Re-use

So trees are this incredible carbon sequestration mechanism.  As they grow they absorb massive amounts of carbon-dioxide and store this C02 as embodied energy.  When they die and decompose, or burn in forest fires they give up that CO2, and it returns to the atmosphere (but when they burn they are still carbon neutral unlike propane, natural gas, coal etc.) making them a valuable source of heat energy.

 When trees are turned into lumber that CO2 is prevented from returning to the atmosphere and an incredibly durable building material is created with a relatively low embodied fossil fuel energy requirement when compared to steel or concrete.

 While we produce primarily lumber,  we don't waste any part of our precious resource. Every part of the trees is utilized by Kamuela Hardwoods.
When we remove a tree, the small limbs and greenery are chipped.  Chips are either sold or donated.  The limbs and trunk material are milled into lumber, and all rotten or damaged material is split into firewood.  Stumps are either removed and again split into firewood, or ground out.  Sawdust from the mill is saved and used to create mulch, soil amendments or fertilizer.

Wood chips: $30.00 dollars a yard.
Sawdust:       $30.00 a pickup truck load.
Firewood:     $200.00 half cord.

Down the rabbit hole...

So Lee called,  He had this massive Monkeypod tree in Paauilo and it'd been dying a slow death for a very long time.  He'd been threatening to take it down for years and finally committed to it.  We went out to take a look, and sure enough:  Diseased.  A large limb broke off a decade or so ago about 30 ft up, and a ficus tree had started growing out of the rotting snag.  The canopy had been steadily in decline and we agreed, the tree was in trouble and given that it was looming over a house, it was determined that it was safer on the ground now and repurposed as lumber than the alternative.

We brought out the tools of the trade and set to work.








Sawyers are a funny bunch, an unusual motley crew of giant men built like bulldozers mixed with the small and darty; and then there are the arborists: definitely primates, there is no doubt about it.  Occasionally, with a warplane bomb rider sort of style about their high risk high wire acts, the good ones possess amazing skill.  Its one thing to shimmy up a tree, its entirely another to do it with finesse, and precision drop every single limb you cut, the way you want it and have it land where you want it. A trimming is impressive.  Felling a 100 ft. tall 4ft. diameter Acacia 15 ft. at a time is a feat.  A limbing saw weighs about 8lbs, but a Stihl 660 with a 36 inch bar is a heavy 25 lbs when your bucking logs on the ground. Humbolt cutting a trunk with it from a set of spikes and a flip line at 50 ft. is like successfully performing surgery blindfolded with a butcher's cleaver.

During Surgery, uncle Ben from a few houses up stopped by.
 While we were in the thick of it. He said and I quote "dat's one old tree you know,  even when I was a boy, da buggah was just big, and I'm 77 now."
We were starting to feel sheepish about the situation, and then, while clearing the cane grass and one of the tendrils of the parasitic ficus from the base,  we stumbled upon the rabbit hole....

Apparently I'm just the right size,  and since Im not claustrophobic I was sort of volunteered. so down I went.

Here's the view from within.  Sick is an understatement.  This tree was absolutely on the verge of collapse.

So how hollow was the base of this 6 ft. diameter tree?  Hollow enough to fit about 400 rabbits or the Berenstain bears I suppose.

A big Mahalo to the guys for their assistance on salvaging this one!

To kiln a mockingbird

Well it happened like this:

The dehumidifier in a box method of kiln drying wasn't cutting it anymore so we decided it was time to build/buy a kiln.  We shopped a few friend's set ups,  decided Nyle wasn't what we were looking for (foolishly perhaps), and solar kilns seemed to be more hassle than they were worth since our warehouse is essentially a 60 day 4/4 solar kiln and 180 day 8/4 solar kiln.  But we needed something to get certain materials from sawn to market in 30 days or less.  So being self proclaimed geniuses (me esp.) we made the decision to go with the Logosol Sauno 4kW steam kiln. You know because having another complicated overeas built machine with replacement part supply issues and poor customer service is just what any small biz. needs to improve efficiency right?  Well, the hype was grand, and though there were no Baileys reviews there were a few initial positives on the wood forums....

$1700.00 on the shoebox unit and $900.00 on EPS foam later, we had a 1000BF+ styrofoam wood drying monstrosity taking up most of my shop.

Wired it up,  hit the switch and.....  zzzzzzzz  the contactor failed to engage.  For those of you wondering what a contactor is,  its an electromagnetic switch that provides positive connection for high voltage applications such as motor controls,  commerical lighting ( street lights, high bay lights etc.)  and its supposed to work when the inspector(me) wires it correctly.  So there I was, successfully built the kiln box in record time, wired the system per diagram

Which BTW I accomplished even though directions were in swedish: Hallå!  I'm not stupid...  

So what's the deal right?  The folks at Baileys in typical form had no answer, the Swedes were slow to come to the party.  Finally they sent out a new contactor and that was a relief,  swapped it out and...... zzzzzzzz  the contactor failed to engage.

Two of my most astute and trusted electrical contractor friends came to the rescue. 

 "Oye... you need a step up step down voltage transformer..."  

Whatever for I wonder... 

 "Well see the wiring diagram says 220 volts on each leg of the device..."
Well so what right? Bad instructions I figure... 

"Well here in the states we don't have 220 volts in residential applications.."

??!!?? Huh, well I thought, 110v 220v after all I am the building inspector when I'm not pretending to be a kiln operator apparently.

"See its like this: We run 120v 60Hz power and the folks on the other side of the pond(Hallå!) Well they run 220V 50Hz, and we step up our voltage for big tools like saws kilns etc, from 120 to 240V.

They have everything on 220V so they just pump more juice."

Its 120V 240V, 220 is a misnomer. Learn something new everyday I guess...

And so it went, step up step down converters etc. long and the short of it I had a swedish version not a US version and I'm in the middle of the pacific far from any simple solutions.

To the rescue my other good friend and extremely astute electrical contractor, who formerly wired in France the other place with (220V 50hz power) took one look at the situation and identified the contactor ( in 5 seconds flat) as simply needing a 120V coil instead of a 220V coil.  Something that I might add(Hallå!) that the Logosol folks or their 3rd party manuf.  Plano AB failed to figure out after about a dozen detailed emails on the subject,  must have been a language barrier  (Hallå!) 
Interestingly Logosol doesn't make a kiln for our US voltages, but their US distributer sells them anyway  huh? 

 So to the rescue and the oracle we went and through mighty GOOG, we found Kent industries who provided us with the correct contactor from CH Eaton... and we be cooking now!

KD lumber now available in select species and quantities.

Currently available  KD Kiawe' in 4/4 8/4 shorts and slabs.  KD Koa 4/4 8/4 Shorts and RWL. KD cypress 4/4 8/4 RWL KD Mango spalted and curly live edge slabs and RWL, and KD Toon 4/4 8/4 in RWL.

The mango of late has been fruitful...

It starts with a tree that produces a fruit, that's eaten by a primate who leaves behind the seed...
The seed sprouts, and repeat.

There seems to be a "killed the golden goose" feeling to this train of thought. Anyway here are some photos of the slabs we milled out of the latest mango haul.

From this latest haul, we have approximately 30 large slabs ranging from 24"x8' to 54"x10.5' and several dozen slabs approximately 36-50" square, not to mention several hundred board ft. of quarter-sawn 4/4 5/4 and 8/4 lumber nearly all of which is incredibly curly. Contact us if you are interested.

Mango Season! I forgot how much I love Mangos.

From the folks at wiki:
Mango trees (Mangifera indica L.) grow up to 35–40 m (115–130 ft) tall, with a crown radius of 10 m (33 ft). The trees are long-lived, as some specimens still fruit after 300 years. In deep soil, the taproot descends to a depth of 6 m (20 ft), with profuse, wide-spreading feeder roots; the tree also sends down many anchor roots, which penetrate several feet of soil. 

The mango is a fleshy stone fruit belonging to the genus Mangifera, consisting of numerous tropical fruiting trees in theflowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The mango is native to South Asia, from where it has been distributed worldwide to become one of the most cultivated fruits in the tropics. While other Mangifera species (e.g. horse mango, M. foetida) are also grown on a more localized basis, Mangifera indica – the 'common mango' or 'Indian mango' – is the only mango tree commonly cultivated in many tropical and subtropical regions. It is the national fruit of India,^[1] Pakistan and thePhilippines.



Well it seems since February we've been on a mango kick, and we've just taken delivery on another large deck of mango logs all from a single old common mango tree that was threatening a residence in Hamakua.  The base of this tree was over 14 ft in Diameter and split into multiple trunks just a few feet off the ground.  The largest of these trunks is over 5 ft. in diameter and we hope to yield some beautiful slabs as well as a mountain of dimensional lumber.

 The mango wood from our milling in February has been spalting nicely and should produce some very interesting color.  For those unfamiliar with spalted mango, Mango seems to spalt or "rot" nicely.  Essentially spalting is an industry term for characteristic coloration in various wood species created by the intentional exposure of the wood to fungi by basically stacking it wet or covering it with organic matter and allowing the fungi to attack and stain the wood.   If done carefully which is really an art form, the result is amazing. If not done so carefully the wood simply rots or is consumed    by insects and is ruined. 

Mango tends to produce color variations ranging from black stripes to pinks, oranges, yellows, and even blues and greens.

Below are some images of un-spalted vs. Spalted.


So in about a month, the Spalted mango will be out of the kiln and up for sale along with some un-spalted mango including some huge slabs hopefully.  If you are interested in any,  let us know.  We have some small stuff on Ebay and still have a few good sized dry slabs in the warehouse from a few big trees we milled a while back.

Mango, I'm your biggest fan!

Anyone seen SNL's "the best of Christopher Walken"?

Mango, I'm your biggest fan!

A couple of large mango trees needed to be removed from a residential property in Hawi where they were taking over the lot.  It was a big job, and it required the right tools.  We brought out the crane and set to work.  That was the easy part.  Milling them has proven to be no easy task.  We've enlisted the usual suspects,  bandsaw mill, lucas mill, etc... but had to bring out the slabber for a few of the largest logs.  Needless to say, my chainsaw is bigger than your dirt bike, or me for that matter.

The logs have produced some great pieces,  some curly, some blackheart, and some myths disproven.  There has been a lot of speculation as to the cause of blackheart mango.  I've heard that it is a genetic anomaly. Some say   that it is a species variation, or as Josh (our resident expert arborist) has claimed for quite some time, it is in fact the result of metal in the tree.  To which I've scoffed at, having no proof... and then today I was forced to eat my words.

Blackheart mango

16 penny hot dipped galvanized nail,  Score!

What's a nail do to sawmill? Well it depends on the sawmill.  Lucky for us,  our slabber seams to eat nails for breakfast, literally.

Fruits of our labor

Blackheart and curl

Monkeying around again

In high school, a friend once told me "Alex, you are out of your tree man". The reality is, if you've ever seen my friend Josh the arborist on the ground as apposed to in a tree you'll know the statement is more becoming of him than it is for me. So, speaking of monkeys, we were digging through the log piles and found a bunch of monkey pod that we had forgotten about. And since everyone loves Monkey pod, we figured we'd monkey around a bit. Monkey pod is interesting in that it can be a dark almost walnuty color when you mill it, a light tan color, or a chocolaty brown. We apparently grouped our log by species and not by tree. Because when we milled our latest stack, we came up with 3 piles of milled monkey pod that clearly came from 3 different trees. Attached are some photos. And in case you are wondering, we've currently got lots of monkey pod for sale.