of saw logs and steps

Categories: house-building, life-in-general, pictures, beautiful-husband

Date: 09 August 2009 08:29:04

We spent an hour or so this arvo 13km's down the Calder Road (one of the 4 roads heading off south'ish behind Wynyard ... Reservoir, Deep Creek, Oldina, Calder) having Mr Tas's huon pine log sawn into planks. He's had the log (nearly 2.3 metres long) for 15 years or so, picked up off the banks of the Pieman River, and stored in his dad's garden shed. He's been asked (and nagged) what he's going to do with it for nearly that long, and has always said when the right project came up he'd know ... and now it has :)

It's been sawn up into planks which will become the steps from our dining room down to the living room ... huon pine stairs over spotted gum flooring, I think it will look great! He's really great at this sort of stuff, has made some beautiful items out of wood, and it will be lovely to have these handmade stairs.

The father of one of his students owns a Luc*s Mill ... which is essentially a portable saw mill, it's quite amazing. We arrived at the paddock to find the dad, his dad, and a friend with their production line well underway - lovely piles of freshly milled macrocarpa planks - there are huge amounts of giant macro's around the north west which have reached the end of their lives and are being felled - most are piled up and burnt but these guys are milling beautiful planks from them, which I think is just great!

Anyway, in short order they had the log on the mill and sawed up 3 beautiful planks (missing the knot hole in the middle of the log) and lots of offcuts for his students. We were left with a lovely piece of pine leftover - 2.3metres long, 450cm wide, 4 - 5cm deep - which will be absolutely perfect as a coffee table - the guys assured us it was worth, as is, between $600 and $1000! Not bad for what was essentially a large piece of driftwood, and is the sort of stuff that the shackies at the Pieman pick up and burn in their wood stoves!!!!!!!

View from the Calder Road

Getting organised

Lucas Mill in action on Huon Pine log

Partly sawn log

The final piece - future coffee table!