Whatcha Sawin' 2021 ??

Hadloc411 · January 17, 2021, 10:57:11 PM

Well on Friday the 15th I was part of a group that got let go from my full time job, so the sawmill which was more of a hobby that made a bit of money became my full time job, and I started advertising Saturday. From that I have one job,12000 bf of hemlock starting here the 1st of February, then a one day job sawing some cherry, probably a week maybe 2 sawing out hemlock 1" lumber for siding, he might have another week sawing poplar for lumber for haywagons. Working on lining up a job sawing out lumber for a 30x40 pole barn, and a job resawing oak timbers to 1" and 2" lumber. So already have probably 4x the work I did last year, just my second year of sawing.

WV Sawmiller · January 17, 2021, 11:00:04 PM

I am sorry to hear your regular job ended but am glad to see the sawing fallback seems to be falling into place for you. Keep us posted on how it works out for you.

Hadloc411 · January 17, 2021, 11:21:12 PM

I bought the sawmill hoping that I would one day be able to go back to being self employed, I used to be a dairy farmer, but wasn't expecting it to be this year. In some ways I think this was the push I needed to go self employed again, I have a couple of weeks before that first job, and have to get the lights working on the mill and a couple other small things to fix on it before it's ready to really make some sawdust.

petefrom bearswamp · January 18, 2021, 08:35:08 AM

No sawing here since last August when I sold the mill.
Do I miss it? yeah a little.
Now i dont even "saw wood" at night since i got my cpap machine

DWyatt · January 18, 2021, 09:01:44 AM

Fun weekend with Dad sawing some 2 1/2" beech slabs from some large "logs" for a customer and 3 poplar logs into 1x material for us. I didn't do a final tally of the poplar, but they made a lot of lumber. 2 of the logs could have been veneer quality and one was just a normal lumber log. Note the chunk of Beech that didn't get sawed in the background of the poplar picture :

He said they were logs :

I said hourly rate. The one poplar was the biggest log I have had on the mill and it was a pain in the butt. 12' long 28" small end and 38" large end, but it made some purdy lumber. I have 4 more poplar logs to pick up next weekend, having a neighbor who's a logger is convenient.

Crossroads · January 18, 2021, 11:41:19 AM

I've not made any sawdust in a couple weeks between the snow and to much OT at the day job. Only so many hours in the day. Thinking about taking up telemarketing to sell extended vehicle Warrenty. Whatcha think? 😋

Magicman · January 18, 2021, 11:47:03 AM

Quote from: Crossroads on January 18, 2021, 11:41:19 AMThinking about taking up telemarketing to sell extended vehicle Warrenty. Whatcha think?

I think that you made your first call yesterday and I didn't want it. ;D

Crossroads · January 18, 2021, 11:56:23 AM

Gotcha to answer, that's half the battle. Lol. Glad you picked up, I really enjoyed chatting with you....

GAB · January 18, 2021, 02:14:22 PM

Quote from: Crossroads on January 18, 2021, 11:41:19 AM
I've not made any sawdust in a couple weeks between the snow and to much OT at the day job. Only so many hours in the day. Thinking about taking up telemarketing to sell extended vehicle Warrenty. Whatcha think? 😋

Me thinks u need to get a dictionary.
If I c an ad with misspelled words I immediately think 3^rd world scam.
GAB

firefighter ontheside · January 18, 2021, 03:16:47 PM

Well, my sawmill engine is now in the same city as me. That's a good sign. Trying to get them to deliver it to me at work instead of waiting til im at home on wednesday. I'm guessing theyll deliver it to me tomorrow.

terrifictimbersllc · January 18, 2021, 04:25:27 PM

I got a ups app on my phone which shows exactly where the little brown truck is on a map. :D

richhiway · January 18, 2021, 06:19:07 PM

Quote from: Hadloc411 on January 17, 2021, 11:21:12 PM
I bought the sawmill hoping that I would one day be able to go back to being self employed, I used to be a dairy farmer, but wasn't expecting it to be this year. In some ways I think this was the push I needed to go self employed again, I have a couple of weeks before that first job, and have to get the lights working on the mill and a couple other small things to fix on it before it's ready to really make some sawdust.

good luck. If you had cows you know how to work hard so cutting lumber should be a breeze. Just make sure you charge enough to make a good profit.

Crossroads · January 18, 2021, 07:51:12 PM

Quote from: GAB on January 18, 2021, 02:14:22 PM
Quote from: Crossroads on January 18, 2021, 11:41:19 AM
I've not made any sawdust in a couple weeks between the snow and to much OT at the day job. Only so many hours in the day. Thinking about taking up telemarketing to sell extended vehicle Warrenty. Whatcha think? 😋
Me thinks u need to get a dictionary.
If I c an ad with misspelled words I immediately think 3^rd world scam.
GAB

I'm in trouble, I can't spell. I guess I better settle in working for a living. I'm a terrible salesman anyway 🤓

Blackgreyhounds · January 18, 2021, 09:36:16 PM

I had a nice red oak and white oak die in my forest recently, so I dropped and bucked them. Then, I harvested a couple of the best dead standing chestnut oaks to make a full day's worth of milling. We wound up with 2,200+ bf of 4/4, 6/4 and 8/4. Some of it was really nice, wide and clear and some was marginal. Surprisingly, the chestnut oak was the clearest, even up to the 3rd and 4th logs (8' each). As usual, I hired in a local miller who knocked all of this out in ~6 hr on his LT40 Super with just me as support. If I could have gotten another helper to offbear, it would have gone faster.

Chestnut oak

White Oak

Red Oak

Turd White Oak boards

The crummy white oak boards were taken by my wife to make planters and a cold frame for the gardens, so they will not go to waste.

Nicely stacked and stickered, still needs a little more weight on top.

WDH · January 19, 2021, 07:00:10 AM

Some of my customers prefer the knotty wood.

KenMac · January 19, 2021, 10:49:48 AM

Quote from: WDH on January 19, 2021, 07:00:10 AM
Some of my customers prefer the knotty wood.

The word "rustic" is very much in play these days!!

caveman · January 19, 2021, 02:56:00 PM

One of my former students and a many time repeat customer sent me a cut list for cypress on Friday. I called him and asked if he wanted clear or knotty boards. He preferred knotty which worked out really well because all of our clear logs are in the pond and it was cold by my standards Friday afternoon. We had some knotty, yard grown cypress logs that a tree service dropped off a while back that were easily accessed. We sawed them Saturday morning before quartersawing the big sycamore.

Yesterday morning we sawed some of WDH's favorite

. I like the way it looks but it has presented challenges. We were only able to saw it flat by flooding the blade with spindle lube and sawing slower than slow using a 4° 1.5" blade. The short crotch log was the most challenging of the sawing session to orient and saw but we did get a couple of cool pieces out of it.

These bookmatched short slabs are about 24" wide.

Andries · January 19, 2021, 03:10:44 PM

Well, WDH might not be in love with the smiley_devilwood, but it looks like you've got a handle on it.
Nice grain, colours, and cuts!

Bruno of NH · January 19, 2021, 05:12:54 PM

In between pine barn siding and red pine framing lumber.
I put on this old beech log i had kicking around. It was spalted and rustic. I sawed it 5/4 and got some 11" wide x 8'long boards.

firefighter ontheside · January 19, 2021, 06:00:48 PM

Well, so much for getting my engine at work. It spent 3 days here in the town where I work. They wouldn't bring it to me because they never got in writing from WM to allow a different shipping location. Then today, they sent the engine 30 miles away to some other company that does actual delivery. That place would not deliver til Thursday, so I'm driving up there tomorrow after work to get the thing. The good news is that I SHOULD have my engine tomorrow.

WDH · January 19, 2021, 08:34:27 PM

Kyle, those are exceptional, but now, somebody has got to plane them, and it really helps if the customer likes cracks

.

caveman · January 19, 2021, 10:06:10 PM

Epoxy is in and we can only plane up to 20", so it will hopefully be someone else's baby. I had no idea what we were getting into when we started talking about buying a band sawmill in 2009. It has been a slippery slope.

Raym · January 20, 2021, 06:52:11 AM

It's harvest day....film at 11

firefighter ontheside · January 20, 2021, 08:00:59 PM

Well, I have an engine and its in place, but not hooked up. It lines up perfectly with holes that were already in the mounting plate. I got the new drive side wheel on and the new belt on. Tomorrow I need to drill some holes and mount the new gas tank and then route the gas lines. It looked a little daunting at first, but theres a lot of parts in the kit that I will not need. It also came with parts to upgrade the lift mechanism. I'm not sure that I'll install that. It will change it so that one full turn on the handle is 2" of raise instead of the 4" that I have now. The kit also came with another bracket and lube jug exaclty the the same as what I already have. Will just save that for spare.