lot of small beetles under the bark. They are not into the wood just that under layer. Its 80 here now. Any way to stop that blue stain or does just getting the bark off stop it? Right now its not deep and a lot of it i was able to plane off.

I am not milling this log, i will use it whole as a ceter support for ridge beam. More decrotive then anything.

CjAl

There is a wound at the bottom of that log. Yhats why its not peeled all the way to the end. I was cutting that end off before my saw died half way through it. My neighbor has a nice stihl, mabey if i bring him some gumbo he will let me use it.

Redoverfarm

Sap Sap.  Funny you should mention it.  I started framing the bathroom in the garage apartment a few weeks ago.  The other day I was measuring for flooring and noticed a long line of sap maybe 1/4"X1/8" X 14" long running down the surface of one of the 2X4's.  It all originated from a very small defect in the 2X4 maybe 1/16" X 1".  I guess it waited until I turned it verticle to run.

This morning I had to clean a watergap out and rid up in the pasture from a large white pine that lost several limbs in the last wet snow we got.  I would say the limbs were about 5-7" diam and were a busted where they split off.  Talking about sap.  I have learned the hard way to wear gloves but occassionally they have to come off to sharpen the saw.  That reminds me "where is the WD40"?  Best that I have found to remove most of it.

Don_P

WD, good idea, never thought of it, those petro solvents are not good for your hide that's for sure. We have a big bonfire pile from that snow, it took a lot of field edge pine branches down where they were big and reaching out for the light. I'll wait for it to green up around here before torching them, we're still under the spring burning ban till things leaf out. That snow Thursday dumped 5" real quick and was gone by the next day, 70 today. Just got the honker done and in the truck, 3 6x8's and some nice 1x16's  ;D (eye candy for the sawyer, I'll probably bust them in half)

The bark beetles are wearing spores of various fungi on them as they move around. As well, the bark, soil, and air are always full of spores. The sooner you get up out of the splash, peeled, under shelter and drying the better.

Fungi need air, temperature, moisture and food

The ways to stop blue are to deny it air, that is the reason for ponding or sprinkling logs, a sheet of water keeps the fungi from getting oxygen.
Below about 50 degrees it is inactive, so cold works
Deny it moisture, it cannot grow if the wood is below about 25% moisture content
And finally, poison the food. The log home stores sell some products that will do the trick. Clorox will do some but it is not great for the wood and is gone pretty quick. Borate is low tox but is only somewhat effective with blue.

In the back yard I'm trying to grow fungi on some oak logs and having a hard time getting it established. So far I'm good with blue mold and not so good with useful ones. The shiitake mushrooms bring good money so we're playing with them this year. It looks alot like my gardening efforts, I can grow killer weeds  ;D

CjAl

I always wondered whybi see the log mills around here watering all the logs.