Sunday is for chainsawing

Remember those Ginkgo log sections I got from the Jennings Hall Renovation project last December? (Check: Ginkgo Wood! if you're clueless as to what I'm talking about.) Devon Palmer called me this afternoon and said he was about 15 minutes away from my house, "do you still want to cut up those Ginkgo logs?" Well, of course I said "yes!" The logs were too heavy for me to handle, so Devon offered to help me cut them down to manageable chunks. Thanks, Devon!




Here are the logs smashing down my perennials along the fence. Steve reminded me that I have a garden down there somewhere. When we rolled the logs off, some of the plants were trying to come up, but mostly what I had was a lot of earthworms having a grand ol' time.










Here's Devon making a lot of sawdust. He worked pretty hard to get these sections down to manageable size for me. I really, really appreciated the help.










After Devon left, I spent a couple of hours cutting the sections down into blanks. I'm not the one who usually uses the chainsaw. Steve gave me a Stihl saw a few years ago for my birthday, but he's the one who's usually using it. He's popped a few lumbar discs since then, so I won't let him do this sort of thing anymore. I managed pretty well, and it gave me a lot of confidence to do my own sawing.






Richard kept me company while I was sawing, and I put him to work coating the ends of each piece. He's using Anchorseal to coat the endgrain on each section. I ended up with a lot of turning blanks. A little more than half will be good for endgrain pieces or hollow forms. The rest will do well for my carved bowls and platters.







Here's another view of the cache from today. After all the ends were coated, the blanks were labeled and stacked either in the garage or in my basement shop. Steve and Richard did all the hauling and stacking while I started dinner.









These blanks are now in the basement, and I'll start with them. I intend to try some carved forms ala "Dylan's Song" with these, except the leaves blowing in the wind will be Ginkgo leaves instead of maple ones.