Hot tip on super boatbuilding wood!

[Bob Cleek]

Just ran up the road to Sturgeon's mill, outside of Sebastapol, CA. http://www.sturgeonsmill.com/ It's the last steam powered sawmill in CA. The same family's owned for years and now operates it as an historic site. The mill is operating and open to the public several weekends each year. They saw whatever they have on hand, which is redwood and doug fir. A lot of the timber is older growth with some very nice tight ringed doug fir. It's quite an amazing thing to watch a steam powered sawmill in operation up close.














I talked to the boss sawyer about custom sawn boatbuilding wood and he said, "Hell yea!" The deal is, if you are willing to wait until one of their operating weekends, they will custom saw select timber for you. As the mill is a non-profit historic site, their lumber is really amazingly low priced, not to mention that you'd be hard put to find it anywhere else. (A 12' clear heart redwood 2x12 for $32 comes to about two fifty a board foot.) This is the place to find a high-ring-count twelve or sixteen inch square boxed heart select keel timber, or a mess of flitch cut 4/4 planking stock in long lengths. He said they'd like to sell as much as they can. He said to tell everybody to just call the mill and let them know what your specific requirements are. They'll select a log and cut it to order. If you ever tried to get this done at a commercial mill.... IF you could get a commercial mill to custom saw anything, you know what it would cost you. At Sturgeon's, they're happy to be able to see what they saw go to a good home.

If you are anywhere near the place, it's definitely worth a trip. (It's open tomorrow and again in a couple of months... see their web site.) They've also got interpretative exhibits, an operating blacksmith shop, several operating steam engines you can watch operate up close, old logging machinery and equipment... most of it operating. It was pretty amazing watching their teamster skidding those logs up to the mill platform with a matched team of Clydesdales! And the show is free, to boot.

Cool videos for you poor guys on the Right Coast! We still got the big trees! http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...%27s+Mill&aq=f

[Wooden Boat Fittings]

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Half your luck, you lot. Fancy having that there, just waiting to be used. Take the kiddies and the truck and have a day out for everyone.

Mike

[Vince Brennan]

Bob, with extreme envy ('cos I'm on the Wrong Coast), thanks for posting that.

A REALLY valuable resource for builders within reasonable reach of the mill!

[BBSebens]

Finally! A good reason to visit California...

[Thorne]

Driven past it for years but never stopped. Will stop next time they're open! Thanks.

[FSS172]

Fabulous.... at those prices I wonder if it'd be cost effective to have a job lot of timbers and planking stock shipped east....

[Peter Malcolm Jardine]

Wow. Like others have said... what a price... at even double it would be a bargain here

[amish rob]

Mr. Cleek,

Yeehaw. My local mill, which was also "non-profit", recently closed; presumably due to lack of profit.

This is a blessing, as I'm willing to wait.

Thank you thank you thank you!

[schoonerpacket]

Here is our local steam sawmill, which can also cut custom lumber. Myself and another forum member assist in it's operation.

[JC 72]

Wow, thanks for the info Bob. We will check it out for sure. Got some boat projects in mind. Can't beleive our good fortune. Lived here all my life and never heard of it before. John

[Bob Cleek]

Watching those guys stand inches away from those totally unguarded wheels sure gave me the willies.
My brain kept playing the scenario of hitting nails, or spikes....

Good to know they are willing to saw cheap.

Last time I was there, all they had was Redwood which is nice for fencing and all.

Did they say anything about Fir, Bay Laurel, Oak, Incense Cedar?

Thanks for asking them Bob.

It was Bob Sturgeon, one of the founders of the historical association and the lead sawyer (I'm presuming... he was calling the shots) that I spoke with. He explained that the logs they use on their operating demonstration weekends are donated. Some are deadfalls and others cut on local property and so on. Thus, it's pretty much a mixed bag, with redwood taking the lead. Last weekend, it was mostly quality redwood, but they also had some tight doug fir. I don't know if they do laurel (AKA "bay," "pepperwood" and "Oregon myrtlewood") white oak, or whatever. I am sure you could talk with him about it and find out. He showed me their "order list" for the day. He had written down various dimensions of timber that people had requested and when they'd get to a log they thought was suitable, he said they cut it to the orders on the list. They could probably hold a good doug fir log or two for an order. I wouldn't be surprised if they would be able to accommodate just about any species if you could arrange to have the log dropped off there. It's not a commercial operation, so it's catch as catch can. I sort of got the impression that if you got to know them well enough, just about anything would be possible. Good bunch of guys.

As for hitting metal in a log, he had a neat exhibit of the consequences. It was many years earlier, before they restored the mill, but he showed me a piece of iron maybe a half inch thick and six inches long that was embedded in a tree they sawed. It was a piece of some farm machinery, like a rake tine or such. When the saw hit it, the force fractured the nut holding the blade on the arbor, busted a thick iron collar under the nut, and broke the arbor in two. He had all the broken pieces. Pretty amazing. He also showed me this really neat gizmo for sharpening the teeth on the blade. I'm sure it's a common tool for sawyers, but I'd never seen one before. It is sort of a pencil sharpener - egg beater sort of thing that is fitted to clamp in the gullet, which trues up all the angles. It has an abrasive grinding wheel and a hand crank. They just snap it into each gullet and give it a few cranks and it sharpens the tooth (which aren't carbide). The teeth also are removed with a special tool that drops into the gullets. When a tooth is shot, they just snap in a new one. The blade doesn't have to be removed from the arbor to sharpen or change teeth.

Brian, since we went out there last year, I couldn't resist making another trip this year. I was surprised at how much work they had done on the site. They've moved a building in for a museum that is now under construction. The equipment has been given a lot more restoration. It looks like their non-profit is really successful. It ain't easy to get an historic site like theirs going and many don't survive or even get off the ground. It looks like they have their act together.

[Soundman67]

the forum really needs to have a list of all of the things like this that can help out other members of the forum. Especially if a member has an in with the resource. I am looking for a mill like this near Vancouver so I can say the replacement wood for my 60 year old boat was cut in the traditional way.