A big maple at the mill
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
We were going through old slides last night and came upon this picture(taken from screen). Brought back memories of early days dealing in lumber and the local hardwood lumber industry. I bought a small boundary of timber that contained a giant maple tree. It yielded 2-10' 34" logs and a 12'-32" log. The butt cut was curly but the curl ran out with height. The upper logs had figure but not a tight curl. The picture shows the butt cut being positioned into a circle saw mill I had an interest in long ago.
There used to be many of these small mills around here that served the regional furniture factories. They are all gone. Now logs are hauled up to 100 miles to large corporate mills that saw 100,000+ bdft a day.
Somebody local that had a connection to the Williamsburg gun shop bought this log and it was sawed for them. A time or two I regretted selling the log. I kept the middle log. This ancient wood was a honey color, not white like most maple. What I kept has found its way into many pieces of furniture and our kitchen counter tops.