Whatcha Sawin' 2023 ??

[SawyerTed]

Sawing red and white oak.  Just piddling with some logs here on the farm.  Cutting with a solar kiln build in mind. 



 

[Nealm66]

Man, it's been so rainy, crappy here in the pnw. Been pressure washing the long butts of a logging job to get the dirt/gravel off and keep the build up off the mill. Here's some pictures 

 

 

 

[Nealm66]

This manual mill is a butt kicker being solo with bigger logs but it is capable of making good quality boards when everything is set up right.

 

[JRWoodchuck]

That self loader looks awesome to have around a manual mill!

[Nealm66]

The truck is pretty awesome. It has air and hydraulic hookups on both sides, 100 gallon water tank with a pump which works for the pressure washer. Lift gate which I use a lot. 28k original miles compliments of city of San Francisco. I traded the side cabinets for welding up some removable log bunks and side rings. Came with a beefy auger that hooks up to the end of the crane and a diesel welder which I sold as I wouldn't trust my welding skills enough for anything important. Plan is to build some ramps and have a hitch sleeve welded on as the pintle is way too high for a mill.

[Wlmedley]

Been sawing some cedar today.Logs were small but solid.Trying to get all I can as a hauled these logs from my sisters place in Virginia.They are kind of hard to get around here.Using woodshed I built last winter as a drying shed.They seem to dry pretty fast and I plan to sand boards a little before using as a floor in my grandsons playground.DIL doesn't want him to get any splinters.

 

 

[SwampDonkey]

Gotta please your customers, even the non paying kind. :D :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Just piddling here sawing some LE sleepers to use on my shed floor. They don't need to be straight or pretty just sit on a bed of gravel and hold up a floating floor.


 
I thought this was a locust log but turned out to be elm. First elm I believe I have seen on my place.


 
Then I dragged this crooked locust down withmy ATV. I had to cut it in half to make sure it would fit on the mill.


 
I decided to use this little 7' White Oak top and got 3 sleepers out of it.


 
After placing everything I was still short so I re-sawed this cut off from one of my locust uprights. It gave me just enough to finish my floor sleepers.


 

 

 
Not pretty but works for my needs.

[Nealm66]

I would think those would make some really cool arch supports for timber framing. Seems like when they saw those arches out of straight grain it would loose a lot of strength. Should make for some really cool flooring though

[Wlmedley]

Pulled my cedar boards out of the shed a few at a time and smoothed them up.I ran a hand held electric planer over them,cut to proper length with a miter saw and even planed chamber on edges.Hopefully they pass the splinter inspection.I plan on installing them Saturday.

 

 

[WV Sawmiller]

Neal,

   They probably would make nice arches for timber framing but I don't do timber framing. They would also have made some nice curved benches. Cut on both sides of the curve to leave it intact, lay the log down and saw several curved 2" LE slabs out of the log, make them into benches and face the curve in and they make a circle when you place 2-3 of them to go around a firepit or place them around a big shade tree facing out. On severe curves I have had to put an extra leg in the middle of the curve to keep the benches from tipping over.

EDIT/ADD-ON: Here's a set of Chestnut oak benches with some curve to them.



 

[Nealm66]

Must be interesting trying to mill them! I've been too busy to do any resi tree removals but looking forward to someday slicing up different species and shapes. Have a couple western cedars coming up but pretty boring compared to you guys in the east

[WV Sawmiller]

   Its pretty straight-forward. Just lay the log on the mill with the open end to the loader side, clamp the middle and start sawing. Sometimes the cant will spin on the clamp a little but they stay down. When you flip the cant if the ends aren't against the side supports/dogs you may have to rotate the cant around to face the open end to the loader side.

   In some cases you may have to put a sacrificial board between the side supports to clamp against

[tule peak timber]

A big walnut crotch today. Down the road I'll make a couple of end matched tables from these beauties.

 

 

[Walnut Beast]

Beautiful for sure! Nice job!

[longtime lurker]

 Logs by the football field



 

The wet season is on top of me and it's the normal disorganised mess of trucks not available when I need them where I need them, bush landings choked with logs causing issues with harvesting more, and this late in the season the gear is starting to need some love. Every year I tell myself it'll never be this disorganised again but every year gets worse because it gets bigger. And I'm waiting on a roof on a new shed over a new mill.

But bay 6 (background) in the mill yard is within a hundred ton of full. 90 yards or so long and as high as I can stack 'em.
Bays 2-5, (foreground, about 30 yards each) are half empty but the logs are on the ground awaiting transport.
And we're about to start on bay 7...which is new and double the length of bay 6. At least those logs are on a handstand at the end of a bitumen road and they can wander in after Christmas.
I'm thinking we better make some plans for another couple bays for next year. I'm thinking I have a new saw hasn't even cut a board yet and already it's not big enough

Growing pains: I haz sum. Just living the dream...

[Peter Drouin]

Do you buy and sell logs?

[chickenchaser]

Lurker

Seems with me the only way I ever could organize would be to reduce inventory/liquidate/etc.
That just seems counterproductive.
Well, it just don't seem right .

CC

[longtime lurker]

I buy some standing timber that we harvest in house, logs where I can. Do some subcontract work for the big boys in the southern capitals.
Sell mostly lumber but some poles and piles in the round.

I don't even pretend I'm running this show anymore: it's running me. I think it can be organised but that's a couple years away when I have enough coin behind me to plow forward through the potholes regardless. For now it's constantly chaotic and it feels like I've been swallowed by the business. Growth is like that I reckon - you either run from it or run with it but you better run somewhere or it'll run you over.

I'm driving down the road a couple months back, full days drive so I get some think time and I realised that in a dozen years there had been about two 6 month periods where it all ran smoothly. The rest of the time I've got too many staff for the work on hand or too much work to handle. Or I've got not enough logs, or the wrong logs for the order book. And someone is always late paying me and im hanging by the balls for it to pay someone else. Something is always broken down and even expecting one breakdown at a time can be ambitious given my collection of antiques. And that rather than think it would ever be any different that I had to accept that this was normal... so long as I choose to own a business I'm going to have these headaches... and I either had to accept it or get out. And further thought led me to the realisation that all of those problems have a way of fixing themselves in 90 days or less, and that I shouldn't let short term hiccups cloud the fact that I'm growing because I'm awful good at this.

Funny thing is that this was never the dream. But at every junction in the road the logical choice pointed me this way and here I am. Funny how that works huh.

[Panovak]

Hard to follow a comment like that. It's always good to hear I'm not the only one feeling that way.  I always assumed everyone around me has got a road map, meanwhile I'm lost in the woods.

[richhiway]

 

 

 

Had a order for three 6X6X10 yesterday.
Someone gave me a lot of spruce a while back. Milled that 8X8 today. Going to build a 16X12 wood shop with it.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Rich

[SwampDonkey]

Just had a 30"er come down in the storm, chalk white. No way to handle it. No way to saw it except firewood. I cut some up for the stove, but is slow splitting when you have the start it with the chainsaw. Like splitting elm. :D It was a solid tree, the wind tore it up by the roots. And it took out 2 others on the way down, a 10" birch and a 16" fir. Birch and fir make easy firewood. ;D Every tree was solid and white wood. Fir is a lot heavier the spruce.

[richhiway]

I have had Spruce that was tough but this batch saws like butter. Nice straight logs, not too many knots.  I don't know but I would guess there are a few sub species of Spruce.

[SwampDonkey]

Around here we have white spruce, red spruce and black spruce. White spruce is most common around these farms. But I have thousands of black spruce I planted on the woodlot. Spruce is all tough to split, clear wood or not, twisty grain. Fir is like cutting butter with a splitting maul. Red spruce is not all that common near me, except up on the mountain. But I have cut millions of them with a clearing saw, spacing them out. Growing as thick as moss. I've planted a small number of reds, but rabbits eat them like carrots when they are small. :D

[barbender]

 Whenever someone is splitting elm, cursing the stuff, I feel like spruce is covering a smile and a little chuckle. Not fun to split at all!