Finishing an Ash table question

[John Pollman]

Hi all,
Well not long ago my big Ash tree out front finally met the chainsaw. It fell victim to the dreaded Emerald Ash Borer and I had to take it down. As I have posted here in the past I wanted to have it milled into usable lumber but that just wasn't possible at this point. It cost me $1100 as it is just to have the tree knocked down and the stump removed. It was going to be probably another $500 for the milling and I just didn't have the money so I decided to cut it up and make firewood out of it. Well I ended up with at least three and a half and probably more like four full cords of wood. Before I cut it into firewood lengths I took four slices off of the end that I want to make into tables. The tree was 36" in diameter and I cut the slices about 2-3" thick. I got the belt sander out and went to work and flattened one of them out. It's coming out pretty nice. I was thinking about using one of those resin finishes where you pour it out and make a nice thick clear finish on it. But I started thinking about when the slab cracks. That's going to cause problems. Then it hit me, what about just sanding it nice and smooth and putting a few coats of Linseed Oil on it. I think it would look good and show the rings and such. Then when it does crack, it's not going to be a big deal. Do you think that just treating it occasionally with Linseed Oil would work or should I do something else to it after the Oil treatment?

On the good side, I still have several large Ash out back that will have to come down eventually and maybe I can have those milled and I also have a couple large Cherry trees out back that are 20 and 24" diameter. Those will definitely see the mill instead of the fireplace.

Thanks for any input.

John

[Jim Becker]

Yea, radial cracking is going to be the general issue with those slabs...and it's hard to stop. BLO/wax will certainly put a nice looking finish on it so you can enjoy the wood over time.

BTW, I'm troubled that it was going to cost you $500 to get a single tree milled. That's what it cost me in 2000 to get all this milled:



into this:

[John Pollman]

Thanks Jim,

I think the BLO and wax is what I'm going to do. That's what I did on a shuffleboard table I restored a few years ago and it was nice. Yeah, the radial cracking is just starting to show up a little bit and there's no stopping it. That's why I wanted to stay away from a hard finish.

As far as the milling goes, that estimate may have been a little high. But the guy I was talking to with the mill got $100/hr and he lives at least an hour away. I would have had five 8' logs and three of them were BIG. Two of them would have been about 20" and 18" diameter. It would have been very difficult for me to line up the logs side by side to get ready for the mill. I just figured at the rate I was going to be paying that it was at least a 4-5 hour job. I may have been mistaken though. The good thing is like I said before, I have a few other large Ash out back that I can have milled. But just a couple of weeks ago I talked to a friend of my uncle's who apparently knows someone with a skid-steer that has a set of forks. I think I may be able to use that to move the logs out of the woods and up to the area where they can be milled. That will save a lot of time if the logs are all lined up and ready to go when the mill gets here. Another good thing is that one of my neighbors is a tree cutter. He's got all the gear to climb and cut trees. I gave him three big loads of the wood from the Ash and I'm hoping that he'll give me a good price on dropping those Cherry trees out back. I bet there's a couple of bucks there!

Thanks for the input!

John

[Jim Becker]

$100 an hour is very high...I believe my local fellow gets $55 an hour with 1/2 hour travel time standard. (Plus $25 per blade if a nail is hit...my job was clean...until the very last log. Go figure...) When the need arises, hit the Woodmizer web site and search for other sawyers more local to you.

[Pete Bradley]

I've made some tools out of ash and finished them with tung oil. End grain will slurp up a lot of it. It yellows some, but I'd expect that from BLO also.

Pete