Sawing project 2023

[SawyerTed]

There are two woods that I think are most beautiful- Atlantic white cedar/what they call juniper in Downeast NC and cypress.

Jake’s work on that cypress is proof of how beautiful cypress really is!   

That’s craftsmanship!  It honors that ancient tree/log! 

[Magicman]

I agree on Cypress being the most beautiful lumber species.  The wood grain is so unique and it changes to a totally different personality comparing flat sawn and vertical grain/rift sawn.  I love them both. 

When I built our Cabin in 1995-96 and then added the addition in 2015-16, all of the trim lumber is Cypress.  

[Stephen1]

I really love the look of the vertical grain lumber. Looks great

[Andries]

I still can't figure out whether Jake was throwing me under the bus or not.

I don’t think so Slider.
He was just pointing out the different look between vertical grain and flat sawn.
Personally, the look of your cypress is nicer than the vertical grain that Jake milled up. 
When he tosses me under there, it’s usually obvious.
Transmission.
Drive shaft.
Differential . .  

[customsawyer]

Slider I certainly was not throwing you under the bus. I think you done fine job sawing it. It just amazed me all of the different colors in these logs, that came out the same area of the river. I would guess it depends on which side of the bend it was in, or how much mud covered it. Of course, I don't have a clue why it's different, just like pondering on it.

[Old Greenhorn]

I just went and checked, those gadgets are about 3 bucks and in stock locally, so I will have to stop there and suffer the Saturday hordes at HD when I do my next beer run and grab a few of those and some dewalt crayons to try them out. I see they have Yellow also, I never thought of it before, but I but that will show up better on bark than red. I might try those too.
........

I wanted to follow up on this, just so it's written down and in a year I can come back and see what my opinion was.
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So I got two of those pencil pulls and replaced them with short crayon stubs. The pulls are a no-brainer gotta have choice. I will get some for spares as I am bound to lose them eventually. They've popped off a few times but I found them easily.
 The red dixon crayons stay in not problem and work just fine. But I also bought some dewalt yellow crayons to test and they are noticeably softer. Turns out they are so soft, the rubber on the pencil holder seems to compress the hex shape into a round and they slip out easy when one attempts to mark something. Also they seem to break easy, but they do mark better and are easier to see on logs. Used it a bunch today for marking mushroom logs and the breaking and slipping out all the time was a pain. The red dixon held up perfect and never slipped out but the mark was hard to see on the bark. I thought about Jakes tip of using crazy glue to hold the thing in the rubber, and I didn't have any, but I put a wrap of electrical tape on a new piece and worked it in. It seems to be holding much better. I had put that new section of crayon in just bare, laid it on a board and watched it force the crayon out all by itself in about a minute. With the electrical tape, it held in.
 So the jury is still out on the Dewalt crayons, but those pencil pulls are a real winner. When I switch back to woodworking in the shop, I may even try one on a pencil.  

[SawyerTed]

After 40 plus years of keeping a pencil over my right ear tucked under hat, I switched to a pencil pull on my nail apron suspenders.  

On my current building project, I’ve reached for my pencil over my ear 100 times.  

I’m having to adjust to a better way, it’s just hard to break a habit.

So far I lost fewer pencils!  That’s s plus. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Ted, I hang these things on my right hand pants pocket and I have reached for them over a hundred times in a few a weeks and I love it because I never have to look. I haven't done the 'pencil behind the ear' in several decades because it doesn't work with lumber pencils (at least not on my ears) and I never tried it with a crayon, but for sure I would lose that sucker in the woods in about 5 minutes.
 Using a regular pencil, yeah, I would shove it over my ear and up into my hat band, but I would often stab myself in the head during the workday at some point.  I like these pencil pulls, gotta get a few spares.

[SwampDonkey]

Hard to overcome that old muscle memory.

A definition:

Muscle memory is a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition. When a movement is repeated over time, the brain creates a long-term muscle memory for that task, eventually allowing it to be performed with little to no conscious effort.

[customsawyer]

I keep one on my tool belt with a pencil in it, for when I'm working on projects. I got in the habit of hooking mine on my shirt or coat right breast pocket. The main reason for this is that I was walking along the long mill, marking boards at close to that height, 90% of the time that I was marking with it. Just became a habit. If I stuck it somewhere else I wouldn't be able to find it. The last ones I ordered I think I got them direct from the company that was on the back of the HD package. Been so long ago that I can't remember if I saved anything or not. It did let me bet a bunch of them and just stick them in a drawer with some other parts. I think I have 10-15 left. Which will probably last me my lifetime. When I was sawing in Hazelhurst I would go through one every couple of weeks, due to the thread would start cutting into the plastic and eventually break. Big difference when you go from making around 50 marks on each log to less than 10 marks a day.  

[slider]

Jake never thru me under the buss but when he sawed the pine flooring for our new house i sent him 2 packs of boards , when i came to get then he informed me that i was used to sawing for siding on houses or barns and not flooring .He caught hell with his molder , i got it and the next pack he was fine ,i guess i learned . I learned something from a find friend. 

[trimguy]

Curious to know what you mean, sawing siding versus flooring ?

[Dan_Shade]

I'm guessing that flooring requires tighter tolerances than Siding to be efficient. 

[scsmith42]

Moulder’s don’t like a wide variety of widths or thicknesses.  When we’re milling flooring blanks we mill for consistent widths and thicknesses.

Even with doing so, we will run them through the edger after drying in order to have a really straight blank to put through the moulder.

[trimguy]

Thanks for the answers.

[customsawyer]

As Scott said, the tolerances on flooring is a lot tighter than siding. There are things you can get away with when sawing siding that won't make a flooring board. Paneling is a little more forgiving than flooring but not much.