Housemate Marty hugging tree to give it some scale for photos for the miller!
Finally met with a miller, Peter Peterson, who is willing to mill the old girl after Seattle Tree Service fells her. I was able to contact him through Urban Hardwoods furniture store in Seattle. As I was saying before, finding a miller has been challenging. According to Peter they are out there and they seem to all know each other which is pretty great; I just had to do some cold calling to find one. I was also put into contact with another miller out in Maple Valley through word-of-mouth...options are nice to have and to compare.
Here is what I learned...Cherry Trees/Fruit Trees in general are divas! Peter will come to the house the day Seattle Tree Care cuts her down and take her immediately to the mill to be processed. Turns out fruit tree wood can warp pretty quickly and dry wonky so if the cut tree sits in my yard for a week or more she will be more difficult to mill. We decided to have her slabs cut 8 ft. in length and less than 2 inches thick as that is what the furniture makers prefer. I will also be drying her for 2 yrs under my deck as the location of the mill has quite of bit of wood slabs drying that are from city diseased trees and Peter doesn't want my wood contaminated. Diseases can be killed in the kiln but first the slabs must be dried outside for 2 yrs and then kilned and unfortunately the diseased trees hang out in the outside lot with everything else. Also, not going to have the tree milled in the backyard with a portable mill. Seems that it would be best just to haul it to the actual mill and have the work done there. I will be able to go and watch which will be pretty damn exciting!
As it stands I am looking at $3,000.00 to have the tree milled and $1,900.00 to have the tree taken down and the stump removed. Why am I giving you the amounts? So in case you want to do this same thing you have an idea of the cost. I did some looking around online and cherry wood isn't cheap. Granted, I am milling more than I would probably buy for my project but I really didn't want tree to go to waste and if need be I can always sell anything I don't use.
After starting this project I have been eyeballing more backyard fruit trees in the area. Turns out Plum is a great tree for making things and Pear is highly sought after for woodwind instruments. Funny, as I never thought/heard of anybody using Plum when building cabinets or furniture and same with Pear. I am learning so much and suggest if you have a fruit tree in your backyard that is old and tired maybe look into having it milled and sell the wood. And those huge old Maple trees are worth gold but may be an 'exceptional' tree so have it checked first by an arborist or you will be fined big time by the city as neighbors will definitely rat you out if you cut down one of those.
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