I have been AWOL because something happen to my account, and there was something like 15 forums that didn't even show up on my list! I in fact i thought the woodworking forum was discontinued!! lol Matt just sorted it all out for me, so thanks to Matt and Bill!
Anyway, this weird maple is MORE than worth showing to you!!
Back when i was a small boy, the next farm down from mine had a spot by a creek where the boy scouts would camp. There was a BIG maple there too, it actually had a short trunk, and then several stems coming out of the trunk. It was the weirdest tree, with huge warts all over it!
A few months ago, some of the stems broke off the main trunk, and so the owner of the property took the whole tree out. The owner also is a friend of mine, and he asked me if i'd mill all of the logs into lumber for him, as he is a woodworker too. So, this morn i met him down there and i carried one log home with my tractor, putting it on the mill,
This was the weirdest maple either of us ever laid eyes on, so we were VERY excited to open it up! And it didn't disappoint us one bit! The picts don't begin to show all of the color and wavy grain!
I spent a LOT of time looking this log over, trying to figure out what would give us the most fantastic lumber, knowing we would eventually hit a rotted center,
So i kept taking 5/4 boards off, hopeing we'd get a good amount, before we hit the rot,
And it continued to please us!
Until i could no longer avoid that rotted center,
Once through the rot, i got a couple more boards, and then we had all of the boards piled up, headed to be stickered to air dry,
This is easily the most amazing maple i've ever milled or even seen, so i'm looking foreward to having a look inside the rest of the logs he has for me, to also be milled into lumber!
DM