Sawmills and mechanical skills

[scsmith42]

It has struck me more than once that I don't see how a little guy can be successful running a full time milling business if they didn't have really good mechanical and electrical skills. 

It seems that on a weekly basis I'm having to troubleshoot some type of problem and either repair it or fabricate a custom solution.

Just this week I had to diagnose bad electrical connectors on the Rexroth electric / hydraulic spool valves that control the debarker on Tom the Baker sawmill.   Wires had separated inside their insulation due to vibrations from running the mill, and perhaps from some careless handling when replacing old hydraulic hoses.

Now that Tom is 18 years old it's to be expected that problems will arise, even though he is a long way from being worn out.

Today I spent a good portion of the day troubleshooting an engine surging problem.  Root cause was algae that had developed in the fuel tank and started clogging up the fuel filters on the Kubota.  Had to pull the tank, EZ-out the aluminum drain plug and retap the bung, filter all of the fuel and then clean the tank.  Tomorrow I'll mount an auxiliary filter / water separator adjacent to the tank.

Yesterday we started diagnosing a steering problem on the telehandler (darn steering has no hydraulic assist).  We're still trying to figure that one out...

Just knowing how to troubleshoot a problem in a reasonable amount of time can make or break you.

I've come to the conclusion that my days are spent either working WITH the sawmill, or working ON the sawmill.  The key is to keep the former a much higher percentage than the latter.

[barbender]

 I couldn't agree more, SC! It occurs to me that most of my ventures are troubleshooting and problem solving episodes with seemingly brief periods of production in between. I don't care if it is brand new, if it is a machine it is going to break or malfunction and if you're a solo operator you've got to know how to fix it🤷

 If you want plenty examples of what happens when you don't know how to troubleshoot, diagnose, and repair a machine, go on the Woodmizer FB page and read some of the comments there. Guys are down for the count and don't have a clue at all. 

[longtime lurker]

I think it's a business growth thing. Used to be it would have been handy to be a diesel fitter to keep some of this tired old gear moving. Now that's changed some to thinking electrician would be a better trade background. And every time I expand - and that seems to be continuous at the moment - well let's just say I could run a welder everyday for the next six months and not get through the projects list.

But in truth I'm very comfortable with paying skilled professionals of any stripe to do their thing while I do mine... just fix it and send me the bill cuz I got a mill to run.  I don't even flinch when I open the bills anymore... It's just part of the cost of doing business and yeah I have to budget and I'm the lowest paid guy working here but that's the price of ambition: if I didn't want to grow it bigger I'd be pretty comfortable where I'm at.

I don't even have days working on the sawmill or with the sawmill anymore... I've cut maybe 20 logs myself in the 3 months the new mill has been running.  Sawing logs is my favourite thing but I don't get much time for that either...  I got a really capable sawyer and he's on the list of guys that gets to do his thing while I do mine. I don't know that I like running the sawmill ( as opposed to driving the saw).... but it's challenging and interesting and I either learn it or die 

[moodnacreek]

I break down almost every day. Not just the sawmill itself, but the picker truck or the forklift or the metal detector and then there are chainsaws. I can't add any more machinery because the upkeep is too much now.

[Magicman]

I agree 100% Scott.  Quite often we will see sawmill owners make statements to the regard that they lacked electrical/mechanical/hydraulic skills. 

Don't have the means (test gear) to make the necessary tests to isolate defective/non-working components. ??  Don't have nor can read and understand a multi-meter. ??  Can't run a simple DC circuit like the hydraulic pump (s). ??  Not comfortable adjusting the blade guide rollers. ??  Can't dive in and replace any component in the up/down & power feed features. ??  My first thought is that they should "duck and run".

This is not building anyone up nor putting anyone down, but a sawmill is totally mechanical, electrical, and hydraulic.  If one is uncomfortable with the required skills, they had better be ready to learn or consider an alternative.

Now the actual sawing is totally mechanical.  You either visualize your target within the log or you could possibly end up with designer firewood.

 

[Old Greenhorn]

I think a lot of bandmill owners have no idea what doing this kind of work requires when they get into it. They read forums and facebook and see folks making lots of pretty wood, or money from their mills but they lack the personal skills themselves to work like others. It's pretty much the same as folks who buy a mill and don't think about the bigger issues we all know comes along for the ride, like slabs, sawdust, drying, material handling, etc. etc. They either learn and adapt, or move on. Many sawyers are folks who already had all the 'side skills' required and then got a mill, so it's a fairly simple matter to learn their equipment and line up their spare parts and frequent tools to minimize downtime.
 Troubleshooting is an art unto itself. When I did machine repair I would get called into jobs where one or two guys had already 'shot their load' and 'tried everything', then called me. It was kind of like "OK smart guy, lets see you figure this one out." I loved those jobs. It wasn't that I was smarter than anyone else, but I took a VERY systematic approach and checked each item in order and completely. Often I found the root cause in something they had already 'checked' several times, but did not go deep enough. I won't say 'simple fix', but a lot of times it caused them great embarrassment.
 So a lot of folks don't realize this is part of the job that is just as important as being able to make your payments. Companies advertise how many BF an hour you can make, but they don't tell you about the skills you need to do that.

[SawyerTed]

Some occupations come with an underlying requirement of troubleshooting and mechanical skills.

Farming, logging, commercial fishing and sawmilling are among several of those occupations.  

Mostly it's out of necessity.  The owner operator has to fix it or pay to have it fixed.  Often nobody else knows how the machine is supposed to operate anyway and the owner operator can't afford to pay somebody to fix machines.

There are those who learn to fix their sawmill, then there are those who don't.   That's where low hour used machines that sit in a barn or field come from.  It's also where many old small circle sawmills went.  They broke and the owner got tired of fixing them, nobody else knew how.  

[barbender]

 Small single operator sawmills don't generate enough revenue to have a knowledgeable field mechanic come out every time they break down. 

[Ianab]

Millwright is probably the job description you are looking for. Basically what would now be called an Industrial Mechanic. In days gone by even a small sawmill would have someone on the team that was the "mechanic" and kept things running. If you are a one man band, then that's one of the hats you have to wear (and learn). Even a simple manual mill like mine needs maintenance / adjustments / spare parts and repairs, and that's without getting into electrics and hydraulics on more complex machines. 

I think some people make the mistake that a sawmill is now an "appliance", like a toaster, and should "just work" (and keep working). 

[kelLOGg]

Even if you aren't making a living with your mill mechanical skills have been essential and enjoyable for me. I couldn't imagine hiring someone to make the modifications and enhancements I made to my mill. It would have doubled (or more) what I paid for the mill. 

[customsawyer]

Some of you have met my hired guy. When he started here, he was green as grass. I didn't have a problem with that, because it meant he didn't have any bad habits for me to break, and he was willing to learn. He used to be amazed when we would be working on stuff. In the morning we would be an electrician, anywhere from 12 volts to 480 volts. In the afternoon we might be working on hyd. problems or some repair on the mill. He used to ask how I knew how to fix all of this stuff. Now when something goes down he heads to the tool box to get things he thinks we will need to fix it. It's been awesome watching him learn and grow as a man and a better employ.

[caveman]

You are doing a lot of good for that young man.  You have taught him more than fixing stuff.  He's got work ethic that was cultivated by CustomSawyer and now he has skills that will serve him well for the rest of his life.  

[SawyerTed]

As Andy Taylor used to say, "Some's got it and some ain't"

Used to be we learned mechanics from our fathers, uncles and grandfathers.  My dad grew up on a farm, mechanics were essential skills on the farm.  Grandpa hand dug wells (lots of physics and mechanics).  My great grandfather ran a sawmill that he built.  Dad learned his mechanical skills from them and in Agriculture Education at Dallas (NC) High School.  He earned his State Farmer Degree in FFA. 

My mother's father was a Millwright who installed machinery in cotton mills, he repaired trains among other things.

My mechanical skills came from helping dad fix his cars.  Dad was a poor country preacher with a wife and 3 kids.  It was a long time before he could afford to pay for repairs and maintenance. 

Dad learned most skills on the farm. He learned how to do things right in Ag class.  My skills were refined in college where I learned how to teach Industrial Arts.  As a grad student, I spent a summer rebuilding the machines in the wood shop and metal shop in the Industrial Tech Department at East Carolina University.  I concentrated in Electricity and Electronics at ECU.

Later I married a farm girl who convinced me to move home.  I wound up being chief mechanic here on the farm. 

My story is common.  Skills were learned at home, expanded through formal training at school and on-the-job and through necessity. 

Unfortunately, for many now they never learned to hang a picture or cut a board or turn a wrench.  There are generations who were led to believe Physics and Chemistry are theoretical science courses for the college bound, Agriculture Ed and Auto Technology are for students who can't do anything else.  Nothing could be further from reality. 

[Ron Wenrich]

There's a difference between maintenance and repair.  Some repairs can be avoided by better maintenance.  Some repairs are needed by the way you treat the equipment.  Beat the equipment will result in higher repair bills.

We had a guy that would do our repairs and fabrications.  That was his business, and he did a lot of work for farmers.  His background was that he has a degree in Industrial Engineering and worked for DeBeers making drill bits.  He would troubleshoot and repair their mining equipment around the US.  His welds never broke.

We used him for major repairs on skidders, trucks, trailers and mill equipment.  When we put in a new mill, he was the one that made all the blue prints and laid out the wiring.  He also installed a lot of that.  We could do minor repairs around the mill to keep running, but he was the guy who could fix things.  

My opinion is that everyone should know someone like that.  If the repairs keep on breaking, a new set of eyeballs may solve the problem.

[barbender]

 If I break down with my skidder, skid steer, pick up or trailers, there are local options available that can get those back up and running. But what if my Woodmizer needs a complete alignment? Sure, a great technician should be able to read and follow the manual for those measurements and adjustments, but you're really not going to understand the dynamics of what you're doing unless you run the mill some. Better if you run it a lot. 

 Because of that, and the fact that there is no WM mobile service in my area, it's most practical for me to take care of all of my mill maintenance and repair myself. I have more experience with it than anyone I can hire🤷 

 Now if WM did have a service loop in this area, I would hire them to come service my mill for the education that I would get, from seeing a full time WM service tech go through the mill. They've seen and done things that I haven't.

[Magicman]

Yes, the "Service Loop" services that I had were very valuable to me, not just for the service but also for the learning experience.  Bob was very good about showing me exactly what he was doing and why.  I had the service about every three years and I considered it money well spent.  I am no longer within the service loop but I am thankful for what I got.

[rusticretreater]

I am usually not happy with anything I hire people to do as they seem to do the bare minimum instead of taking it to the next level.  There's good enough, doing it right and doing it really *DanG good.  More than once I have upgraded something someone else has done.

So I took up welding...darn it, now I'm in the good enough category.  But I'm getting better and if I have a problem with the work, I know who to go see about it.

With the internet, there's no excuse for not learning how to do something.  After that you need the tools and jump in to get the experience.  I can only imagine how hard it was back in the first half of the 1900's trying to keep all your farm equipment going.

[moodnacreek]

I am usually not happy with anything I hire people to do as they seem to do the bare minimum instead of taking it to the next level.  There's good enough, doing it right and doing it really *DanG good.  More than once I have upgraded something someone else has done.

So I took up welding...darn it, now I'm in the good enough category.  But I'm getting better and if I have a problem with the work, I know who to go see about it.

With the internet, there's no excuse for not learning how to do something.  After that you need the tools and jump in to get the experience.  I can only imagine how hard it was back in the first half of the 1900's trying to keep all your farm equipment going.

The internet can help a lot but not with everything. Unfortunately there is much bad information on the internet and it seems to be getting worse. 2 thinks come to mind; reading trees or hammering saws.

[longtime lurker]

I handed an electrician the 100 odd pages of manual for a new programmable soft starter a while back and his eyes pretty much glazed over. He's young, smart, current, really good man at what he does but what he does is installation and the magic spells in that book aren't his thing. At least he could speak the language... For me it might as well have been in Swahili. He rang the number, talked to the support guys, programmed it to start and stop based on the load parameters... now I push the green button and it ramps up over 9.5 seconds and I push the red one and it coasts to an unbraked stop. When it plays up I'll get him back to talk to the support guys again, cuz it's beyond my pay grade.

Same with diesel engines. I've rebuilt my own before but ain't no way I'm going to play with an electronic common rail  system voluntarily because I know that after I tinker with it I'm going to pay someone to fix the original fault plus whatever I did to it as well. The diesel fitter I use won't either... he'd just pull it out and send it away to the guy who knows what he's doing.

Grandad had a horse team, an axe and a crosscut. I can shoe a horse and sharpen the tools. Technology has moved on and as it becomes increasingly specialised it's getting harder and harder to do your own repairs.

And time is more valuable. I had an auto electrician out here last week fixing a generator watchdog. Intermittent fault, he decides it's probably the fuel shut off solenoid on the way out, orders another, two days later it dies it's a fault in the card, he runs me a bypass to get going and a new card is coming. Figure $400 in travel and labour costs by the time it's all sorted.
I could have done that... that's stuff I could do. But I couldn't do that and do what I did do in that time at the same time. I've got a really capable guy working here who could have done it too, but then he wouldn't have been able to do what he was working on either.

I think it's a thing that goes with paying wages. Anytime something breaks down I am awful mindful of the ticking clock as guys are standing around watching something get fixed. Even changing moulder knives can cost $120 an hour in wages and has to be managed in terms of while I do this you do that and you do that.

I've learnt that a penny saved is NOT the same as a penny earned... that sometimes while you're saving pennies it's costing you bucks. My business makes money selling wood and that's what I have to keep happening or it falls down... log supply, primary processing, dry mill operation, quotes, sales and admin are the priority tasks. Fixing motors or welding work I can farm out, those things I can't.

It's an interesting learning curve for a dozer jockey for sure!

[Old Greenhorn]

You know, sometimes it just comes down to the fact that certain people should not be able to own equipment they don't understand. I was thinking yesterday as I read some posts here about the fella in another thread and the troubles he is having. THIS THREAD. Imagine what a guy like that would be like if he bought a sawmill and then called tech support because it 'cuts funny'?

[Stephen1]

I have always believed I can do anything, if you want it too. Running a band sawmill requires us to be owner operator repairman. I evolved into a sawmill as I built my log Cabin. I joined here looking for info on building the log cabin. When I started it all I had were books from Milne and B Allen Mackie. I blame this sawdust addiction to the FF. 
My 1st mill was an old Norwood from the early 90's. I fixed it up to get it running. The next mill a WM from the early 90's. It took a lot of help from WM Canada to get it and keep it running as I took off on being a portable Sawyer. I did not really know how an electrical Meter worked, the amount of those aluminum fuses I went through was amazing. I looked at Fuses as safeties, to keep you from destroying more expensive parts.. 
Correct Troubleshooting is more than half the battle, because once you know whats wrong it's real easy to replace components. 

That is why WM has such a call centre for helping people keep their mills running, otherwise they would have been out of Buisness years ago. They recognized people needed help to keep these finicky machines sawing nice wood. Woodmizer Canada would spend hours on the phone helping me trouble shoot that old mill, and then they sent the parts to wherever I was sawing so I could be back up and sawing the next day. Being on the FF and reading and listening to everyone here made a huge help for me. I do not find Facebook as much help as here, Jeff does a great job of keeping the knowledge comments alive and the not so knowledge comments and posters deleted. 
 LL is correct, there comes a time you hire someone to save you money.

[SawyerTed]

@Old Greenhorn the guy in that thread sounds terminally stupid if not dishonest. 

There's a difference between ignorance and stupidity.

Ignorance is curable for the willing.  Education/learning fixes ignorance. 

Stupidity is terminal ... "can't fix stupid."   

[Sixacresand]

The more you have, the more you have to work on.  I keep the mill going.  Regular service, oil-filter changes, lubing, In the last year, replaced main drive bearings, a drum switch, belts, battery, POT switch, module.    No biggies.  At my age, I just want stuff to work when I turn the key.  My most recent and biggest waste of time, cost and labor was trying to keep an old tractor running.  Did not replace it and glad it is gone.  The unused bass boat always needed a trailer tire, battery and something cleaned out, so it's gone too.

[SawyerTed]

I'm getting to the age where if something often has to be fixed before I use it, it needs to GO!

I try to put things away in working order.  It's funny how things breakdown with disuse more than if they are used regularly.

[Southside]

It is getting all but impossible to find people who have the basic understandings of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, etc that you can then teach and train on how to maintain, repair, replace, on equipment.  The 20 and 30 somethings around today didn't grow up taking stuff apart for giggles, they didn't try to fix some dead piece of equipment just because, they often have zero idea how basics work and even worse have no desire to gain that knowledge. 

To me that's frustrating when something as simple as a GFCI breaker trips and nobody knows what to do.... How did we get here and the bigger question is can we fix this?