Milling An Amazing Maple!

[DM]

Back when i was a small boy, the next farm down from mine had a spot by a creek where the boy scouts would camp. There was a BIG maple there too, it actually had a short trunk, and then several stems coming out of the trunk. It was the weirdiest tree, with huge warts all over it!

A few months ago, some of the stems broke off the main trunk, and so the owner of the property took the whole tree out. The owner also is a friend of mine, and he asked me if i'd mill all of the logs into lumber for him, as he is a woodworker too. So, this morn i met him down there and i carried one log home with my tractor, putting it on the mill,

http://www.fototime.com/28398B076C0011E/orig.jpg

This was the weirdest maple either of us ever laid eyes on, so we were VERY excited to open it up! And it didn't disappoint us one bit! The picts don't begin to show all of the color and wavy grain!

http://www.fototime.com/0081D93ADFE68C9/orig.jpg

I spent a LOT of time looking this log over, trying to figure out what would give us the most fantastic lumber, knowing we would eventually hit a rotted center,

http://www.fototime.com/3C3A7B68EE7EC6B/orig.jpg

So i kept taking 5/4 boards off, hopeing we'd get a good amount, before we hit the rot,

http://www.fototime.com/0CE1713794B4E5A/orig.jpg

[DM]

And it continued to please us!

http://www.fototime.com/7571EFD247EE7F2/orig.jpg

Until i could no longer avoid that rotted center,

http://www.fototime.com/C30F9671F853794/orig.jpg

Once through the rot, i got a couple more boards, and then we had all of the boards piled up, headed to be stickered to air dry,

http://www.fototime.com/C10CE0ED340AB88/orig.jpg

This is easily the most amazing maple i've ever milled or even seen, so i'm looking foreward to having a look inside the rest of the logs he has for me, to also mil into lumberl!

DM

[randallhilton]

and I assume you're going to show us what you make of it all. That's some busy looking wood!

[nhlivefreeordie]

That piece before the rotted one is hot, I wood love to have that. Nice stuff.

[BigOBear]

Wow that's beautiful

[Gracie]

Gosh, would never have thought such beautiful wood, could have come from such a gnarled old tree. Even the piece that is decayed is lovely too. Yall had a most exciting find today, and don't think it gets any better than that! Am now gonna start eye-balling the trees we have here, real good!

Gracie

[Southerngirl]

Goes to show something can be ugly on the outside and beautiful and amazing on the inside! :)
Would love to hear/see what you do with the finished product! It's certainly an eye catcher no matter what you do with it!

[12vman]

WOW! That would make some beautiful kitchen cabinets.. Simply beautiful!

[tomato204]

I was thinking coffee table, so you could see the wavy grain every day.

[DM]

and I assume you're going to show us what you make of it all. That's some busy looking wood!

Unfortunately, the log didn't belong to me! :(

I "may" end up with some of the lumber though, as there's several more logs to mill!

DM

[WVMan73]

I'm Drooling DM, truely DROOLING! That is just beautiful wood! Could be an amazing dinning room table, coffee table... or even just frame up a slab of it and hang on the wall as an amazing piece of natural art. Wood like that doesn't come along every day. He's lucky to have all of that to work with, and to have you there to mill it up for him!

WVMan73

[offgridbob]

That one real wide one would make a great long table for the dinning room