Re: Dealing with European bark edged lumber
Sgian Dubh
Logs are sawed through (sometimes, often?) without turning the log, and the lumber dried and sold as whatever came from the log.
Yes, known as boules.
While this practice could be done at some small band saw mills I have never seen a log processed this way at a mill in the US.
In think it's less usual to undertake through and through sawing here in the UK, and the rest of Europe, and it's more common for a sawlog to be processed in a manner similar to the methods you are used to in North America, i.e., saw a bit, turn saw some more, etc. Bandmills, which probably account for somewhere north of 95% of all board milling operations in Europe, do range in capacity from relatively small to large - I can't recall ever seeing a circular saw convert sawlogs in the UK, but that doesn't mean that type of saw doesn't exist here. A few of the larger bandmills have a capacity of up to perhaps ~1,550 mm so, if that's the case, they could handle a log up to about 1,500 mm (<5 ft) diameter without the need for turning the log, but I'd say this ability is relatively rare.
Why would logs ever be sawed this way
It's likely that most buyers of boules tend to have specific requirements of colour consistency, for example, for a particular project, or they want to be sure that every bit of wood in a project or projects is sourced from the same tree. I recall one timber yard showing me a few boules of walnut and (maybe) oak they were air drying for a couple of customers: for the life of me I can't now remember who the customers were, but it was high end manufacturing of some sort, automobiles, a yacht builder, or similar, and I think the oak was destined for a musical instrument maker - sorry I can't be more specific on that.
once in the shop how does the shop begin to turn a board with bark on both edges into straight edged lumber?
Snap a chalk line and freehand guide the board to rip off the edge(s) with either a powerful rip saw (like a big cabinet saw, but with safety devices left in place, i.e., riving knife and crown guard) or a bandsaw. Alternatives are large hand held circular saws or handheld bandsaws, e.g., Mafell brand. I have undertaken a fair amount of this kind of initial processing using all the above, with the exception of a handheld bandsaw.
The disadvantages seem numerous. A lot of useless material is carried through from mill to shop. Scraps that would be used for kiln fuel are pushed into the shop. Kiln capacity is inefficiently used.
As before, boules tend to be air dried for the most part, with some perhaps getting a small amount of kilning at the end. I agree that there can be a lot of waste and inefficiency, but offcuts processed in the workshop can be burnt during the winter in a log burner to warm the place. On the other hand, air dried waney edged material is quite often significantly less expensive to buy than relatively highly processed and kilned square edged boards ... but you have to buy more of the stuff to allow for waste, which then does rather increase the overall cost of material purchased, so probably little or no saving overall.
Ditto transportation. The shop is left dealing with a substantial quantity of low grade lumber only useful for short or narrow cuttings.
Agreed. Boules don't make nice neat tidy piles for transporting, but the offcuts can go into the log burner, as mentioned above
Removing bark at the mill is trivial and efficient.
I agree, but it's not always what the end user wants. The customer maybe wants to make their own choice on what sap to remove, or not.
I don't have a way in my shop of easily straightening a bark edge. How is it done?
I think I answered this earlier.
To clarify the questions, I am directing the questions to the market of a professional shop making the variety of a professional wood shop's products. But even a hobby shop is faced with a lot of low grade lumber and waste disposal it is not well equipped to deal with.
Well, I hope I provided enough information for you to chew on. But, in general, the methods you're familiar with in the US are certainly more efficient and cost effective, and provide a relatively uniform product (if we can say that about wood), but I suppose there are always some woodworkers out there that like to be contrary, if you know what I mean, or have particular requirements and preferences and really don't want that neatly kilned and square edged stock, and really want those boules for their reasons, whatever they may be, ha, ha. Slainte.
