Cassilhaus: CEDAR MILLING

Back in 2008 when we cleared our land we asked our contractor to save all of the red cedar trees on the property for some as yet undetermined future building project.

Of course, nearly 4 years later, we had these huge stacks of cedar logs at the permimeter of our property untouched and providing a virtual Club Med for snakes. In a almost evangelical spurt of motivation we decided to hire a portable saw mill operator and Ellen and I (along with the vastly stronger Julian) moved all of the logs up to our carport in anticipation of his arrival. Some of the logs were so heavy we had to cut them up to move.

The saw mill guy promptly blew us off (our stack apparently unworthy) and we shared the carport with the logs for another 3 months. We finally found the fabulous Mike Spanolia from Haw River Timber Mill and he brought his bright shiny and ENORMOUS portable mill to our driveway on a beautiful November day and we had a blast. We still didn't have a definite idea of exactly what we wanted to make with our cedar--chicken coops, trellises, an entry table, shelves, and cedar salmon boards all were on the wish list so we decided to just mill each log for maximum yield. Because it is all for us, we could decide to make 3 1/8" x 3 1/8" posts if we liked or 2 x 7 1/4s or whatever.

One of Ellen's student's Ben helped us haul the logs to the mill. It had all of these cool hydraulic lifts and turners that manipulated the logs and anchored them in place for the traveling blade carriage. The blade was a 12' long bandsaw and the mill could handle logs up to about 25' long.