A couple of months ago a fellow miller, Frank Seaforth, called me and told me that he was passing along a slabbing opportunity for a 203" circumference black walnut that was practically in my back yard.
THANKS FRANK!!!!!!
After speaking with the owner's rep, turns out that the tree was black oak and not black walnut.....
and it was larger than 203"
Now that's what I call a "Texas medium" sized log! 
The tree was located in an inner court yard at Meredith College in Raleigh, and it was dying. The University folks wanted to see the log recycled instead of going to waste, which is where I got involved.
Unfortunately there was no way to get a crane, or even a trailer into the courtyard. Fortunately a skid steer and backhoe could be threaded through one entryway; otherwise it would have been very difficult if not impossible to tackle this project. The college hired a tree service company to remove the canopy and drop the log for us during Christmas break.
Normally I prefer to bring large logs to the mill, as it is easier having all of the support equipment available. In this instance it wasn't an option so we loaded up the slabber and took it to the log.
After mobilizing the equipment we trimmed the 32' log into a couple of 13'7" ones. Both logs were over 75" at their widest points so we had to do a little trimming in order to get them within my 72" max cut.
We used the skid steer to roll them apart and set up the slabber and commenced milling. Due to the height of the log, we slabbed 20" off in the first pass and set it aside for later re-slabbing. Talk about a dancing skid steer! We had to sling it in order to get the CG a few feet behind the back of the forks.
After taking a 7-1/2" and a few 4-1/2" slabs off of the log we placed the 20" slab back on and milled it into 4-1/2" ones. After that we started on the second log and then placed the bottom portion of the first log onto it for finishing. I designed my slabber primarily for quartering 40" logs, or cutting larger ones into thirds for subsequent reprocessing on Tom (my Baker bandmill), so there are a few idiosyncrasies that we have to work around when slabbing.
Many of the slabs had some really nice color and spalting:
Getting the slabs out of the courtyard was a challenge (the smallest ones weighed 2,200 lbs and the largest ones over 4000 lbs). First we tried wheeling them out like a wheelbarrow with a hand truck under one end and the skid steer under the other. We trashed the hand truck after a few slabs, so we tried tag-teaming between the skid steer and the backhoe. It worked but was a synchronization challenge. Finally we used the backhoe forks on one end and a sling to support the other end, and threaded them through the opening just enough to where we could pick them from the side with the skid steer. Ultimately we got them all out.
After six trips with the truck and trailer (two to mobilize equipment to the site, two to haul slabs back, and two to mobe back out), here is the final result; I think that it was worthwhile. The slabs have been treated with Timbor and placed in the air drying barn. Looks like it will be a few years before I can recover the investment, but I hope that these will turn out to be something special.
After speaking with the owner's rep, turns out that the tree was black oak and not black walnut.....
The tree was located in an inner court yard at Meredith College in Raleigh, and it was dying. The University folks wanted to see the log recycled instead of going to waste, which is where I got involved.
Unfortunately there was no way to get a crane, or even a trailer into the courtyard. Fortunately a skid steer and backhoe could be threaded through one entryway; otherwise it would have been very difficult if not impossible to tackle this project. The college hired a tree service company to remove the canopy and drop the log for us during Christmas break.
Normally I prefer to bring large logs to the mill, as it is easier having all of the support equipment available. In this instance it wasn't an option so we loaded up the slabber and took it to the log.
After mobilizing the equipment we trimmed the 32' log into a couple of 13'7" ones. Both logs were over 75" at their widest points so we had to do a little trimming in order to get them within my 72" max cut.
We used the skid steer to roll them apart and set up the slabber and commenced milling. Due to the height of the log, we slabbed 20" off in the first pass and set it aside for later re-slabbing. Talk about a dancing skid steer! We had to sling it in order to get the CG a few feet behind the back of the forks.
After taking a 7-1/2" and a few 4-1/2" slabs off of the log we placed the 20" slab back on and milled it into 4-1/2" ones. After that we started on the second log and then placed the bottom portion of the first log onto it for finishing. I designed my slabber primarily for quartering 40" logs, or cutting larger ones into thirds for subsequent reprocessing on Tom (my Baker bandmill), so there are a few idiosyncrasies that we have to work around when slabbing.
Many of the slabs had some really nice color and spalting:
Getting the slabs out of the courtyard was a challenge (the smallest ones weighed 2,200 lbs and the largest ones over 4000 lbs). First we tried wheeling them out like a wheelbarrow with a hand truck under one end and the skid steer under the other. We trashed the hand truck after a few slabs, so we tried tag-teaming between the skid steer and the backhoe. It worked but was a synchronization challenge. Finally we used the backhoe forks on one end and a sling to support the other end, and threaded them through the opening just enough to where we could pick them from the side with the skid steer. Ultimately we got them all out.
After six trips with the truck and trailer (two to mobilize equipment to the site, two to haul slabs back, and two to mobe back out), here is the final result; I think that it was worthwhile. The slabs have been treated with Timbor and placed in the air drying barn. Looks like it will be a few years before I can recover the investment, but I hope that these will turn out to be something special.
