I have a neighbor who recently took down a large Red Spruce tree - too close to the house, etc., and I quickly lobbied to take some of the wood off his hands. I've got a Grizzly 17 inch bandsaw that I bought a couple of years ago, and wanted to test it out on resawing some tops.
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watson spruce live.jpg
He graciously had the tree surgeons cut a few sections to my specs and even had them drop them off on my front lawn. Peeling the bark and splitting them was my first introduction to just how much work this process is.....
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splitting billets.jpg
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billet with waves.jpg
You can see that this wood has some extremely wide growth rings - both because the tree grew in a residential area, plenty of sun and water, and in a climate that was warmer than would have produced tight rings. Also, my well-meaning neighbor gave me the "fattest part" of the trunk - nearest the bottom, where there was quite a bit of compression - my mistake for not marking billets on the tree....
After painting the ends, and letting them season in a greenhouse - out of the rain, but no climate control, I inspected them to find that they'd dried out a lot, and were probably ready for the resaw. The first question was how would I get them roughly to shape, so that I could cut them on the bandsaw... Another post here showed how easy it was to (carefully) use a chain saw to rough out the billets.
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billet on saw.jpg
Now the fun begins.... After finding some of the choicest spots on the billet, trying to avoid knots, end checks (yeah, still some of that, even with the ends painted) I started cutting sets. I've used this forum heavily in terms of figuring out the optimum blade and setup for resawing. Thank you!! There's nothing more satisfying than succeeding in cutting a straight line with a band saw!
So I start cutting sets - and here's where I begin to appreciate the work and expertise that goes into getting nice clean sets of tonewood.
First sets - oops - end checking has drifted into the pattern. That won't work.... scrap.
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end check.jpg
Next sets - oops - lots of pitch pockets - maybe with careful placement I can squeeze the OM pattern between them. It'll be reaslly tight, though.
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pitch pockets.jpg
Finally, after cutting a few more with pitch pockets in the wrong spaces, I started to find a clean spot on the billet. The sets start to come out relatively straight and clean.... (they are oversized, so the really wavy stuff will not fall within the pattern.)
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straight.jpg
So, I've ended up with about 25 usable sets - some very nice if you like wood with "character" - they're certainly stiff enough and the tap tone is very nice - and more for use with a sunburst. All in all, a fun and satisfying exercise, but I've certainly gained some appreciation for what it takes to get clean, quartered tops... I won't complain about the cost of tonewood any more...
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pile of wood.jpg