Other Wood
Word of mouth is a great way to get known in a small town. People know that we saw high quality salvaged old-growth redwood lumber and they ask "what else do you saw?" Up until a year ago, we didn't saw anything except for redwood and doug fir. A friend asked if we could help him make some slabs out of some California black walnut that he had and naturally, we said "Yes!". We learned how to make cants for veneer slicing and high grade walnut slabs.
Another friend asked if we were at all interested in some eucalyptus trees. Naturally, we said "Yes", because the Lucas Mill was made in Australia, the home of the eucalyptus trees. We just had to try it! Eucalyptus wood is tough and very heavy but the carbide teeth on the blade of the Lucas Mill made quick work of it. We made some dimensional lumber out of the logs and some 3x6 beams which we used for retaining walls here on our property. We were told that it is insect and rot resistant, so we thought that we'd give that a try and it seems to be doing fine. The sapwood tends to get insects in them, but the heart wood looks like it is doing fine with direct-to-earth contact. Time will tell.....
We have also sawn some local hardwoods like tan oak and madrone. Tan oak seems to be more readily available in larger log sizes than does madrone. We sawed up a tan oak tree that had been down on the ground for a year and it was spalted and had insect holes in the sapwood but it was still very solid. We ended up giving it to one of the people who worked for us and he used it in his new house with some amazing results!
Our Vice President, David Yager has fanned the spark of interest in other woods. He is currently making bowls, plates, platters, serving trays, spoons, and service utensils out of salvaged California hardwoods. He has friends in his area who are arborists and tree service people and they often have to remove unique and interesting hardwood trees durring their regular course of work. Most often these trees are ground up into chips, cut into firewood or sent to the local landfill. He has gotten us some large sawlogs of big leaf maple, chinquapin, bay laurel (also called pepperwood), and California black walnut. We currently have these in log form in our mill yard. It would be a shame to cut them into dimensional lumber (for flooring) or slabs (counter tops). What if someone really wanted them for bowl turning blanks? We don't often cut logs "on speculation" because we have found that speculating with lumber is often not the best way to sell it. Custom cutting is what we do!