Hard Dry Ironbark Poles

[DJ’s Timber]

Got 4 poles here that I am squaring up for a customer who wants to use them as gate posts, but first I ran the metal detector over them and removed a heap of nails and bolts.

I found that they are bloody hard and dry and it is slow going with the Lucas Mill. You'll see that there is a few burn marks on the timber here and there , finish sizes are 200mm x 200mm x 2.4mt

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Got 3 done this arvo and the last one to do in the morning and so far after trimming 2 of them to length, I have ended up with 2 short sections of which I'll re-saw to get some plane making timber from which is the bit that I like the most about this job

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As you can see from the endgrain shots, the timber is pretty good, so should get some bonza bits from them I reckon

[Pat]

DJ, I know how blessedly hard Ironbark power poles are to mill. Although doing it with a Lucas Mill is akin to cheating

The Ironbark is good, but even though it may have had 50 years to settle down, it still can split, warp, twist like green timber. It is good to turn or make into boxes etc.

[jmaxwell]

nice posts DJ love the way the recycled ironbark has the dark lines .here are some 350x350 at 3.5

[BobL]

Thanks for showing us the pics DJ.

Finally got back to milling myself yesterday after 4 weeks off, mainly the flu - it sure was a nasty one. Anyway it will be interesting to see what you make outta those poles.

Cheers

[Big Shed]

Awesome job DJ Bet that crane came in handy!

[DJ’s Timber]

nice posts DJ love the way the recycled ironbark has the dark lines .here are some 350x350 at 3.5

Yeap, it adds some nice character to them for sure

Anyway it will be interesting to see what you make outta those poles.

Poles aren't for me but I get to keep the off-cuts

Awesome job DJ Bet that crane came in handy!

You bet it did

[Sigidi]

DJ the way you have that partially cut log set up as a support, do you do a lot of re-sawing with the mill?

With the posts, you could have done all four faces in 3-4" horizontal bites and even 2" bites if it was really hard going, that would have cut down on the stress put on the blade also increased the speed it was finished in. By the look of your log, you could have done two at a time, but probably better/safer doing one

[DJ’s Timber]

Was actually doing it in less then 2" bites in horizontal or vertical, didn't make any difference which way I did it, it'd wander off the cut line, small and steady was the way to go.

[DJ’s Timber]

Oh and yeah, I do a bit of re-sawing, one of these days I'm going to make a bench to go in there that is letup for re-sawing

[glock40sw]

So... do you run water on your saw when sawing?

We never cut anything without water on the blade. Keeps it standing up and running true.

[Sigidi]

not to cause problems - but something sounds off with that, doing 2" horizontals/verticals and still having problems. Your running an 825 aren't you DJ?

I was cutting a bit of old/dry almost fossilzed turp at the neighbours last week, it was slow but still could do 4" cuts in one pass. I know turps isn't ironbark, but it had soil ingrained in it, high silica content, dry as an old boot, I had to sharpen every log even though each was only about 0.3 cube, but my little 618 still did 4" single cuts after sharpening???

[DJ’s Timber]

So... do you run water on your saw when sawing?

We never cut anything without water on the blade. Keeps it standing up and running true.

Yep

not to cause problems - but something sounds off with that, doing 2" horizontals/verticals and still having problems. Your running an 825 aren't you DJ?

I was cutting a bit of old/dry almost fossilzed turp at the neighbours last week, it was slow but still could do 4" cuts in one pass. I know turps isn't ironbark, but it had soil ingrained in it, high silica content, dry as an old boot, I had to sharpen every log even though each was only about 0.3 cube, but my little 618 still did 4" single cuts after sharpening???

Mine's one of the earlier models, an 820.