How Yellowhammer Sees and Saws Stuff

[TSAW]

Thanks Ted, I have seen the product and just not sure if it is worth the money to spend for lumber stored outside, right now I don't have a drying shed (possible future project) all my stuff gets currently stacked and stickered with a piece of tin or two over top till I can dry it in a small solar kiln.

[SawyerTed]

He also has used plain landscape fabric.  It’s cheaper. 

[Stephen1]

I built 3 drying sheds when I 1st started, the sun and wind dried the wood way to fast. I then purchased shade cloth from HD. it is rated at 65% and 75% . The 75% goes around the Oak drying shed as I try to slow the AD in that shed. 

[YellowHammer]

With 4" concrete at 50 lbs per square foot, I have about 3,000 lbs give or take on all my kiln stacks.  I don't put weights on air drying stacks, but I do put other stacks on top of them for weight.  Top weights are crucial when drying, kind of like pressing a flower in the pages of a book.  

I have a few air drying sheds, all covered, some with walls, some not.  The wood that goes into them is determined by its maximum allowable drying rate, and the atmospheric conditions.  Shade dry would be useful for white oak, but may cause sticker stain on poplar.

With multiple stacks, put the stuff that can be air dried fast on the outside rows, the non tolerant on the inside rows.

Keeps the rain out from between the layers.

   

[Walnut Beast]

Thanks, I appreciate it.  I try to make them informative as well as not too boring.  Everything we make in the video is “Real” and made with the intention to sell.

Here is a video of me using our Baker edger cleaning up some walnut slabs.  An edger is a great thing, it allows me to cut one product (live edge slabs) to make two (Live edge slabs and also 8/4 quartersawn walnut)  

With all the talk recently about sawing through the pith, some of you may notice that I prefer, on some cuts, to saw right through the pith, just as in quartersawing the center boards out of logs.  However, as I usually do, I will do it slightly differently in this case and cut perpendicular the the heart check and not contain it in as few boards as possible, but saw it to crack through as many boards as it wants to.  This may sound counterintuitive, but remember how many times I say that I will saw to avoid bow but not crook?  So this is a good example.  Sawing perpendicular to the heart check will put the stress in the crook direction that I can edge later, and will make the boards come out very flat.  Flat as needed for table tops.  

Anyway, I didn’t discuss it in the video as it gets “too deep” but when you see me running the edger, you can see in most cases I’m cutting the two boards out around each perpendicular pith crack or any other check, and making two very flat, quartersawn 8/4 walnut boards out of one live edge slab.




If you are wondering if wood like this sells, we did this edging video during this last week, and here are two of the customers with the boards being loaded into vehicles and sold today. These slabs are being loaded into a BMW, and the other QSW are destined to be a table and heading out on the trailer.  Notice how flat and straight the boards are.  Quartersawn walnut, no knots, dead clear, dead flat. All the walnut I edged on the Baker in the video are sold and gone.  About half the walnut slabs in the video are gone.  As I said in the video, treat them with care and it’s good money.  


(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)


(Image hidden from quote, click to view.)
 
 
 

Absolutely fantastic video!! Informative,  beautiful eye candy gold and some great safety tips! As always nice job Yellowhammer and thanks for sharing!!

[YellowHammer]

As I’ve mentioned many times, we hear from lots of people who buy wood from other sawmills (notice I didn’t call them Sawyers) and the product falls apart, or isn’t dry, or isn’t sawn properly, or any number of other things.  I always wonder if the guy selling the wood is just flat up lying about it, or do they really not know, or they really just don’t care.  Either way, they make money on unsuspecting customers who trust them.  So one of the reasons I make these videos is to help people who want to get more knowledgeable or maybe learn techniques they can use themselves.  I admit, some of the stuff I do can be unconventional, or a “Proceed at your own risk” kind of thing, but I do use these techniques and patterns in real life.  On the other hand, I’m always learning new stuff here, so it works both ways.  

Here is this week’s example:  A building contractor calls who is doing an install for a local Facebook IT office in town (big money) because the owner says that the supposedly kiln dried 8/4 walnut mantle he installed had split like a lizard tongue and is demanding a replacement. The contractor goes to look at it, and sure enough, it’s bad, really bad.  So he calls me up, sends me a photo, asks my opinion because when he called the guy who sawed and dried it (not), he was simply told “the wood will do what the wood will do.”

He said I would know the seller because he mentioned us by name and then told the contractor that his stuff was better than ours.  So the contractor figured if they were using us as the benchmark then he ought to call us and see what I thought.  Of course after looking at the picture, I said it’s pretty obvious... the wood sawn wrong and it wasn’t dried correctly, either.  So I told him it was a very predictable and total fail, and sorry, but I see it all the time so don’t feel too bad.

So he’s coming tomorrow, first thing, to get a piece of our 8/4 walnut, and when I told him how much it was, he said he’d paid more for the other one.  So he was 0 for 3.  Not a happy camper.  

However he said he wouldn’t have cared if it was twice the price because his reputation was at stake and he wants to get the store owner happy.  

So...I always wonder when I hear these about the guy he bought it from.  Was he a crook, ignorant, or just didn’t care?  

[Andries]

It could be that he’s that ‘special mix’ of all three. 

[customsawyer]

I don't think most are trying to be crooks. I think that their wood has always "done what it's going to do" and they don't even realize there is another way. I do know of a few that are crooks but that is a different story.

[Peter Drouin]

Cutting good lumber and standing behind what you sell is very important.

[TSAW]

He also has used plain landscape fabric.  It’s cheaper.

Does it seem to work as well as the specialty fabric?  I have a few hundred feet that I got on clearance I might give it a try.  Thanks

[TSAW]

With 4" concrete at 50 lbs per square foot, I have about 3,000 lbs

I got you was only thinking it to be about 2 - 3" thick.  Thanks Yes good analogy with pressing flowers in a book.

[YellowHammer]

I discussed the sawing technique on the straight grain topic, but this video was just me sawing up some pecan and doing the whole log without having to stop to touch the boards until I had them all done and could stack them at one time.  Certainly if I had some employee help, they would be stacking as I'm sawing, but my last two employees got married and left of greener pasture, so I am sawing solo and make adjustments for that.  

Anyway, the idea was to get a few wide flatsawn boards, then the majority as vertical grain for stability since it is pecan.

[Larry]

Another good video!

Question....I copied the shelf you made for the LT40 dragback and use it on my TK2000 dragback.  I can and sometimes do use it exactly the same as in your video with the 70.  I often have a problem custom sawing when the logs are not cut square on the ends.  So, are the dragback fingers a better solution? 

[fluidpowerpro]

When I read the text at the beginning of the video about not touching your lumber, I immediately thought that I would make a joke about going blind, but then later you beat me to it.  
I guess my mom wasnt the only one that used that line! 
Like always, great video!

[YellowHammer]

I know what you mean about cuts at an angle being a problem.  The shelf can’t get the edge of the board securely held and the board will pivot and drop.  

By and large, the independent fingers of the LT70 do seem to reduce that problem, more so than my LT40 with the one piece shelf.  It also helps that the LT70 fingers go across the throat more so can get a wider and more secure grip.  I will sometimes get some aggravating board drops and then rotate the cant to the other face to where the fingers can more easily hold the board.  

Thanks, the joke just hit me as I was saying it.
 

[YellowHammer]

People have asked how I handle sawdust at the mill and shop.  Here it is.

[YellowHammer]

Here's a toeboard video.

[Larry]

The Cool Flip at 8:51, I do that one most every time I saw.  What a great name, wish I thought of it.  Keep it a secret!

Maybe I missed it....where are the tapered boards or pyramid?

I've always sawn grade parallel to the bark for the reason you talked about...flat warp free boards.  A few years ago I discovered another reason.  I started making stools and chairs.  It's essential for strength reasons that a leg, stretcher, arm, spindles, and have parts with zero grain run out.  I've heard from other chair makers that they have to sort through lots of lumber to find boards that have been properly sawn.  A few of the top makers buy logs and rive billets to get those parts.

Good video!

[YellowHammer]

Typically, I will transition from parallel bark sawn on 3 or 4 faces, depending on face quality, while taking the flitches off or shortly thereafter, depending on log diameter and depth of the quality of the clear faces. 

I'm watching the grade as I go, and will go from full taper to 2 face parallel bark due to defects in the faces that show up (knots, grain discontinuities) as fast as possible so I will get to a full rectangular cant with 2 faces parallel sawn and the other two not.  This lets me keep my production speed up and keeps me from having to realign the cant face, although on this log I did it once where I returned to a face, although I didn't show it in the video. 

That's also one reason I edge these on the mill, I might as well and even if I get some tapered boards, they will get edged as well so none make the stickered stack, although on this log there weren't any.  Also as soon as I see the high grade faces I will start looking for the lower grade faces and they will be the ones I will transition with to get the cant at a rectangular size.

It's always a tradeoff when making videos, how much time to spend on the explanations.  Youtube penalizes me when people click off early, and tells me what my average watch time is.  So as I edit these videos, I'm always keeping this is mind.  I remember I once made a video where I talked about every detail and the video was about 30 minutes long.  So I started editing and cutting it back, more and more.  I'd rewatch it, and cut it some more.  I finally got it down to about 8 minutes, and the I watched it back it sounded like a "Fred Goes to First Grade" reading primer.  Total lacking in detail.  So I published it and a couple weeks later a "Pro Sawyer" as he called himself, a guy who owns a sawmill, came in and said he watched the video and said it went so far over his head he had no idea what I was talking about.

So when I make these videos, I have no idea what I shouldn't gloss over.  I actually expected many more comments on how I have tweaked and adjusted my chain turner to not chew up cant faces as much as stock.  So I guess I must have put people asleep by then already.  

 

[jbjbuild]

I just watched Yellowhammers excellent video on sawing parrallel to the bark. When do you saw with the pith centered. Is it when your milling framing lumber and lumber for outbuildings etc. or just when you are milling things like posts and you want to box the heart.