(Moved from World Events)

Suppose you had the equipment required to rip the length of a large American walnut log straight down the middle using a 42" dia., $9,000 tungsten carbide blade that you just bought for your sawmill and do not wish to destroy. You estimate that blade and the equipment driving it could saw up to $500,000 worth of lumber for your company before needing to be retired.

Unfortunately, your high-tech metal detector says that there is a hard chunk of alloy steel, likely a case hardened drift pin, that is embedded somewhere in the log, but the detector cannot precisely locate it. If you hit that pin while rip sawing with your equipment, the blade will be ruined beyond repair.

Your foreman estimates that the odds are one chance in 50 that you would hit the chunk of steel with the new blade and ruin it. The "free" log was given to you by a homeowner who cleared his land. Would you go ahead and rip saw the log anyway if a buyer offered you $1,000 for both halves of the log, but only after you ripped it in half?

Please advise.