[ Power saw whirring ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] For most of my time as a woodworker, most projects started with a trip to the lumber yard or a woodworking store to buy the boards that I need for my project.

On today's episode of "The Woodsmith Shop," we're gonna go back a little bit farther.

We're gonna start with a log and a tree and then learn how to cut it up into the boards that you need for your project.

Whether you want to work with a local sawyer or even just rescue a piece of firewood and turn it into a special project, we're gonna show you how to do it.

And then Chris is also gonna talk about jointing and planing boards to get them to the size that you need for your projects.

It's all coming up on "The Woodsmith Shop."

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- tools for designing and building your products.

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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ You know, Chris, one of the things I like about owning my own sawmill and even before that, gonna a local sawyer, was the diversity of materials you can get.

You can buy stuff from a sawyer that you can't get at a big box store.

You know, and as woodworkers, we love exotic grains, trying different species of woods, different sizes.

And you can get all of that from a local sawmill.

You can.

So I'm gonna show you guys how I break down a log into lumber, but everything holds true in your shop with your band saw, just on a smaller scale.

Hmm.

So tell me, what kind of blades should we use, then, for our band saw.

Well, if I'm using my band saw in my shop to cut green wood out of a small log for them, I like to use a green wood blade and I like use a pretty wide blade, because I'm usually only making straight cuts.

So something pretty coarse, pretty wide, and make sure everything's set up nice and straight and calibrated.

Right.

So we're dealing with round pieces of wood.

Mm-hmm.

How do we deal with that in a safe way?

Yeah, because, you know, round pieces do like to roll as you cut them.

So what I like to do, depending on the size of a piece I'm working with, is I like to screw a carrier board onto the bottom of it.

Just a couple of long screws into the log that I'm cutting, and it gives me a good, flat surface, and also gives me a surface that I can run up against the fence to make straight cuts.

And it works out really well.

One of the things I always hear about when dealing with green wood is how do you dry it?

Do you have any tips for us?

I do.

Drying is really half the battle, and it's the thing that actually takes the longest.

Once you cut something, it needs to dry for a long time.

So a couple of things you can do is, stack it to where air can flow through it.

There's some moisture in that wood as soon as you cut it, and we need to get that out quickly so it doesn't mold, but we don't want it to come out too quickly, 'cause that can lead to cracking.

And on that note, you do want to seal the ends of the log, too, or the ends of the boards you've cut.

When that moisture leaves the ends, it'll leave those faster than the rest of the board, and if it leaves too quickly, it will cause cracking.

So using a speciality log sealer or even latex paint on the ends of the boards will really slow that down and make sure it's not gonna crack on you.

Okay, so, important information.

It's not just about cutting the wood.

It's about curing it and drying it as well.

Correct.

Well, I think a lot of great information here, and as a woodworker at home, sounds like you're pretty much all equipped to be your own sawmill.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Summertime in Iowa, that means I'm out running my portable sawmill.

Now, I don't know many woodworkers that haven't driven past a tree being taken down or a pile of logs and thought to themselves, "Man, that would make some great material, and I hate to see it get cut up into firewood."

Well, today, I'm gonna show you how you can take logs, salvage them, and have a portable mill like this come out or do it on a smaller scale in your shop and turn those into valuable lumber.

The good news is that most portable mills will have a loading system on them, so I'm gonna go ahead and get my hydraulic loaders put on so we can get this log loaded up on the mill.

[ Bark crackling ] [ Metal creaking ] [ Motor whirring ] Now, when selecting a log, there's a couple of things you need to think about.

First is, if you're cutting it in your shop, you can actually be a little bit more selective than you would be if you're using a sawyer and a portable sawmill.

That's because generally, you're handling smaller-size logs.

And it is important to note that you need make sure your size logs that you're handling in your shop are appropriate size for your abilities.

What I mean is, logs are heavy.

This log, it's a walnut log.

It's about 24 inches in diameter and about 10 feet long.

It weighs almost 2,300 pounds.

So just make sure you're handling logs that you can physically handle in your shop.

Now, when you're sawing with a sawyer, you do want to be a little bit more selective on the logs.

So personally, I'm looking for logs that have a pretty good diameter.

Usually the 18 to 30 inch range, about 10 foot long, and I do like to get them as straight as I can.

Now, there's no such thing as a perfect log, so once I load up a log like this, I'm looking at it for defects.

And what I mean is, I'm looking for cracks.

I'm looking for bark seams or knots like this.

And what this is, this looks like this was probably a limb at one point that has been broken off and healed over, and that is gonna transmit into the wood and into our boards that we're gonna make.

So by positioning that on the edge of the log while we're cutting, it will become on the edge of our boards.

That way, we can cut it off at a later date if we need to.

But once we have the log all positioned, we need to decide how we're gonna cut it.

We have a couple of ways we can cut a log, both either in your shop or on sawmill like this.

The first is what's called through-and-through or live sawing.

Some people call it slabbing.

That's basically making straight cuts clean through the log, and that leaves you with lumber that has live edge on both sides.

And this can be really interesting, especially if the log has a little bit of curve or shape to it, because that shape will transmit to the boards.

And this is a great option if you don't have any plans for the lumber currently.

It leaves you with more options down the road, and you can always cut the bark off.

But personally, what I like to do is I like to turn this into a cant.

What that means is, I'll make four cuts, and then basically, I'm gonna remove the bark on four sides.

It's gonna leave me with a big, square beam that I can then position to give me the best-quality boards as I cut through it.

Then you need to think about thickness that you want to cut them.

Usually I like to cut my stuff at either 4/4 or 8/4.

That's gonna be either 1 inch or 2 inches.

Two inches is a good thickness if you don't have plans for it down the road.

You can always re-saw or plane it down to make it thinner, but it's a lot harder to make it thicker if you need it thicker.

So we're gonna go ahead and cut this guy into 4/4 boards, and I might get a couple 8/4 out of it as well.

[ Mill whirring ] [ Mill whirring ] [ Saw buzzing ] [ Saw buzzing ] Well, here's an instance that's inevitable if you run a sawmill or if you have a lot of trees sawn with a sawyer -- you're gonna eventually find something in the tree that you weren't expecting, or more than likely, we're probably expecting at some point, and that's a nail.

So this walnut that we're cutting here, I got about, probably 6 inches deep into cutting boards, and I heard the telltale "zing" of a nail getting cut.

Let's see if she comes out.

Well, there we go.

Nail free, at least for this cut.

So, nice, little vintage nail puller.

I picked it up a flea market.

I don't know if they make these guys still, but it's basically a slide hammer with a little claw on end, and it works really well, especially in wet timber to dig out hardware like this.

So, on to the next board.

[ Saw buzzing ] Now, one of the reasons I like to saw in this style, which is turning a log into a square cant and then ripping off boards -- there's really two main reasons.

The first is, it produces boards that have no bark on them and they stack really easily, which I like, especially since I have a large stack of lumber like this at my house, so they just stack really nicely.

The second reason I like to do this is because it yields a good mixture of cuts.

And what I mean by that is you get a couple of different grain patterns.

Turning in a log into a cant and sawing boards gives you roughly a third plain-sawn, like this, which is a traditional kind of cathedral grain to the board.

It gives you roughly a third quarter sawn like this, which is gonna be really nice, straight grain, and we use that a lot for leg stock or anywhere you want a good, straight grain pattern.

And it also yields roughly a third of rift sawn, which is kind of a mixture in between.

It gives you a little bit of that cathedral, but they're really stretched out and long.

Now, when you hear "quarter sawing," a lot of times you think of quarter sawn white oak.

And traditionally, that would be done on a circular sawmill, but we can do the same type of thing on a band sawmill, and I do like to do that when I get a white oak log.

And on a band sawmill, what I like to do is, I like to start by turning that oak log into a cant, but instead of ripping boards off the top right away, I'll actually drop the blade down to the center and I'll remove two to three boards from the very center of that cant.

That leaves me two fat halves and then three boards.

I'll then break that apart.

I'll take those three boards off and set them aside, because those are finished.

Then I'll sandwich those two halves back together and stand them on edge, and then as I rip boards off of those, it yields roughly 60% quarter sawn material out of the log.

It does leave you with a lot of narrow material, but that's okay.

And traditional quarter sawing leaves you with narrow material anyways.

But it's a great way to get really good figure and good grain pattern out of a nice white oak log.

So even though I've shown a lot of these techniques for breaking a log into lumber on my portable band sawmill, a lot of the same techniques apply in your shop, just on a smaller scale.

And if you'd like a free video on some of those techniques shown in the shop on a small band saw, you can get them on our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

But now, once you have boards all broken out, now comes the hard part, and that's drawing the boards.

Now, drawing really comes down to a couple of key points.

First, the stack needs to be stacked somewhere that it's going to get good airflow.

That means making sure it's stacked outside with a good cross-breeze and spacing out the boards.

And I do that with just some 3/4 x 3/4 or 3/4 by 1 inch stickers placed every 18 inches, and that allows adequate airflow across the stack so nothing's going to mold and mildew.

So the next is, you're gonna want to cover it.

You want to keep it out of direct sun, because sun can cause some discoloration in the lumber and it can cause excess drying and cause some surface cracking.

But don't tarp it -- make sure you cover it with a sheet of plywood or some corrugated tin.

The next is you want to make sure that it's stacked level.

It needs to be nice and level so that as this dries, it doesn't steam bend to an uneven substrate.

You're gonna end up with wavy lumber then, and that's no good.

And the final thing is you're gonna need time.

The rule of thumb for air drying lumber outside is one year per inch of thickness.

So boards like this that we cut 4/4 or 1 inch thick should take about a year.

Now, of course, you can speed that up a little bit with a kiln, if you have one, but still, the best practice is again then to air dry it for a handful of months to get that moisture content down.

But as long as you ensure that those steps are done well, you'll have good-quality lumber that cost you hardly nothing.

You know, Chris, now that we've broken boards out of our log and they've dried for a couple of years, they're probably not gonna look like furniture parts.

No, the face is gonna be rough.

The edge is gonna be rough.

There may be discoloration.

It's nothing like you would want to build good furniture out of.

So what we're gonna show you how to do is to take that rough board and true it up and get it ready for furniture work.

The first step is going to be to joint one face.

And of course, we'll use your jointer.

Now, the jointer you have may be limited in width, so we're also gonna show you how to use a carrier board and your portable planer to true up that first face.

Once that first face is done, we'll join it edge and then we'll send it through the planer to get it to the proper thickness, and you will be ready to start a furniture project.

Well, Logan's shown you how to cut a board from a tree, so what we need to think about now is how we're gonna take that board and turn it into good, usable furniture parts.

First thing we need to talk about is moisture.

Now, when you buy a kiln-dried board from a lumber dealer, it's gonna be dried down to about 7%, but an air-dried board like this will dry down to what the relative humidity is for your particular geographic area.

Now, here in Iowa, we're at about 16%.

If you live in Louisiana, it's gonna be higher.

If you live in Arizona, well, it's gonna be lower.

Your household humidity, of course, depends a little bit about where your shop is, but we can probably say it's gonna be 9%, 10%, 11%, somewhere in there.

So when we bring a board into our shop, we need to be patient and we need to let it dry.

Bring the lumber in, sticker it up, ensure good air circulation, give it about two weeks.

Once you've done that, we can proceed to rough cut it, and you probably ought to still give it a couple more days stickered up, allowing everything to relax and come to an even moisture.

If you don't do that, you'll just end up with boards that will wiggle and move and warp on you as you try and build your furniture, and that's not much fun.

Once we've allowed the board to stabilize and come to that nice humidity level that your shop is, next thing to think about is how we process these out for furniture parts.

What I'm gonna do first is look for defects in my board.

I see in this pine board, I've got a big crack running along through here, and I've got three screws that the band sawmill cut through, and I sure don't want to be putting those through my planer.

I know that I'm going to be removing parts of this board.

Now, as woodworkers, we tend to just buy our lumber and just work off the straight edge and the cut end of what we buy.

But I'll tell you what, that's not really the right approach.

What we need to be doing is looking at the grain of our board and matching each individual furniture part to the grain.

Now, as an example, let's say you're building a door.

The rails and the styles need to be nice, true, straight grain to read properly.

The panels -- well, we can enjoy interesting-looking wood for those.

But let's say you have a pair of doors.

We need each panel to match.

We need it to work with the structure, the form, the design of the furniture.

So take the time to lay out your parts on the board.

That's one of the advantages of using your own lumber.

Now, one way you can do that is you can create simple cardboard templates for the primary parts of your furniture piece.

Lay them on your board, work with them, and then put a chalk outline around each template.

And that's a good way to ensure that you've matched the grain with your work.

So once we have things pretty well figured out of how we're gonna use this board, we need to break it down.

Now, this piece, I'm just going to set up some sawhorses, and I'll use a circular saw and break it down into a couple usable pieces.

From there, we'll head to the joiner and we'll start to true it up.

Now, since this board isn't for a specific project, I just want to get the most out of it that I can for a future job.

What I'm gonna start by doing is I'm going to go ahead and rip off part of this edge that has the bad crack in it.

I want to cut out this section that has the three screws.

And I also need to reduce the overall width to fit within the capacity of my joiner.

Truing the board begins with jointing a face.

Once I have a face jointed, I'll join an edge.

At that point, we're pretty much done until we have a project lined up for this board.

When I have a project picked out, I can then plane it to the final thickness and I've already got an edge that's table saw ready.

[ Saw quiets ] Well, we talk about face joining a board to begin with.

Well, what do you do if you have a wide board and a narrow joiner?

Well, I'll tell you.

If you have a portable planer like this, you can use it as a joiner.

It's not quite as good, but it'll get you by.

So here's how you do it.

The first thing you need is what we're gonna call a carrier board.

This board has to be absolutely flat, true, no twists, no warps.

And if you find that carrier board, that perfect board, baby it.

Save it.

Make sure you keep it in a precious spot where it'll never get hurt.

Here's how you use it.

So here's the board I want to joint.

What I've done is I've added a stop front and back, and that'll just keep this board from moving on my carrier board.

The next thing I need to do is I need to make sure that my board here is properly supported.

If it's bowed up in any way, the feed rollers of my planer are gonna push it down and we're not gonna have the desired effect of a true, jointed surface.

So what we need to do is make sure that this board is fully supported.

So I'm gonna flip this over.

Your carrier board doesn't have to be the full width of the board you're jointing.

It just needs to provide a good, solid foundation.

Now, I was mentioning bowed, any bows in the board.

Any gaps -- we need to fill those, and there's a lot of different ways you can do that, but my favorite way is just to use wedges and... your friend in the shop, a hot-melt glue gun.

It's fast and it's easy.

So what I'll do is I'll just take my wedges and I'm gonna look for any gaps -- I've got a pretty good-sized one here -- and I'll fill those.

Looks pretty good otherwise on that side.

And a little bit of a gap over here.

So our board is bowing a little bit on this end.

Now to secure those wedges, I'm gonna go ahead and take my hot-melt glue gun and I'm just gonna squirt a little glue in there.

It'll peel right off when we're done, and they'll keep things nice and secure.

And if you have a small gap, you can just bypass the wedges and use a little of the hot-melt glue.

Now, the wages need to be trimmed off before we send it through the planer.

[ Wedge clatters] So there's our completed package.

The board is supported.

It's not gonna move on our carrier board.

It's ready to go through the planer and be jointed.

[ Planer buzzing ] Well, you've seen Logan saw boards from a tree, and you've learned a little bit about how to process that wood back in your shop, so think about finding a local sawmill to deal with.

You'll probably get some great domestic hardwoods, and you'll probably get a few woods that are exotic to your area -- like in Iowa here, mulberry or Osage orange.

So, locally harvested wood.

Save a few bucks.

Have a lot of fun.

Can't beat that.

Thanks to Logan and his sawmill, I've been able to work with species of wood that I've never really worked with before, and also had access to some unique-looking boards that you're just not gonna find in a typical lumber yard or home center.

So I'm sure you'll be able to find a local sawyer in your area to be able to find those special boards -- or if not, be able to rescue some boards or from storm-damaged trees and turn them into some special projects.

If you'd like to learn more about it, we have some special articles all at our website, WoodsmithShop.com.

There you'll also find more videos, plans for projects, and more to keep you busy in your shop until we meet right back here in "The Woodsmith Shop."

If you'd like to get more video tips and techniques, sign up for the free weekly Woodsmith eTip.

Every week, you'll receive an e-mail with a video tip to get more out of your table saw, router table, and more.

Sign up at WoodsmithShop.com.

Everything in today's show comes from the newly expanded Woodsmith Guild Edition with shop projects, plans, tips, and techniques.

To get a free preview issue of the Woodsmith Guild Edition and a free Woodsmith book, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

In addition, past seasons of "The Woodsmith Shop" are available on DVD, or you can watch them online from your computer, tablet, or mobile device.

For more information, go to WoodsmithShop.com.

Announcer: Major funding for "The Woodsmith Shop" has been provided by... Old Masters -- offering wood stains and finishes for the woodworking enthusiast and professional.

And by... Kreg -- from the first cut to the final assembly, providing woodworkers with products that help to simplify woodworking challenges.

Kreg.

Additional funding provided by... Titebond Wood Glues -- the pro's advantage.

And by... ♪♪ ♪♪ And by... Inventables -- tools for designing and building your products.

Inventables.com.