“Some people buy them for furniture projects they are working on, and they like our logs,” he says. Heatwole says he makes sure the logs at Evergreen Log Sawing are of high quality for customers. “Our shop isn’t big, but our specialty product is good lumber, especially for work projects and the cold weather heading our way this fall and winter,” he says. Heatwole says the business also offers lumber for sale. Our customers like that for their work projects.” It helps you dry the wood to the right moisture. Kilns control the humidity, temperature and the steam levels on wood for a while. It brings lumber moisture levels down to a more workable range for work projects. ![]() “We do a lot of custom sawing for our customers,” he says. We love even more seeing your photos of beautiful wood in your home.Heatwole says Evergreen Law Sawing has earned a strong reputation as a reliable business to work with throughout the last five years. The ones shown here with the ax cut ends means they were all cut before the mid-1880s when loggers switched from axes to crosscut saws. We love seeing these ancient logs arrive at the mill and value their beauty and worth. We’re humbled to think that the loggers of the 19 th century lost some of the densest and best antique heart pine and cypress to the river bottom. Just ask Terry Reeb, Hardwood Specialists of St Petersburg, FL, one of our best ever clients who performs a lot of historic restoration, Goodwin provides what our clients need and we saw each and every log to order. Of course, some of it goes to that wide wood however, still, I often have to sacrifice the largest logs to make those cants out of the center to generate the narrow plainsawn grain to repair and restore those great homes of the last century. Just take a look at the floor shown here on the beach in Florida. Given today’s kiln drying procedures, wide widths perform extremely well. I could saw the largest River-Recovered® heart pine logs into some of the richest, most beautiful 8” and 10” wide antique wood in the world. The older Victorian era homes used the narrow widths because they did not have dry kilns and narrow widths naturally shrink less than wide wood. To get the narrow plainsawn grade, I take the largest logs and create a cant (a rectangle) out of the center of the log and then slice it like a loaf of bread. Strangely enough, the most difficult to achieve is the narrow plainsawn grades, particularly the 3” boards that provide a 2-1/2” face tongue and groove flooring. The company gives me a worklist of what I need to saw to meet custom orders. This lets me rotate the logs to render the best yield and highest quality while sawing. Once the logs are scaled, bucked, washed and loaded onto the saw deck, I mark any internal fractures with chalk so they can be easily seen from inside the saw cab. The River-Recovered® heart pine is dense, resinous and heavy, while the heart cypress is huge, requiring heavy-duty equipment. When I bought a large headsaw and carriage several years ago, I assembled the most equipment we could possibly afford. Sand will damage the large, expensive saw blades. The logs all need a power wash to remove the sand and grit off the remaining bark and exterior of the logs before they are sawn. A 36’ log might make an 8’, 12’ and 14’ sections depending on where the crooks and bends are in the log. ![]() Once I determine which ones to saw, I examine each log and decide where to mark and cut the logs for the best yield. We often take the largest and best-preserved logs back to our giant log pond, where they remain in water until the right project comes along. Sometimes there are significant internal fractures or other issues that affect the board footage that we take into account. There is an industry log ‘scale’ that gives the board feet based on the diameter and length of the log. When a load of River-Recovered® logs arrives at the sawmill, the first thing we do is measure and ‘scale’ them to determine how many board feet each log will yield. Sawing River-Recovered® logs is more of an art than a process. It’s George’s process, so he tells the story best. ![]() He personally examines each and every log and has his own ritual for creating the beautiful antique wood flooring you enjoy in your home and/or office. George Goodwin is still our company sawyer.
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