Whatcha Sawin' 2022 ??

[Southside]

I want to know how big that basket of flowers was!!  

[Brad_bb]

@Larry   I hope you dig it out tomorrow and saw that log and don't let it beat you!

[Larry]

Brad, this was a custom sawing job and its by the board foot.  While I recover the blade cost for metal strikes I don't feel like I adequately recover the cost of changing the blade, and lost production.

Most of the time, if I hit a nail I'll change the blade, take heavy slab cuts, and continue.  With the log pictured I kicked it off and the customer gets it back.

Be interesting hearing how other sawyers handle metal strikes.

Me HATES nails. :embarassed::embarassed:

[Jim_Rogers]

Be interesting hearing how other sawyers handle metal strikes.

Me HATES nails. :embarassed::embarassed:

I charge by the hour for dealing with nails and metal strikes. What I mean is I charge them for the blade. And as I change that blade and dig out the metal so that I can continue to cut up that log, I run a stopwatch and keep track of my time spent doing that, which includes scanning the log with my metal detector looking for other metal.
Once the log is clean of metal, I stop the watch and write down the time.
This is all written in my costs of milling document. And in my "questions" document I ask: "If I hit metal, do you want me to pull it out and continue sawing the log? Or throw it away?" When they say "pull and continue" then the stopwatch is used.
If they say, "throw it away" and I have to take out the chain saw and cut it up to get it off the mill, because there is no heavy equipment there to lift it off, then that time is counted on the stopwatch as extra work.
I pack two stop watches. One for the blade time, and one for the extra work time.
Jim Rogers

[SawyerTed]

Dealing with metal in logs?  I say it depends. First it depends on the metal. If the metal is fence wire or a common nail, often I will try to work around it or pull it out. If it is a heavier piece of metal or a hardened screw, often it depends on what the log is. 

If the log is a quality walnut or cherry for example,  I'll do all I can to keep sawing.  If it is a pine or other common species, off the mill it goes.  When pine saw timber is around $45 a ton delivered, it is cheaper for a customer to buy a few logs to finish a cut list  

Some logs with metal just don't go on the mill.  My philosophy is metal sticking out of a log is like and iceberg, there's at least 2/3 in the log I can't see.

Foreign object strike costs $25 for blade replacement.

My hourly rate starts once the mill is set up until a break, lunch or mill break down. It doesn't matter if I'm sawing, changing blades, digging out metal or stacking lumber.  That puts the pressure on the customer to be vigilant about staging logs, log quality etc. 

[GAB]

Be interesting hearing how other sawyers handle metal strikes.

Me HATES nails. :embarassed::embarassed:

I charge the cost of the blade, based on the last purchase I made, and $10.00 for lost production.
I hate nails but I hate dry wall screws even more.
GAB

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, just a tad off, but the cold weather might be getting to me. Alternating between sweating and freezing every 20 minutes might be addling my brain. Today I took 5 to suck down what water I could from a frozen bottle and noticed this board moving in the breeze. Not that board has been leaning there for a year. All of a sudden it's moving?!
Self supporting Board - YouTube

Anything for a detraction sometimes. :D

[SawyerTed]

  OGH Mother Nature can be fascinating!  That's cool!

[Old Greenhorn]

OGH Mother Nature can be fascinating!  That's cool!

Well, I thought to myself "This is stupid, making a video of a stupid board frozen in the ice', but then I thought same as you. 'This is cool. Stupid, but cool'. Besides, I need that water break.

[SawyerTed]

A bit of childlike (not childish) fascination with things does an old guy (I'm one) some good!  I'm glad you shared it!

[Magicman]

Thanks OGH. 

I charge $45 for any metal strike and if it is an hourly rate job, the clock is also ticking during the blade change out.  I do not send metal strike blades to ReSharp because experience has taught me that most likely that blade may cut but it probably will leave a skip or irregular tooth mark which is not satisfactory with me.  The customer has paid for it so throw it in the junk pile.  Blades are expendable items.

[Dave Shepard]

I charge the cost of a band, and the clock never stops ticking.
As for the metal strike bands:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-j8jSeCzm7I

[newoodguy78]

OG that's a good little video. If you hadn't slowed down you'd never have noticed it. 

[caveman]

Between selling a little quartersawn oak and pine boards today, John and I sawed a lot of metal and a little cypress.  We extracted quite a few nails but we found the rest with the blades.  We hit metal with at least two and probably three blades, and had one blade break (at least near the beginning of the cut).  We spent at least an hour pulling logs out of the pond trying to fill the 16' order.  Out of 8 logs, we found 3 that would make good 16' boards.  

It pained me to saw 1x6's out of one of the logs we sawed.  I think we got 25 out of it.  None of them had knots and most of the boards were heartwood.  
<br
Wire and nails.>


I bet you can't find the metal.


The 1x6x16's were really nice.  No knots in the whole pile.
We have some pine to saw on Monday but while pulling logs out of the pond today we came across some decent pecky cypress that we will probably saw into 1x sometime soon.

[firefighter ontheside]

I've been charging $25 for metal strike blades and since I charge by the hour the clock is still ticking while i'm changing blades.  Depending on what I hit I will decide whether it goes in the resharp box.  If it just hits one nail it goes to resharp, something more significant like many nails or heavy steel it goes to scrap.

It snowed about 2" yesterday and will be above freezing this afternoon, so I"m not looking forward to sawing logs for a customer, but he still wanted to come.  I guess we are gonna get wet.  Just have to keep all vehicles on the driveways.

[terrifictimbersllc]

Back to work for me this week two jobs with probably 9000 board feet between them. Temps are going to be in the low 30s during the day with 25F starts in the morning. Brrrrr  >:(

[firefighter ontheside]

My customer is not going to get here until 3pm.  I'm not really happy about it, but I hate to tell him he can't come.  He rents a trailer when he comes, so he would be out the money for his trailer.  He was struggling to get logs onto the trailer and I guess is only bringing 3 logs instead of the 5 he intended to bring.  I guess we will be sawing until sunset.

[E-Tex]

 

 



 



 



 


Wife and I milled full 1X5s and built our entrance to our property.  

(post got trimmed off later)!

[E-Tex]

 

 

 


 


Our place is blessed with awesome ERCs!

[Magicman]

That is terrific !!!  8)

[Andries]

Nice entrance build - and some good looking ERC there too!

[Walnut Beast]

Looks great. Boy you are blessed 👍

[TimW]

 

 


 


Our place is blessed with awesome ERCs!

Y'all are blessed.  I am about 2.5 hours south southwest of Y'all.  Is there anywhere up there I could buy ERC logs?
hugs,  Brandi

[E-Tex]

 

 


 


Our place is blessed with awesome ERCs!

Y'all are blessed.  I am about 2.5 hours south southwest of Y'all.  Is there anywhere up there I could buy ERC logs?
hugs,  Brandi

Good question.  I'm not a log buyer, so I don't have a good answer for you.  However, call Custom Cut Lumber in Alto and/or Wilcox Timber & Lumber in Rusk.  I know they buy cedar.  Maybe they can point you in the right direction.

[trimguy]

 

 
I have a friend that had a couple of Hickory blow downs that he let me have. I know, , sometimes I just have to learn the hard way. I know I need to seal the ends, and I need to saw it soon.If I choose to put a couple of these to the side to spalt, should I seal ends on them or not? Some of them are on a smallish side, any idea how long I should let them sit to spalt ?I know it has to do with it temperature, humidity and such. But any ideas?