Lumber for building sugar house

[PeddlerLakeSapper]

I am going to start cutting some non maple trees to be sawn for building a sugar house. There is going to be some beech, ash, oak for the structural part, and I was wondering about using basswood for the siding. I know that it is very soft, and was wondering if it would hold up if used for board and batten siding? Maybe soft maple would be better? Any thoughts from the lumber pro's.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

PLS,
Basswood can be a good substitute for pine when used in a location that is not exposed to moisture. Unfortunately, this does not apply to most sugar houses. I'd look for something different. Soft maple might work but make sure it doesn't touch the ground. It is also quite heavy. If you use it green, the nails will drive easier.

[peacemaker]

geez if u have hardwoods .. for building here is a thought couldnt u sell the hardwood sticks or trade them for so pine or hemlock

[maple flats]

Peacemaker has the right idea. I like hemlock best for that type of building, it lasts well if it get wet repeatedly, even in contact with the ground but it is best not to contact the ground with it. If you do use soft maple it must not touch the ground and unless nailing green it should be drilled to nail. A pneumatic nailer will work too. Kept dry the soft maple will last many years. My brother built a woodshed 18 yrs ago of soft maple and except for the staining from splashed water it is like new and never even been painted. The moisture from an evaporator has not shown much adverse effect on wood because as soon as the steam is gone it dries readily. I would still encourage you to try a swap with the sawmill, soft maple for eastern hemlock. The $ value of both is rather low as compared to most other woods. I am also a sawyer, have my own mill, and do not know why eastern hemlock is priced so low. It is an excellent wood for use rough cut, board and batten, framing, roof boards etc. If your soft maple does not have over 1/3 heart wood you will have no problem trading and you might even get more board feet hemlock in exchange for the soft maple. Markets do vary regionally so maybe not.

[maple flats]

Try going to www.forestryforum.com to get in touch with a local sawyer who might trade with you.

[peacemaker]

thats what i was thinking also probally end up with more hemlock for your hardwoods maple flats my sister lives in woodhull and we head out that way a few times a year maybe next trip if we have time and your around we can stop in

[tuckermtn]

pine siding (shiplap or board/batten) and hemlock framing gets my vote...

also check salvage yards...I took down an old storage shed at a decomissioned lumber yard...kept the trusses in tack, pulled off all the metal roofing, salvaged the 4 x 10 fir plates, etc...all I had to buy was some misc. 2 x 4;s and some pine siding...price was right also...

[ronr]

At the Sugar Bush Supplies open house I remember Don Fogle said that their sugar house was sided with basswood and older then the hills.

My pole barn is sided with 1 by 12 poplar board and batten siding cut down and sawn into lumber by me. It was put up green with ardox galvanized nails and butted tight together. After drying there is about an inch gap between the boards which of course is covered by the batten strip. I had very little problem with cracking. I made sure to keep it well off the ground and have gravel under the eve drip area to keep dirt and sand from splashing on it. I also gave it a few good coats of solid color acrylic stain and took care to seal the end grain on the bottom to keep the moisture from wicking up the boards.

It was put up about eight years ago and is doing just fine. I realize this is not a long time frame but I did talk to a second generation sawmiller with 40 plus years in the business and he said they have buildings put up 60 plus years ago sided with poplar that are just fine, just keep it off the ground. After the trip to the open house I asked him about basswood for siding, as I have a lot of it myself, and he said it would work fine.

Maybe you could do some trading, but around here there isn't much of a market for basswood, ash or beech.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Put all the basswood on a trailer drive it around the block and when you get home just call it Lindon wood and build your bldg There is a reason that basswood ie. Lindon is such a great wood for wood carvers and decoys ITS STABLE and does not shrink or crack like others woods. Go for it. We use it for doing nice trim work. Clear stright grain few knots stays stright.

[PeddlerLakeSapper]

Maple Flats, thanks for the link to the foresrty forum site. This has been issue since I bought my place. Every year I have two or three timber buyers stop by and want to buy logs. The last one that looked just wanted the hard maple and walnut. I just don't trust those guys for some reason. The two that I have let look at my woods have asked if the trees have been tapped. Mine have not, and they say that tapping stains the wood and makes it worth less.

Does anyone have an idea about uses for basswood? These trees are very big and need to come down to let the other trees grow better.

[Fred Henderson]

The logger that said that tapping ruins a tree I would definately not turst him. If a tree has been tapped a logger will usually leave the first 5 or 6 foot in the woods. Its called butting off. The saw mills make them do it because if the sawyer hits metal with the saw blade it is usually very costly for repairs or replacement.

[peacemaker]

I had a millwork shop we made alot of paint grade trim out of poplar for the same reasons straight grain easy on the tooling but if u dont protect it well seal all the edges front and back all open grains .. we use alos make doors out of it .. but if u didnt potect it they move and will rot away we used basswood alot for carvings and embossed moldings ..go into a home death spot...(home depot ) and go look at there trim mostly basswood especial the fancy laser cut ... basswood ..but its all interior stuff mostly ... now if we had work down towards the shore or where it was gonna be moist or a house tucked in the woods with very little light we used southern yellow or cedar mahogany and my fav if u get good straight stuff is cyprus great adirondack chairs good cyprus almost doesnt need any oil on it ..oh and as far as hitting metal once i was ripping a 18 inch wide 20 ft long 4 inch thick piece of poplar on the unisaw 220 monster rip blade just slicing thru it like butter then it stopped dead ...i couldnt move it and i was about 4 ft from the end .. i snapped a line came up the 4 ft side with a skil saw as far as i could still we couldnt make it budge i took a chisel to it when i was done there it was mile marke 16 as we called it there in the nice black stain which should have been my first clue ...was a mile maker sign in there flat one tooth of the rip hit just one stopped it dead and knocked off the carbide ... took me two hours to get it out

[peacemaker]

oh contact your local forester and have him walk the land before the logger ... where i use to tap i told them to do that ..they didnt and got kinda took and lost most the maples there ...if the forester goes in knowing u plan to tap he can help mark the good sugar wood and the good lumber trees ...then when a logger comes in u will know what u have in there and he can be deshonest

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

PLS,
Basswood makes excellent interior wood for things like the insides of cupboards etc. Makes nice drawers in desks and dressers. If you can find a local finish carpenter and a local mill, you might be able to get some used that way. I just sold 250 ft of it this morning to an Amish family that uses it for the bases of home made baskets. The problem with all of these uses is that there is only a limited amount needed and if you have several thousand feet available....
Doug

[Maplewalnut]

Check out my photobucket. I used a combination of poplar and hemlock for both my framing and siding. The only store bought lumber I used was the plywood sheathing for the roof and the 2x10 rafters. As others have said keep it off the ground and you should be fine. I didn't stain mine yet, wanted to see what a year or two without it would do. I did air dry the poplar a year but the hemlock was green. Butt them tight. Screw through the batten in between the siding boards and let it dry as she sits. Not one board popped over the winter.

[PeddlerLakeSapper]

This is just what I am planning to do. Are those blocks just sitting on a slab or is there a frost wall / footing under them. Also, how much can I expect to pay per board foot for sawing?

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

PLS,
I have a portable bandmill. I charge a travel and set up fee of $100 and then a straight rate of .25 per foot if you provide a man to assist. I am currently reassessing to determine if prices must go up due to increased fuel and blade costs. I am in an area with a large number of Amish circle saw mills and some of them are charging as low as .12 per foot so I have tough competition. I do charge more if logs are dirty (rapidly dulls blades) or if they are extremely small or crooked (both cause less yield and more work for me).
Doug

[maple flats]

I do custom sawing. I get $.35/bd ft if the logs are good. I like larger logs (16-36") and have the customer supply a man to tail the mill. I also have them lay down a couple of poles and stack the logs on these. Then I put the mill at the end of the poles and just roll the logs into position to saw them. If the logs are smaller, dirty, real short or piled too poorly I charge more. If I have a full day's sawing I do not charge a set up fee but do charge one if the job is too small. This is how I do many but on some I scale the logs and give a price ahead of time. In either case i charge by the international log scale and not by the actual yield. I do it this way for a couple of reasons, it is faster than adding everything up latter and if a log has some poor wood I still had to open it up and get what was good enough to use. On real large jobs I occasionally will have a questionable log that i do not charge for. For example I am doing a job now that is over 6000 BF, all white pine, and I did not charge for 1 questionable log. This is all being cut into 5/4, the customer makes furnature with it after drying. This rate was set last year and I will likely go up to $.40 with fuel prices so high.

[Fred Henderson]

I do custom sawing. I get $.35/bd ft if the logs are good. I like larger logs (16-36") and have the customer supply a man to tail the mill. I also have them lay down a couple of poles and stack the logs on these. Then I put the mill at the end of the poles and just roll the logs into position to saw them. If the logs are smaller, dirty, real short or piled too poorly I charge more. If I have a full day's sawing I do not charge a set up fee but do charge one if the job is too small. This is how I do many but on some I scale the logs and give a price ahead of time. In either case i charge by the international log scale and not by the actual yield. I do it this way for a couple of reasons, it is faster than adding everything up latter and if a log has some poor wood I still had to open it up and get what was good enough to use. On real large jobs I occasionally will have a questionable log that i do not charge for. For example I am doing a job now that is over 6000 BF, all white pine, and I did not charge for 1 questionable log. This is all being cut into 5/4, the customer makes furnature with it after drying. This rate was set last year and I will likely go up to $.40 with fuel prices so high.


I would even ask anyone one to set a mill up for a mere 6000 feet. The last time I had a mill here I had 30,000 feet to be sawed. 27,000 was Hemlock, the rest white pine.

[peacemaker]

ordered in on time 20000 bdf of oak pop clear pine hat filled the racks in the shop and emptied the check book

[maple flats]

You are both over my scale of operation. I have the basic Peterson ATS portable saw mill which is all manually operated. I can cut up to 60" diameter and 20' long logs, but everything is done manually. My rig's greatest asset is it's portability. If I were going into sawing as a major income producer i would get their mill at the opposite end of the scale which is called an ASM or atuomatic Saw Mill, but not very portable. If I got a job for 30000 BF for my mill I would need to get a faster mill or turn it down. Most of the jobs I do are in the 1500-3000 BF range, some smaller and some larger. I however only do a very few jobs a year as time permits with my other endeavors, such as a regular job, mapling, growing and tending 4 1/2 acres of blueberries and taking care of 3 rental duplexes I own.

[Fred Henderson]

You are both over my scale of operation. I have the basic Peterson ATS portable saw mill which is all manually operated. I can cut up to 60" diameter and 20' long logs, but everything is done manually. My rig's greatest asset is it's portability. If I were going into sawing as a major income producer i would get their mill at the opposite end of the scale which is called an ASM or atuomatic Saw Mill, but not very portable. If I got a job for 30000 BF for my mill I would need to get a faster mill or turn it down. Most of the jobs I do are in the 1500-3000 BF range, some smaller and some larger. I however only do a very few jobs a year as time permits with my other endeavors, such as a regular job, mapling, growing and tending 4 1/2 acres of blueberries and taking care of 3 rental duplexes I own.

Dave, You may be into just a little too much. All work and no play makes for a dull day.

[maple flats]

I enjoy everything I do and when you enjoy it you do not feel you are working. I like to switch off and on, in other words, I do one thing til it starts to get old and then switch to something else. If I only did my regular job and maple I would get tired of it in short order.