Whatcha Sawin' 2021 ??

[doc henderson]

@YellowHammer the walnut is beautiful.  also given the parka like outerwear, must be way down in the 60s in Al...  
  :snowfight1:

[YellowHammer]

Thanks, that's the wood we like to sell here at Hobby Hardwood and we get lucky sometimes.  The biggest problem is always having packs of 8/4 walnut waiting in the wings, ready to sell, so I'm having to sawmill and stockpile walnut a year or so in advance.  We sell about a pallet of live edge walnut every couple weeks, more or less,  Since we have 35 different species and cuts, and a good percentage of that in 8/4 live edge, which is slow to dry, then I'm always trying to predict and mill for next year.  It also ties up a lot of money, just sitting around air drying.  4/4 boards are another situation as I can cycle them much faster.    

The walnut widths range up to 28 inches, but our planer can only do 25" so we just have to sell some as is.

It is cold here, 27 degrees yesterday morning, sleet the day before.  The vest my wife is wearing is heated and battery operated, she loves it.  

[Bruno of NH]

YH 
Beautiful walnut.
Your customers look bundled up.
It's cold in NH the wind chill -10° to -25°

[Andries]

That Polar Vortex thingy was getting tiresome for us up here in the Central Plains.
So, we sent it down the line - enjoy the crisp fresh air y'all!  ;) 
.
@YellowHammer  Teea sends her greetings and some advice - Martha: keep a spare battery charged.  ;D 
Good looking lumber, Goin' to have a look at your planer and dust collector on YTube.

[YellowHammer]

It was sleeting this morning, that's too cold for my blood.  If it's less than 50F I'd rather watch "Swamp Loggers" on TV.

I'd just run inside at the temps you guys work in.    

I'll tell Martha about the battery.  She loves the vest.

We've got the dust collector working and just finished the last video on it.  Hopefully we will upload the last video next week.  

I was going to start a thread on the system but was too busy installing it.  We went all in with an Oneida Industrial/Professional series with Air Lock and full stainless Duct Incorporated Snap Lock pipe.    

[Walnut Beast]

I did notice the pipe in the video and it looks really nice! The whole system looks first class 👍

[WV Sawmiller]

    We have been getting snow and temps in the 20's to high teens at night and barely up to freezing in the day with 3-5 inches more snow coming tomorrow. I had a customer call wanting some (4) 20" wide boards 10' long for some shelves at their shop. The I had some nice ash to fill the bill then he said he wanted it planed. I don't normally do planing other an occasional small board or two or one face to show what the wood will look like. I only have a little Porter Cable portable lunchbox planer and it will only plane a 12" board so he agreed random widths to make a 20" width was okay. I reluctantly agreed as these guys have been good business and bought nearly all my tomato stakes last summer. I normally sell my rough ash for $1/bf so I doubled the price for planing. I should have refused and/or charged much more. I had to resaw a couple of boards to get the widths needed (8" & 12") and the wood was real pretty but not something I plan to do again. The first thing I had to do was to bolt down my planer which I never had to do before. There wasn't really anything unexpected just more work and not something I enjoy doing. I don't regret and will just write it off as a cost neutral learning experience. I'll try to deliver them 5 miles away tomorrow before the snow hits.

[longtime lurker]

Thanks, that's the wood we like to sell here at Hobby Hardwood and we get lucky sometimes.  The biggest problem is always having packs of 8/4 walnut waiting in the wings, ready to sell, so I'm having to sawmill and stockpile walnut a year or so in advance.  We sell about a pallet of live edge walnut every couple weeks, more or less,  Since we have 35 different species and cuts, and a good percentage of that in 8/4 live edge, which is slow to dry, then I'm always trying to predict and mill for next year.  It also ties up a lot of money, just sitting around air drying.  4/4 boards are another situation as I can cycle them much faster.    

The walnut widths range up to 28 inches, but our planer can only do 25" so we just have to sell some as is.

It is cold here, 27 degrees yesterday morning, sleet the day before.  The vest my wife is wearing is heated and battery operated, she loves it.  

Sounds like the story of my life.... jackets when it hits 70°, and the market prediction / cash tied up in stock / gotta have everything so you've got something coming through... stuff as well.

Back when I was doing mostly the specialty & cabinet/joinery timber stuff it was always a feast or famine environment.... small sales to keep it going (but barely) and we used to get these occasional big orders for architectural type jobs that would suck a lot of timber out the door and then the tax man would be there with his hand out, I'd be rich for a week then start buying logs and around we would go again.
Came the day when I was sitting on about half million dollars worth of sawn stock and scratching in the ashtray of my truck to buy a loaf of bread, and I swung into the wholesale framing stuff instead.

And swung too far, because it's that kind of game.

And I'm struggling with it again now: I'm trying to get back to a balance of enough framing for cashflow and the specialty products for profit and i need to saw them this year for next year like you do... but keep getting these opportunities thrown at me with big dollars, big volumes, and low margins attached that just tie up my gear on cashflow work and mean I dont have the capacity to do the low volume/high margin stuff as well.

I am currently being reminded that to do production volumes at production margins you need to have production equipment - and 10 guys to show up to work every day. I've learnt the hard way once before about the "cant produce without production equipment" dilemma and.... here I am learning it again because I'm dumb that way.

What would have been a jump all over it opportunity at 40 looks like a millstone around my neck at 50. Won't be stopping sawing until I die (probably in the mill) but.... I dont want the headaches that come with it. But there is sure some attraction in that regular work also.

Eeeni meeney miney fish. :D

[caveman]

John and I got some good longleaf pine logs a few months ago.  Yesterday a guy called and needed a bunch of 14" wide boards and was not able to find any locally.  We were able to saw nearly 40, 14" wide boards out of a couple of logs we had on hand.  The butt log was the best pine log we have ever sawn.  We used a new 7°, 1.5" Kasco and a little diesel drip.  These two logs had about 15" of heart pine and cut laser flat at a moderate sawing speed.  We sticker stacked them closer than we normally do for pine but we want these to stay flat.

 

 

The short stack behind John is from the two logs we sawed this morning.  We flat stacked a bunch of 1x on top for weight and storage.

[moodnacreek]

I have to keep the 2" live edge walnut hidden. Right now I have about 1500 on sticks. If I stock the walnut shelf with that nothing else [in 2" live] will sell. Just got half a truck load but that's 1 1/2 year out. Thinking about doing 6/4 to dry faster. If i was to advertise this little operation would explode.

[Andries]

Caveman - thats some great stacks and a good looking mill yard.
It all looks like it came straight out of a Woodmizer best practices manual.
:P

[longtime lurker]

 

 

20 tonne of feedstock block stacked and staged across the yard to load Friday afternoon

Tomorrow I guess we get to start all over again...   :-\

[caveman]

Caveman - thats some great stacks and a good looking mill yard.
It all looks like it came straight out of a Woodmizer best practices manual.
:P

Thank you, Andries.  We sawed a bunch of 1x6's last year but the place that I was planning on having pressure treat them does not treat for anyone but themselves now.  They were flat stacked yesterday and hopefully we'll start selling them.  We did use them to provide weight on top of what we sawed in the morning.
We had a great day to work outside.  It started off cool and by mid-afternoon the temp was in the mid 70's.
Good looking packs of lumber, Longtime Lurker.  I appreciate the color and hardness of the lot of the wood you saw.

[WDH]

That is doing it right, Kyle, and the customers will know that, too.

[Bruno of NH]

I have a large rustic pine order still going. Doing other small orders with it. Picking up a new order almost every day.
The rustic pine order the customer wants odd rustic 1x8.
Today I had some dead standing pine one of the treats the tree guys leave me  :D.
I was surprised it looked so good but took lots of blade lube. Sawed this stuff with a silvertip .055 7/39 t .
Cut nice and flat. I was surprised how much pitch was inside for dead standing trees. 
Was -5° this morning and 10 to 18" of snow on the way. I'm ready for it this time. The plows on Henry and the buckets on Big Bob.

 

[Dave Shepard]

A little blizzard sawing today. Cutting timbers for a horse barn.



 

[Larry]

Just walnut and more walnut.  Last night I had a guy drive 60 miles so I could saw his one little walnut log into a mantle.  He wanted a mantle with all heartwood 9-1/2" wide.  I whittled it down to all heartwood 8" wide.  I'm glad he was standing right beside me calling the shots!  I even got a tip. 

Today I sawed good walnut logs into boring 8/4, 7/4, and 6/4 grade lumber.




Than I sawed junk walnut logs into high dollar slabs.

[Walnut Beast]

Looks awesome Larry

[Andries]

A little blizzard sawing today. Cutting timbers for a horse barn.

Dave: The photo shows a frosted accuset screen and an extra battery under the hydraulic box. Some of the antifreeze from the lubemizer on a cloth will help you see the screen, but I wondered if you need the extra battery as a jumper for that cold diesel ?

[Dave Shepard]

The screen is fine, just covered in snow. It was coming down faster than it looks in the pic. Extra battery is for unclamping when the head is at the other end of the mill. Battery is new, and it started great, even at 20*F.

[Andries]

Gotcha, thanks for that.

[Bruno of NH]

The screen is fine, just covered in snow. It was coming down faster than it looks in the pic. Extra battery is for unclamping when the head is at the other end of the mill. Battery is new, and it started great, even at 20*F.

Dave 
How's the extra battery hooked up ?
I'm interested in it.
Thanks Bruno

[Sixacresand]

Extra battery is for unclamping when the head is at the other end of the mill. 

When I get into trouble on the far end, I hook up jumper cables from the truck battery or riding mower to power the hydraulics.

[Magicman]

I always carry a battery "jump box" in my truck.  It's an older version of this which also has an air compressor:  LINK. It's a simple matter to clip it to the power strip.

[Dave Shepard]

I ran cables up into the battery box and attached to the appropriate ground and power lugs. The connections at the battery are wing  nuts, so I can quickly unhook when I'm done.