# Sinker wood



## sprucegum (Oct 13, 2017)

A century old mill dam is being removed from a local river. It is a concrete dam but before the concrete there was a log dam that my grandfather helped build. I contacted the engineer in charge of the project and asked about salvaging a few parts of the old log dam if any showed up during the silt removal process. I'm picking these beauties up Monday morning some are sinker logs from when the pond was used to float logs to the mill, others look like they may have been part of the log dam. Pretty nasty looking things but I'm going to pressure wash them and mill them. Probably build something for a keepsake, and give a board or two to the local museum, others have asked about obtaining a keepsake board or two so I guess it will find a home. I expect it is all spruce, pine or fir.

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## barry richardson (Oct 13, 2017)

Looking forward to seeing what they look like inside, maybe some pretty mineral colors.....

Reactions: Agree 1


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## woodtickgreg (Oct 13, 2017)

A friend of mine found a sinker log that washed ashore in the saginaw river. Same story, logs used to be floated down the river. There was a loggers stamp on the end of the log, back in the day all loggers floated their logs down the same river and a stamp identified whos log it was. He saved the stamps for mantle accents. I csm milled the log for him, absolutely beautiful chocolat brown from 100 years of mineral staining, and no smell whatsoever. We think it was a tamarack.
Check the ends of your logs for any kind of id stamps.

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## sprucegum (Oct 13, 2017)

woodtickgreg said:


> A friend of mine found a sinker log that washed ashore in the saginaw river. Same story, logs used to be floated down the river. There was a loggers stamp on the end of the log, back in the day all loggers floated their logs down the same river and a stamp identified whos log it was. He saved the stamps for mantle accents. I csm milled the log for him, absolutely beautiful chocolat brown from 100 years of mineral staining, and no smell whatsoever. We think it was a tamarack.
> Check the ends of your logs for any kind of id stamps.



The river was not used much for log drives. Most of the wood came in the winter by horse drawn sleds and later by truck and it was scaled and purchased by the mill owners so there was no need for stamps. The mill pond was a convenient way to offload the wood and move it the last couple hundred yards to the mill. The big drives on the Connecticut river that started almost in Canada and ended in Holyoke Mass had mixed wood and was often stamped.


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## robert flynt (Oct 13, 2017)

At one time the biggest sawmill in the US. was at Pearlington MS. When I was Young I saw some monster sinker cypress logs come out of the Pearl River There. The loggers had a big pontoon boat with a wench in the middle. They would poke around they found a log, hook a cable to and crank that wench until the pontoon boat had water lapping over the sides. Then they would wait till the pressure sucked it out of the mud.

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## sprucegum (Oct 14, 2017)

Has anyone here ever dried sinker wood? Everything I have read leads me to believe slow dry is best which may work out well for me as we are going into winter and drying conditions will be less than optimal. Planning to mill it 6/4 or thicker to make it easier to deal with warp, I can put 6/4 boards back on the mill after they are dry to true them. I'm not overly concerned with a little cracking as it is all soft wood and will most likely end up as something rustic anyway.


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## Nature Man (Oct 14, 2017)

Best of luck in this endeavor. We look forward to the unveiling of the sinkers. Chuck


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## David Van Asperen (Oct 14, 2017)

Sounds interesting and I too await a pic or two of what you find inside

Reactions: Agree 1


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## Mr. Peet (Oct 14, 2017)

Handled sinker 'Yellow birch' from Maine. A moose hunting friend of my brother does it part time. After he washes the logs, he seals the fresh cut ends, and mills within days. Recoats ends after milling. Stacked and stickered out of any direct sunlight. Tented, with a fan for 1 week or so maintaining 70% moisture air reading, then moved into first available kiln bay. Set on a minimum 6 week schedule and monitored for fungal stain. The stuff I handled was spot treated a few times and bleach mist treated once. I did notice it was darker and the density was clearly higher than the modern stuff. It was and old tree, nearly 200 rings counted for a 26"-30"DBH tree.

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## sprucegum (Oct 15, 2017)

Mr. Peet said:


> Handled sinker 'Yellow birch' from Maine. A moose hunting friend of my brother does it part time. After he washes the logs, he seals the fresh cut ends, and mills within days. Recoats ends after milling. Stacked and stickered out of any direct sunlight. Tented, with a fan for 1 week or so maintaining 70% moisture air reading, then moved into first available kiln bay. Set on a minimum 6 week schedule and monitored for fungal stain. The stuff I handled was spot treated a few times and bleach mist treated once. I did notice it was darker and the density was clearly higher than the modern stuff. It was and old tree, nearly 200 rings counted for a 26"-30"DBH tree.



I had not considered the mold issue. My plan is to mill it into manageable slabs and sticker it outside with some dry stickers, & cover it to keep the rain and snow off . We will get a few warm days in the coming month but we have had a couple hard frosts already and will soon be getting frost every night. I don't think mold will be an issue in the dead of winter so early next spring I will take the pile apart and try to figure out the next step. Some of the logs have been sitting on the riverbank for 4 or five days already hopefully they have not dried out too much, I have already pressure washed the mill and put it in the shed for the winter looks like I will be doing it again.


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## Mike1950 (Oct 15, 2017)

They pull them out of the lakes and rivers around here- some pretty nice wood colors. They tore down a huge mill in late 70's on nearby lake. Loaded sinkers- giant logs- hauled to mill 150 miles away- water just ran out of them going down the road-oh they cut into plywood cores and chips...


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## sprucegum (Oct 15, 2017)

Went and poked around on the river bank this morning to get a better look without the equipment running. I'm really only seeing one or two that look like they have more than local sentimental value. One of them is a sweet hardwood log that is perhaps 12' long and maybe 16" top end there is no bark and appears to be free of defects. It looks to have very curly grain, it may be yellow birch. I scraped a little with my pocket knife and the surface at least is a chocolate brown. I am all but certain that it is a log that has been in the pond at least since the mill burned in the mid 50's and could be one that they lost much earlier, hardwood will not stay afloat very long before it waterlogs and sinks. I walked up the river a little to the place where they used to roll the logs off the trucks and down a steep bank into the river. It looks like there and quite a few buried in the silt and mud there but I don't know if they are cleaning the river that far upstream. The picture was one the site engineer sent me and looks to be of the log coming out of the river. Picture makes it looks small but that is a pretty big excavator.

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## sprucegum (Oct 17, 2017)

These are some fir boards that I returned to the construction site they are using them for show & tell and PR. I think the fir log that I milled them from was part of the original log dam from around 1900 the pointed ends are where the log was chopped to length with a axe. When fresh milled they look like any other fir board but they very quickly turn this blue gray color.

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## DKMD (Oct 17, 2017)

That’s awesome! The color reminds me of blue mahoe.

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## sprucegum (Oct 23, 2017)

I'm still getting a few treasures from the mill pond I though this one was cool because it was likely part of the boom across the river that kept the logs from going over the dam and helped direct them to the mill. The hole in the end was probably to run a cable or chain through to hook it to the next log or the river bank. It also has pot marks the length of one side where the men walked on it with spiked boots when they were working logs down the pond to the mill.

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## sprucegum (Oct 26, 2017)

Rain stopped for a while yesterday so I milled a couple more sinker logs. They were both birch and one of them had some nice curly grain. I have 3 left to mill one is for sure oak, one is birch, and the last is the boom log that I'm sure is a softwood spruce, pine, or fir.

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## sprucegum (Oct 28, 2017)

last one on the sinkers was a oak, it was around 15" in diameter. Marginally big enough to quarter saw but I gave it a shot anyway glad I did.

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## sprucegum (Nov 10, 2017)

this board is one that just did not find a home in the drying pile. For lack of a better place I leaned it against the wall in the shop. I just changed my planer blades and was looking for something to run through to see how bad my adjustment job was and it was the one easiest to grab. My planer is cutting good and the board is much better than I thought it might be, my cheap cell phone does not take great pictures and the curl is much nicer than the pictures. Don't think I will be making anything from it for a while MC is still in the low 30's.

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## robert flynt (Nov 11, 2017)

I was bass fishing up in the back end of Waste House Bayou Which is in the Honey Island Swamp on the Pearl River and discovered a cypress log from the logging operation probably 100 yrs. ago. Part of it was still buried in the mud. Wish I had a way to get it out because that old growth cypress has a real high value for furniture now. Back then, the loggers would go up into the swamp during summer low water period and belt the tree. Then during the spring high water levels they would take shallow draft skiffs ( peroes) cut the dry tree down and float it out.

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## FLQuacker (Feb 14, 2018)

Late reply..but those are cool "artifacts".

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