Early last summer while walking along the creek, I noticed what looked like a plank or timber about 8 feet long under the water, embedded in the gravel. I'd read that wood that has been continuously submerged does not rot in the same way as wood that is exposed to air. I had also read about salvage logging operations in the Great Lakes and rivers of the Pacific Northwest that retrieve logs that sank while being floated to mills a hundred years or so ago. So I thought I might be able to get some usable wood from this plank.
After digging in the gravel around the plank with my hands, it became clear this this was not a plank or timber at all, but a round log. It just looked like a plank because only a foot or so of its surface width was visible. From the curvature that I could expose easily, it seemed to be about 3 feet in diameter. I remembered that the neighbor who owns the property across the creek had said there used to be a log bridge across the creek, but it washed out about 50 years ago. This log must be a remnant of that bridge.
Even though digging out a log this size would be a much larger endeavor than the timber I took it for, I decided to go for it. Over the next three or four weeks I would spend about an hour of my time at the property digging the gravel away from the log. A short handled hoe worked pretty well for moving the gravel out and away from the log, and I used an iron pry bar for loosening the larger rocks that were wedged tightly against the log. I also did a fair amount of digging with my hands, ruining at least one pair of gloves in the process.
As the log became more exposed, I would periodically try to move it with the pry bar, but for the most part this just proved to be a good way to bend the bar. After most of the upper half of the log was exposed, I tried prying with a steel channel beam. I had used this on other projects around the house that required levering heavy objects, such as the 3 foot diameter granite rock I moved from the front yard to the back.
But the log still did not budge. The channel beam easily slid under the log, so I was able to get a pretty short fulcrum length, but it would not move. I was ready to admit defeat.
But not just yet. The channel beam was about seven feet in length, so I thought of how I could make it longer. I puzzled for a while, and then remembered a piece of driftwood that had been kicking around down by the swimming hole. It was about a 2x12, about ten feet long.
So I inserted the channel beam under one end of the log, and wedged a good size rock under it for the fulcrum. I then slid the 2x12 along the top edge of the beam and wedged its lower end between the beam and the log. The other end of the board jutted at least two feet out of my reach, so I looped a rope around it, holding an end in each hand. I worked the rope up the board until it was near the top. Then I just pulled down.
The board moved down. I first it just seemed to be pushing the fulcrum deeper into the gravel at its base. But it kept coming, and before I realized what was happening, the end of the log just popped out of the water. I let out a whoop. Victory!
I repeated the procedure on the other end. The log was free! Here's a shot of the log just after it had been dislodged. It looks like it is floating up a bit, but I actually wedged some large rocks to prop it up, as my original plan for raising it was to just successively fill gravel back under it.
The gravel fill plan quickly proved unworkable. Getting the log to rise a couple of inches out of the water was easy, but the weight to lift increased geometrically with each successive inch.
The next method made used of some 4x8 beams left over from the cabin construction. These were between ten and sixteen feet in length, so they made very nice levers. I alternated between raising the log from one side, and then repeating from the other side. But this also encountered the phenomenon of increasing lift weight as the log was raised. I couldn't seem to get much more than about half of it out of the water before the other side would slide back down.
So now I brought out the big guns. After sliding two of the 4x8s under one side as deep as possible, I tied the rope over the end of each beam, then pulled the loop under the log and back over the top. I then attached another rope to this loop and hooked it up to my little come-along winch. The log and rope now acted as one end of a pulley. As I cranked the winch, the log slowly began to emerge from the water, until it eventually came to rest level on the 4x8's. Here's a shot after I had buttressed both sides.
As I milled each slab, I stacked it back in reverse order. Here's a shot of the completed stack. The pink paint on the ends is to reduce checking.
So what is the connection between the sinker log and the ukulele, as I mentioned in a previous post? Well, as I began researching on the internet whether this wood could be used for structural purposes, I came across some sites extolling the virtues of submerged wood for musical instruments. Apparently after years under water, wood develops micro cavities in its cellular structure that increases its resonance. So I thought it would be cool if I could have an instrument built from this log I had discovered on my property. I had recently renewed my interest in the ukulele, having taken it backpacking and jamming with my brother-in-law on his daughter's child-sized guitar. He could really play that thing, so I was inspired to start increasing my repertoire and learning a bit more.
However, after the first few slabs had been cut, it was apparent that this was not the tight-grained old-growth that I had been hoping for. I counted about a hundred growth rings, with the inner rings being pretty widely spaced. In addition, I wasn't sure if the log was douglas-fir or ponderosa. Douglas-fir is a decent tone wood, not the best, but pine is not even worth considering.
But I contacted a luthier I found on the internet, and after confirming my assessment of the feasibility of using my own sinker wood, he told me he had just started work on a tenor ukulele using reclaimed sinker redwood from Mendocino, along with claro black walnut. My old uke was a little soprano, and even though it was a decent instrument, it was a little plinky, as sopranos tend to be. So I decided to just go for this custom tenor. I am so glad I did. It is a beautiful instrument, and it sounds great. Here's a link to the website: Little River Ukuleles
Ok, so there it is, the ukulele connection, tenuous as it may be.
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