Did something dumb today.

[Resonator]

I used "goop" as a general term. ;D
The youtube mechanic I follow uses fluid film in an aerosol spray can, though I think you could use a thin layer of anti-seize also to prevent metal to metal contact.

[Nebraska]

I am flying today.....I hate flying....

[Old Greenhorn]

Stop in for a beer!

[Crusarius]

I stopped using silver anti seize because it dries out and stops working. I started using CRC disk brake anti seize. best decision I ever made. it never gets hard and works so much better. It goes on everything including the wheel mount surface and the lugnuts.

[Nebraska]

Only  going to Green Bay and North to the UP ...Manistique taking my parents to watch my nephew play football. Just kind of a quick trip. If I was going clear to NY I would stop for a beer.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well then stop and see @Jeff !  :D

[Jeff]

Doc is more than welcome any time, but we are still a couple 3 hours on past his destination.

[NaySawyer]

The best way to break a rim frozen to a hub is too loosen all the lug nuts 1 turn and drive slowly around the block weaving from side to side.  Then every spring when you take your winter tires off lube all the sliders and pad/caliper contact points.  Only takes 15-20 min per tire and no more brake jobs!

[Stephen1]

Sunday morning waiting for the rain to stop so I can pull my boat out of the water. I have to idle it over the launch to get it on the trailer because........
I had troubles getting to my 2001 200 EFI mercury to idle this summer and also it would  completely  shut down while running at speed. I had Dan a good friend a mobile mechanic come and look at it last week as I want to fix it this fall before I put it away for the winter. It also quits at startup and then will not start for an hour or 2, almost like it is flooded. He plays with some of the screws with stops as I had adjusted the long idle screw with stop to get it idle faster. Wrong on my part. He decided that it needs electric testing as he believes it is an electric coponent that is quitting and wants to spend time with a meter on it at his shop, versus in the lake. I get the boat running real nice and decide a hot lap is needed before I put it on the trailer. I come back to the dock to drop off Cathy and it will only drop to 3000k RPM and so I'm going in circles trying to figure this new problem out. finally I turn it off and paddle into the railway. Here it comes.....I then try to pull the shifter back to neutral and really horse on it..... Yesterday I open the cover and the set screws all vibrated as we never locked the lock nuts  and so as I am pulling on the shifter I bend the arm the set screw are on......I am now going to have to tow this boat the launch and find a new arm for a 22 year old motor......FFS

[WV Sawmiller]

  Yesterday afternoon. Pulling up poplar tops and possibly a small saw log off a big log I cut last week. The top broke into several pieces and fell down into a deep run-off. I was using a snatch block and long 1/4" cable to pull them back to where I could hook the JD 750 tractor to them and pull down the hill to cut up for firewood or lumber if they are big and solid enough. 

   I spotted a dead double maple on the edge of the run-off leaning over the edge and decided it would make good firewood. I hooked the snatch block to a small maple to direct it back uphill. I notched it and made a back cut leaving a wide enough hinge to hold it then hooked the tractor 90 * downhill from the block and tried to pull the tree over. It did not fall so I gave it a jerk and one of the forks fell straight at me. It was pretty rotten but the top was still 3-4 inches in diameter at the top. It hit the rollover bar and stopped it from hitting me. The top broke into small pieces when it hit. I'd probably have survived relatively intact but with a real headache or some bruises. I should have used a longer cable. Six feet longer and it would have missed me even though there was no reason to suspect it would fall in my direction based on the steps I had taken. The rest of the tree fell as planned on the next tug.

[TimW]

Howard,
     Trees like that are called Widow Makers for a reason. Murphy's law states if a 6 foot longer cable was used...............6 more feet of limb would have fallen.
hugs,  Brandi

[beenthere]

The jerk was dumb. Glad you are okay. 

[WV Sawmiller]

   I disagree.

[beenthere]

To clarify..

 It did not fall so I gave it a jerk and one of the forks fell straight at me.

8)

[WV Sawmiller]

     I should have used a longer cable or put tension on before I made my cuts. A green/solid tree could never have fallen in my direction. The rotten top was weak and shaking it let it go. A harder jerk and it would have gone with the main fork.

[Old Greenhorn]

When I do those with dead stuff upstairs I try to avoid sudden moves. I do my face cut, then put just enough tension on the line to keep it taught. I do my back cut and watch for movement, if it starts to open I am done. If I get to a point where the hinge is the proper thickness with no movement, I get in the buggy and pull steady and easy. If it doesn't want to come, I leave a bit more tension, but not a lot, go back and thin that hinge just a bit more and that should do it, either it goes over at that point or I give it a pull and it comes along. It may take longer, but those trees are very tricky and deadwood cares about no man. Haste can get a boy hurt. Glad you are OK Howard.

[WV Sawmiller]

   This one was much older and more fragile than it looked. The natural lean was 40' down a run off where it would be a lot of work to retrieve so I was basically pulling it uphill with the tractor, snatch block and cable. The notch was right as was the back cut but as it turns out not deep enough so when I put tension on it my tractor was pointed 90 degrees down hill but was not heavy enough. The initial jerk was just talking the slack out which shook the fork free. I could have stopped with tension and probably should and increased the back cut but there was risk to that too. The second jerk took the main tree down as planned and in the safe area. A longer cable was really the right answer in this case.

[Southside]

I have seen a tree that size kill a man on an open station tractor when he pulled it over towards himself.  Remember it only takes 5 ft lbs of force to break a clavicle, or 8 ft lbs to break a neck. 

[Nebraska]

Be careful out there, I know this forum has lost very good folks to quick dumb accidental happenings.

[Nebraska]

Just a little sawing pointer, if you fail to tension your blade your sawmill will not perform well.....  :

I had the little predator 6.5 hp motor that runs my hydraulics decide it wasn't  going to run anymore.  It was a spark issue after I chased it down. I decided just to go run down to HF and pick up another motor to swap out, and repair this one for another project.. So I hadn't sawn for a while and had backed off the blade tension.  So when cutting some 2 x 6 cribbing  my blade wandered   and i made some slightly curved,  designer dimensions.  I wondered why for just a moment and realized my folly...Lucky the blade didn't come off and ruin itself... my 2" side stayed fine so at least I got my cribbing....

[Ljohnsaw]

I swapped out blades and it wasn't cutting good. This blade must have gone from the dull box to the sharp box without visiting the sharpener.

Changed the blade again but wasn't cutting good. Drive band was slipping. Was at the end of adjustment. Was able to shift both wheels because of how I designed it but messed up the tracking. Thought I had it back and started cutting. Dove bad, skipped off the back side of the guide and the idle side and ate the v-belt tire.

Put two new B57's on, adjusted tracking and tension. Cutting better than ever!

[firefighter ontheside]

Next weekend we have a PR event at the firehouse which is a movie night.  We show a movie on an inflatable screen in the engine bay and cook hotdogs.  This weekend I had to put up signs around the area inviting folks to come.  I carry about 15 signs in the back of the truck with a camper shell.  Get out at each location and open the back to grab a sign.  Well, at the second to last location I got out, opened the back and grabbed a sign.  Stuck the sign in the ground and went on to to my last location.  You can probably see where I'm going here.  Got to my last spot and went to open the back.  Guess what...its already open.  DanG it.  Luckily all my expensive gear was still sitting there.  The only thing I had lost was a sign.  Drove back toward my last location and found a sign lying in the road with no damage.  I continued on to the previous spot just to make sure, but there was nothing else on the road.  Back in the day when I used to "ride backwards" as we call it I used to hang my turnout coat on the side of the truck on one of the pump discharges.  Got to the call and I had no coat.  Got lucky in two regards.  One was there was no fire and I didnt need my coat.  Second was that someone had seen the coat come off and stopped to pick it up and brought it back to the station.

[sawguy21]

You had better call it a day. 8)

[Old Greenhorn]

Well It's been a month and everybody has been good, I guess it's taken a while and is back around to me again. Now I took no photos so it really didn't happen, but if it had happened, this is the way it would go.
 I went down to make some lumber on the sawmill today and as always, when I got there I had to play hide and seek to learn where the Toolcat got left this time, as that is my prime machine for the mill. Well, since Bill put in the new OWB and it faces 180° from where the old one faced, he had the Toolcat parked at the other end, where it is a tighter fit and a load of junk logs on it. No biggie, I lifted the load and threw some bunkwood under them so the could cut the up off the ground and then started backing down the slope to where my truck was to grab my tools. Well there was some lumber on the right side of the machine I didn't want to back over, so I was watching that and creeping along slowly when all of a sudden things happened real fast, the machine shot back about a foot and the rear left corner dropped about a foot also. There was also some load and hard crunching noise. I thought I was gonna roll, but it stopped as fast as it started. As it turned out, I had backed the left rear tire right off the edge of what Bill calls a 'mafia block' that he has a a retaining wall on his gravel pile. I was hung but good, just laying on the skid plate. I took a breath and figure it out and with 50 back and fourth moves I could crab the rear right tire over far enough to the right that it was trying to climb back up on that block. Finally, with the application of the right (newly created) foul language, some extra throttle, and some luck, I got out. It all took about 15 minutes. Hours later when I got back to civilization I left Bill a voice mail and just said "Those skid plates on the Toolcat work REALLY well!" There was one single concrete drag mark on the skid plate and no deformation at all. I was relieved for that. I sure felt stupid, really stupid. Well I would have felt stupid if it had happened, which of course, it didn't. :D ;D

[firefighter ontheside]

Well, if you got it out without the help of some other piece of equipment then its just part of the job.  That's what it was made for.  I got a skid steer in a precarious spot years ago on my pond dam and thought if I tried to make one more move I was gonna be in the pond.  I gingerly got out of it and went to get the tractor and my dad.  Dad was on the tractor and pulled back a bit while I drove the skid steer out of danger.  No pics of that either.