Salvaging and Sawing a Cherry Tree Topped by the Power Company

We moved to our new property three years ago, and when we first got here, I noticed that the power company had topped one of the trees by the road. It was a cherry tree, and they just left the truck standing. For the last three years, I’ve been thinking I should cut that down and saw it for something useful instead of letting it sit there and rot.

If you’ve seen me cut lumber and slabs over the years, it’s always been from trees and logs that have been salvaged from elsewhere. So this is going to be the very first thing I ever cut off of my own property. It’s about 16 feet tall, and it’s not in great condition. It’s on a nice steep hill and it’s already leaning, so it should be a fairly easy drop. 

Let’s get this thing on the ground.

Next up, let’s get this thing out of here. 

This is bigger than I was expecting. It’s 16 inches across at the butt end and 11 and a half inches at the top. The log has a four foot section with a little crook, which I might cut. And it’s about 14 feet long. So if I cut that crook, I’ll have a 10 footer and a 4 footer. 

This is the end that was facing the sky for at least three years. It has some pretty severe and deep cracking. It looks like that cracking continues pretty well down into that crook. The sapwood is not salvageable, but the heartwood might still be ok. It’s definitely going to be some gnarly stuff up in this end. 

Down at the butt, I tried to get as much of this burly area that was still in the dirt as I was cutting. 

I’m going to chop this in two, and then I’ll get the big piece on the saw. 

Cutting the longer one up. I should get about 60 board feet out of this log, not too bad.

Sometimes people wonder how much a log dries when it is just standing around. This tree was topped and sitting out there for years, but it is still peaking out the moisture meter at 32%, which is the highest this meter will read. So it didn’t dry at all in the three years it was standing there. It might have lost some of the free moisture, but none of the bound moisture, which takes the longest to dry. 

Here they are. I will say that because it sat out there so long, it did seem to bring out a lot more richness to the red of the cherry. It’s quite a bit deeper of a red than I’d have expected. 

Here’s a look at the end that was sticking up in the air. It looks surprisingly good. Other than the giant crack, the wood itself is in basically perfect shape. That’s crazy. It was standing there open to the elements, and it’s just fine. 

So not too bad! I think I got about 80 board feet out of that tree. I’ll take it. This will be nice to use someday for a project I haven’t imagined quite yet, but I work with cherry quite a bit, so it’ll be nice to have some locally sourced stock. 

Thank you as always for joining, I greatly appreciate it. If you have any questions or comments about this weird log that I found on the side of the road, please feel free to leave me a comment. As always, I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have. And until next time, happy woodworking!