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Sawing reclaimed pine

Started by Tom, June 20, 2003, 06:37:21 PM

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Tom

This past week I've been sawing salvaged pine from buildings in Pa. and also here in Jacksonville. The fellow that owns the company buys the buildings, contracts to have them demolished but salvages the pine.  He has 4 workers whose job it is to remove all the nails etc.  I have been amazed at the good job they do.   In the whole week I've only had two timbers with nails.  One was mixed in the "good" pile by someone who wasn't an employee and one just had two nails missed.  I've cut close to 7,000 Board Feet so far so they don't miss many.  These guys also install the flooring once it is straight lined, tongue and grooved and planed.

I'll have to admit that this isn't my favorite thing to do.  Pine hardens with age and the heart wood is tough as iron.  Add to that the fact that the pith builds on the blade to the point of making it useless.  

I know that the marketing exists for reclaimed timbers.  This wood came from buildings with 1885 and 1890 build dates.  The "patina" of old pine is what sells it.  It is golden yellow and red.  The redder the wood the harder it is to saw. If I were putting pine into my own house, I think I would favor fresh wood and let my ancestors call it old. :D

We are set up at the port in Jacksonville.  In the pictures you can see the toyota cars waiting to be processed and the large cranes in the background that are used for unloading containers from the ships. The funnel shaped structure on the left of one of the pictures is the dust collection system of Dixon Mill-works.  Dixon is the company that is holding the wood that is destined for Cuba.  They are also the company that will be processing this pine into flooring.

The temperatures are in the 90's and afternoon thunderstorms have been horrific.  The sun's rays go through you like micro waves in an oven and your skin actually begins to hurt before it burns.  I'm using a UV blocker but still burn.





The timbers that I am cutting are 8 x 14's, 3 x 13's and next week 2 x 12's.

The game y'all were playing with the thinnest cuts is actuality here.  To cut the 3 x 13's I cut 1/4" from each edge, 1/4 from each side and split it into two 5/4 boards. Because the timbers aren't exactly straight and are cupped, it is difficult to get a flat side to start from.  Much of the cutting is no thicker than the coating of paint that is on them and sometimes I am brushing the paint from the wood with the blade riding on top. Some of my "slabs are so thin that they are made up only of the saw marks from 100+ years ago. The cupped side creates a slab of two strips of flimsy wood on each side and a lot of paint dust in the middle.  Blades don't last 200 feet when they are scraping the surface of  such dirty wood. The dust of a century is embedded in every crevice.  


Fla._Deadheader

Nice Pics. The location is neat. Yup, them old Pines is hard stuff !!! :D Right now, I am too DanG tired to keep typing. I will post some pics tomorrow of our adventures. Some interesting stuff.
All truth passes through three stages:
   First, it is ridiculed;
   Second, it is violently opposed; and
   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Kevin

QuoteThe dust of a century is embedded in every crevice.  

Tom; Pull your pants up.   :D

Furby

 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D




Hey Tom, maybe I have missed it in other threads, but who made your mill, and do you have any close up pics? ???

Tom

Short knees, Kevin. :D

I've gotta go on a diet but they tell me I have to quit eating. :-/

biziedizie

Furby the mill that Tom has is the big kick ass blue monster. 8) Sure would be nice having one of them around. 8)

   Steve

    P.S Tom how's the new clutch working for you?

Furby

 I must be a little slow considering I've gotten about 2-4 hours sleep every night this week, I'd that is fast.        Anyways, what is the "big kick ass blue monster"? Oh and how BIG is it?

biziedizie

Furby look at the pic of Tom's mill. 8) It's blue and big and it's a kick ass machine. 8)
 
     Steve

Furby

 YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, I said I was a little slow.
However, now that the pics are up I NEED more info!
Tom, please tell me all about your mill, PLEASE!

Tom

It's a Baker 3638D.  It cuts a 24' log and will cut 36 inches in diameter.  It is powered by a Kubota 38 horse diesel.

I'll have to admit that it and I have had our moments and I've not been very happy with a lot of it.  It is basically a good design and produces good when it is in a good mood.  Most of my complaints have to do with manufacture (welds), setworks(never worked) and manufacture availability.  Ellington, Mo. is a long way to go for service. I felt not too welcome as well.

I'll have to say that I cut the equivalent of 6,000 feet with it one day.  I cheated a little because I was cutting some 3 inch thick and wide stock but I cut 3000 feet in 4 hours.  Two off bearers quit (I had 5).

It uses a 17'4" Lennox 42 thou. 7/8 pitch 1 1/4 inch woodmaster C blade.  I have tried others but this is the factory's recommendation and I agree.

I is a difficult machine to set up and it requires re-leveling fairly frequently.  It weighs 7500 lbs and requires at least a 1 ton truck to pull it/stop it.

It's all hydraulic and the hydraulic controls are comfortable and arranged such that it is just second nature to operate.  It is quick and the log handling is effortless. The big round scale is easy to read but is made out of paper.  Weather and transporting tears it off of the metal wheel.  I called for another one awhile back and found that they are $65 so I made one.

There are some expensive, second-manufacturer, stuff used to build it that really gets into your pocket when they break.

I also have a Woodmizer LT40hd but it is in need of a rebuild.  It has cut well over a million board feet.  Actually it reached that mark in 1996 but I couldn't prove it on paper.  In 1999 I could prove it and joined Woodmizer's Million Board Foot club.  It got me over some big humps later when the Baker was acting up but is resting out back now waiting for some TLC.

There are more  pictures of it on my website.  www.tomssaw.com

I have posted close ups of it on the forum before but will be glad to take pictures of parts that anyone would be enterested to see and email them.  Usually close ups don't lend themselves to a story unless it is one like the Clutch thread.  Steve, the Clutch is working great, by the way. ;D :)

Furby

 Thaaaaaaaaaaank Yooooooooooooooou!
 Tom, that's what I like a straight answer. You said you can cut 36" dia., but how wide of board can you cut.



 Hey Biziedizie,

       Hey how do you do the smiley with the tounge out? ;D

biziedizie

Furby you have to have four trees to get the smile guy to stick his tongue out.......see...... :) :) You also get to add this dude too :)

  Steve

Tom

Right off hand, I can't remember but I think it is 25 inches.  You can cheat some by using a cant witha round bottom and dropping the  dogs and clamp a little to get closer to the guides.  

The blade will raise 31 inches from the bed but returning is difficult. The deepest it will cut is about 9 inches.  Why they didn't fix it to cut 12, I don't know.  there have been lots of times when I wanted to drop the blade 12 or more inches into a piece of wood.  My Woodmizer will drop 14 or 16 if memory serves.


When you get 5 trees you can make him show in the post.  

Furby



Guess you need five huh Biziedizie.











Thanks Tom!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

biziedizie

Yeah Furby I think I screwed up there somewhere. :D

  Steve

WyMan

Tom,

Are you getting more than one board out of the 2 X 12s?  Or are you just taking them down to 5/4.

Also are you talking true 1 and 1/4 or 1"?

I do basically the same out of old fir here in the west.

Hmmmm 3 nails in 7000 ft. that averages 1 per 2333 ft.  Did they ruin the blades or just dull them?

Thanks for the pics it is fun to see!
Just a thought from a freed modern slave.

EZ

Tom, thanks for the post, pictures are nice. When you get rich and famous like the rest of us, you need to put automatic levelers on your mill. Like they have on some of the bigger moble home(campers). A friend of mine has them on this camper, pretty cool, he pulls in the camp site, pushes a button and wa-la, he's camping. ;D
EZ

wscott

Hi Tom
i live in NC and there is a man in the town i live in, that just bought a cook mill and eger, a few months ago, to saw up beams and flooring out of a old cotton mill here. somewhere around one millon board feet in this mill, are a litte more. i have seen this mill working and it is slow and hard on blades. he is using blades from cook. he is set up inside the mill and has any where from 2 to 7 men working all the time.
 about your baker mill. have you replaced any of you hy clys  on your log loader or any other clys. looked at a baker like you the other week(about 2 to 3 yrs old) and he had replace all his hyr cly on the log loader and on the log stops.
 if you bought another mill today what would you buy?
 i am looking to buy a mill and have been looking at all makes of mills and would like your view on this.
Thanks to you  and for all the work on the forum you do.
You should always marry a ugly girl, when she leaves you, you want feel so bad.

Tom

I'm getting two boards from each, WyMan.  When I talk about the thickness I'm sawing, I always talk about rough cut, true sizes.  It's the fellow at the Mill-works that makes 5/4 into 1" and still calls it 5/4. :D

What we are after is a fat 4/4 board but I hate to waste the wood.  I cheat a little when I split the board and favor the bottom board a little bit.  That way the top board is about 1 1/16 - 1 1/8 and the bottom board is 1 1/4.  Sometimes I can get two 5/4 boards but not frequently enough to plan on it.  

The owner seems to like what I'm doing.  He uses 5/4 for stair treads and gets orders for 5/4 flooring, especially in buildings that are being refurbished.  They have to match the old flooring and those old-timers didn't use too much stuff less than 1" thick although he sells some at 5/8's. :D

The Mill-Works, where the finishing is done, uses a Bi-i-ig planer and shaper that can't tell the difference in the fat boards and the fatter boards.  This gives the flooring company owner more options for resale. I'm just glad that the saw holds the accuracy that allows me to do it.

I've thought of Automatic Levelers, EZ, but the mill has a flexible frame and it would take about 10 or 12 hydraulic rams to bring it up to level.  I got the big idea from an '88 Park Avenue I have but was never able to figure out how to make it work. You'd still have to have a manual lock of some sort on the legs and loosen them to re-level occasionally.  The vibration of the mill causes the ground to give under the legs even with boards under there. It's a real problem in some of the softer areas (mucky) that I saw.  Putting the mill on stable ground like concrete or asphalt is a blessing.  I don't get a chance to do that too often.  I still invent levelers in my mind every time I pick up a pry bar though. :D

wscott,
I'll send you an instant message.


Furby

Tom, will you IM me the same info?

chevymetal

QuoteHi Tom
i live in NC and there is a man in the town i live in, that just bought a cook mill and eger, a few months ago, to saw up beams and flooring out of a old cotton mill here. somewhere around one millon board feet in this mill, are a litte more. i have seen this mill working and it is slow and hard on blades. he is using blades from cook. he is set up inside the mill and has any where from 2 to 7 men working all the time.
 about your baker mill. have you replaced any of you hy clys  on your log loader or any other clys. looked at a baker like you the other week(about 2 to 3 yrs old) and he had replace all his hyr cly on the log loader and on the log stops.
 if you bought another mill today what would you buy?
 i am looking to buy a mill and have been looking at all makes of mills and would like your view on this.
Thanks to you  and for all the work on the forum you do.

Reply:

I just got done reading the post by wscott, and anyone who has ever cut any 'old beams and flooring' can tell you it doesn't matter what brand of portable mill you have, this old wood is filled with nails and years compacted dust that is hard as rock and will slow any mill and be hard on any blade. :(  
I have run a few mills in my lifetime and I currently run a Cook's AC-36, and it has been the best performing mill that I have ever ran, but that doesn't mean it's going to walk through any wood that is generally 10-20 times harder than green lumber.

And since it sounds like your looking for a mill, don't fool yourself into thinking your going to find a mill that will cut on and on and never have a problem.  If you own a mill you will be working on it from time to time; this is the reality of sawmilling. ;)  What I would suggest is find out the company that will help you after the sale, and I can say the Cook's have been more than helpful. ;)
2003 Cook's Accu-trac AC-36
51hp Perkins Diesel
Cuttin' for a Livin'

Tom

Welcome to the forum, Chevymetal.

Yes, the cooks are good people.  I've bought blades from them for a long time.  It's good to have a Cook owner on the forum.

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