Old growth oak porn

I’ve milled enough logs now to have a decent idea which ones are likely to be the most exciting before I get into them, and have been eyeing this particular crotch deep in the pile for over six months. Finally got to it this past weekend, and thought some of you wood hounds might enjoy.

Species is Q. lobata, CA Valley Oak - this was the main union on a 320-350 yr old individual that sadly came down last summer.

 

Very nice. What are you going to make out of it?

 

That's some good looking slabs man.

 

Wow! That’s nice wood

 

Nice crotch!

 

Beautiful oak millins.
What kind of mill ya using? I have plans to build a band saw style over the coming winter but those Lucas mills have caught my eye too. I'm going to start with an Alaskan to do some occasional playin with my 066.

 

I'd sure like rub that with some oil

 

Not completely sure. Haven’t built a kiln yet, so it’ll probably be a few years before they’re dried. I cut 3 16/4 and 3 10/4 thinking workbench and table tops.

 

Granberg mill running on an aluminum extension ladder section. 3120xp, 60” Cannon bar, 3 167dl 46rm loops filed to about 20 degrees.

I want a bandsaw real bad, but none of the available options seem like a Goldilocks solution for me. Can’t justify a WM1000 and the smaller mizers don’t have enough capacity for their cost in my individual case, since I don’t have access to a lot of long straight logs to make dimensional lumber in large volume. Logosol b1001 is interesting, so is building the Matt Cremona design...

The hotshot tree bros whose offcut pile I mine on occasion have a Lucas mill and swear by it over their other mills. Ability to throw a giant bar on there and cut 7’ wide slabs, swap to the round blade and rip dimensional bits without ever rotating the log. Positioning the logs in the Lucas mill is trickier than dumping them on bandsaw rails, though - the big boys use a crane truck to set logs between the Lucas mill’s rails. Then again, you can fairly easily break the Lucas down and set it up around a piece too large to move easily. Most capability for $20k for sure, but not as convenient as a stationary mill, and a wider kerf than a band, whichever configuration you’re running.