Maple crotch strategy

[Wolverine]

Just hauled home a real nice maple trunk (thanks to Chuck aka showrguy). I plan to mill this into lumber. I do have experience with crotches, some might recall my big ash (lol). Being that I do not have hydro's to move this beast around, I am somewhat limited. I could pull on it to roll it a little one way or the other. What I am asking for is your input. I got some real good advice when I did it last time. I have ideas but I always like more input. So how would you tackle this one??


I use a Husky 394 and currently have a 37" b/c which yields about 31-31.5" of width with my 48" Alaskan MKIII. I could put a feeler out for someone who'd be willing to loan me a 50".

I did contact a buddy with a band mill. He quoted me $125 which I don't have right now. I thought that was a little high with the friends and family discount.

Here's the pics and I included them all to show detail. I plan to square up all the limbs tomorrow and paint them.

 

[Wolverine]

 

[quietfly]

if you can get the 50 bar that would be the best, but if not, i'll concentrate on that section between the two red lines. If you can get that to fit your 31 inches, it might be worth all the waste. that section is gonna have some real nice figuring.

 

[mdavlee]

It's a guess on what will be best. I think I'd go for the way to get about 3 or 4 of those branches coming out. Be cool to see that on the live edge. I may know a guy with a 50" and 2 chains.

 

[quietfly]

it also depends on what you looking to make with the wood. how big sections do you need to make and some such... in the end there's a lot of guessing either way. GOOD LUCK!!!!

 

[Wolverine]

View attachment 40751

if you can get the 50 bar that would be the best, but if not, i'll concentrate on that section between the two red lines. If you can get that to fit your 31 inches, it might be worth all the waste. that section is gonna have some real nice figuring.

The vertical measurement is 38". And your diagonal is near 10 feet, which is from the base to the end of that longest limb.

There's so many options here...

 

[Redfin]

J, if you happen to get in touch with the guy that Mike knows, i could bring the 50" back with me. Cool project Man.

 

[Wolverine]

That would be nice to save on shippin' @ least one way... if that was an option!

Chuck and I were thinking along this line:


I am most concerned with these marks. My ash had these lines which were non connected pretty far down.

 

[Wolverine]

Here's 2 pics to show what I saw in my ash. Definitely more defined than this maple.

 

[Redfin]

How did you unload that at your place?

 

[Wagnerwerks]

Nice crotch. That would make a great coffee table.

 

[Wolverine]

Choked it with my chain and drug it off the trailer with the Jeep. Got it off trouble free.

Nice crotch. That would make a great coffee table.

Hopefully more than one!

 

[Iron.and.bark]

Interesting piece! Not familiar with that timber so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Any of the species I mill if they have a double or triple crotch it's a pain to keep them from splitting.

All depends on what you want to do with the timber. For a straight slab mill to get maximum yield excluding the outer finger, you don't really have much timber in the trunk below to hold it stable.

It looks fab, but I would probably cut straight through the middle main crotch and mill each side separately with an idea to book match them.

 

[Wolverine]

As quietfly and Mike alluded to, I think this area might be the spot to focus on.


I think trying to get the largest piece isn't the right thing to do because of my experience with these types of grow together. You're right I.and.B, there's nothing there holding it together.

 

[quietfly]

It's literally a crotch shoot!!! ( Ah bad puns)
But seriously, if it were me I'd probably do something silly like make an exploratory cut along the top red line of my first picture, separating that larger branch point. This would give me my first good look.
I hate to say it. But I often try to cherry pick the pieces I want, which ends up with alot of scrap, but also a few amazing pieces.
Good luck!!! Keep us updated.

 

[jb-chainsaws]

As others have said it's going to be a tough one to mill, and even tougher to keep in one piece!

I'd be tempted to mill the nicest slab out of the crotch I could similar to @quietfly however then comes the problem of preventing your beautiful slab from splitting like a mother-F.

If you can keep the crotches in the finished slab you could try and drill a hole at the very bottom of the 'crack' of each crotch, it may help to stop the crack propagating into your piece. Then personally I'd drown it in pentacryl - totally immersed if you can afford it and the piece warrants it - for a week then pat it down with cloth and let it season.

once it's down to a reasonable MC you can always cut the section off with the holes at the end of the cracks.

Just something to add to the thinking pot

 

[Wolverine]

Shawn pointed out the bulging crotch and recommended that might be the honey hole. I'm listening to all input. Going to peel some bark when I paint the ends today and look for curly/tiger figure.

 

[Wolverine]

Crack/split.


I squared up cuts before painting. Appears to be some really nice marking in there.

 

[Wolverine]

 

[quietfly]

Fill those cracks with epoxy and that'll make a great table top