Sawing With My Wife and Not Arguing

[YellowHammer]

I made this video of my wife and I sawing up a few logs.  I'm not sure how many others sawmill with their significant other, but here's how we do it.  

https://youtu.be/yxzIuria1D0

[Walnut Beast]

Great video! You better take care of your helper with a Hawaii vacation since she is always working hard!!!. Great example of being efficient in every aspect and teamwork! Well done 👍 

[doc henderson]

my wife will come out and say hi, but then goes back in the house.  Probably for the best.  Nice video.   8)

[randy d]

My wife is my partner I saw a log and she is the tail gunner then she will saw the next log and i am the tail gunner.

[thecfarm]

Yes, you need to know what the other one is doing or going to do.
Good sawing too!!

[jpassardi]

Robert,
I caught this on Youtube last night. I got a smile out of the title. 

[Magicman]

Very nice video. 

I agree about the work shirts.  I only wear 100% Cotton T shirts in the Summer.

PatD and I are 50-50 in the sawmilling business.  I makes it and she spends it.  :D  :D

[Ed_K]

 Since I got sick Rita has done all the sawing that needed done. She's getting pretty good at it but doesn't like the scale I modded on the mill. She found a better one at Runnings that I'll put on when we move the mill down to the sugar house ( it's closer to the house ).

[Peter Drouin]

Does she run the saw too? Or just the bull work?

[WV Sawmiller]

   I think mine is like Doc and MMs wife. She has no desire to be around the heat, loud noises or lift heavy wood and can't see any reason to get covered in sawdust. You better keep her.

   One thing surprised me  watching you sawing and that was the fact you lower the loading arms all the way as soon as the log is on the mill. I was always warned/taught to leave the arms partially raised in case a log rolled back. I always do that at least with the first couple of faces.

   Of course there are big differences since I am sawing mobile and use the arms to hold flitches to be edged and you have other support equipment to do that. 

   Do you ever have a log kick back and roll backwards on the first cut or two?

[Resonator]

"I'm not arguing. I'm explaining why I'm right, using a loud voice." - (old saying). :D

Knowing the optimum blade speed by the sound it makes reminds me of the old assembly line maintenance guys. They could walk through a factory and just listen for machines that were "out of tune" or rhythm, and know exactly what to adjust. 
PBS did a piece on one of the production sawmills near me, the workers had developed their own language using only hand signals. They could communicate and relay messages across the factory, never having to yell over the noise. One of their signals (I think it was for the number eight) could start a fight if you didn't know what it meant. :D

[Magicman]

 

 
PatD and Kelly offloading while redbeard saws and I watch.  ;D

[boonesyard]

My wife Gen and I saw together all the time, couldn't or wouldn't do it without her. She does the off bearing, stickering and most of the stacking. One of the hardest workers I know. We've got a great rhythm that works well. Like anything else, not perfect all the time, but mostly. Pretty easy to not argue when everything goes smooth  .  

[wisconsitom]

@Resonator, indeed, the mill you speak of, where workers developed their own sign language, is the MTE-Menominee Tribal Enterprises mill just east of your area, in Neopit, on the reservation.

[moosehunter]

My bride helping with the sawing! :D :D :D
Now to be honest, she does help. If I need to buy something for the mill she is more than willing to help me spend the $$.
She also washes my sawdust riddled clothing.
Not in anyway complaining about the help she does give me but thought of her helping with the labor makes me laugh out loud!!
mh

[mudfarmer]

At the circle mill the sawyer and I naturally developed pretty good sign language skills while running the head saw and the edger. It is a very rapid and understandable way to communicate quickly rather than shout back and forth a million times. Figured that others developed similar schemes but never looked into it.

Trying to think of some of the signs:

thick
thin
tapered
trapezoid
edger pile (with variations for nuance)
lumber pile (with variations for nuance)
slab pile (with variations)
"shorts" pile
dust conveyor not running
dust conveyor not starting
shut down - non emergency
shut down - oh $%!^
flip cant/flitch back on the carriage
chainsaw
Wow that's nice
This log is junk
log deck start/stop/reverse
Somethin Ain't Right But I Don't Know What
BREAK TIME

etc etc

[YellowHammer]

Yeah, Martha is a keeper, she can run any piece of equipment we have, some better than I can, work most two guys into the ground, and do it year after year for decades.  Sometimes she will give me "hand signals" when I'm about to make a bad cut or miss a drop, but she isn't a fan of operating the LT-70 at all, with the joysticks, she says it's laid out "wrong" (I agree to some extent).  On the other hand, she won't even hardly let me touch the SLR, that's hers, and if we ever get divorced, she will keep the forklift for herself.  She won't hesitate to run the SLR or edger for a whole day, and do it again the next.  Her dad was a long time woodworker, and Martha can run a nail gun with the best of them.  We both team up on the planing, and she stocks all the shelves with thousands of pounds of wood a week.  As she says, the showroom and building is "hers" and the "sawmill" is mine.  Don't forget, we used to build houses so she can build cabinets and lay tile with the best of them.  

As you noticed, I always drop the loader arms to the ground, I've had too many logs roll off the mill deck over the years, especially doing reverse roll sawing, and used to keep the mill arms up to catch them, but never again.  I almost flipped the mill when a monster rolled off and was "caught"  by the raised lower arms, and another bent the poop out of my loader arms.  So instead, I use the crossties which are taller than the fully dropped loader arms, and angled down back to the mill.  So when log rolls off, and it occasionally does, it simply flops on top of the crossties, and I raise the loader arms again and throw it back on.  The mill never even shakes or can be damaged in any way.  The crossties take the impact of the log rolling off, not the mill.  I had one roll off the other day while I was filming and made mention that it took "maybe 15 seconds to get back to sawing" vs calling WM and ordering and replacing the loader arms.  Been there done that.

 

   

[Larry]

Another great video!   My mill is usually set up the same way with the roller tables.  Even on the rare occasion when I'm away from home I'll take my short tables.  I really like the idea of help being in the safe zone as you describe it.

I did notice one thing.  The cant hook laying on the ground so Martha had to bend over and pick it up for every log.  That gets old for me.  Somebody said "Take steps to save steps". :D :D

[YellowHammer]

You and me both.  I saw her do that, time after time, and to my credit, I didn't say a word, even though it was driving me crazy.  A classic violation of the "Steps" rule! 

However, I used my best "husband" judgment, and didn't say anything, or I would have surely gotten some "sign language" and thought in order to keep the video title accurate, it was best left unsaid.   

[KenMac]

My wife knows I have a mill and knows where it's located, but hardly ever puts eyes on it and I'm better off that way for sure. Her task is the banking end and paying sales taxes. You're a lucky man, Robert.

[Peter Drouin]

Take a piece of log 6" tall setting on it's end. And you can stick the pv in it and not bend over. The point will go into the wood and stand there.
Better than trying to stick it in the ground. 

[OlJarhead]

My wife does the video when she is there and also helps a bit...but it's. it her thing ;)

[Ventryjr]

My wife does the video when she is there and also helps a bit...but it's. it her thing ;)

Oljarhead.  Where do you post your videos?  
My wife comes and watches me/reads a book.  She gets concerned I'm going to die when I work alone. 

[OlJarhead]

I sometimes post them in my milling thread but always post them on YouTube (you can see the link in my profile or find me there "The Old Jarhead".).

I used to post a lot of pics but eventually moved to video.  One of my customers call it my "Sawdust Roadshow" lol as like MM I only mill remote.

[YellowHammer]

It's hard for me to get Martha involved when I'm filming, she thinks it's a total waste of time and when I pull the cameras out, and she heads the other direction knowing things are about to slow down about 10X.

She says "Call me when you're ready" and she goes to work doing something productive while I play with the GoPros.  They actually take time to set up, put the cards in, new batteries, check the microphones, check the shots, and hook the power to them.  The GoPros are actually frustrating to use, especially the GoPro10 which has some design issues, one of which is that it will overheat and shut down in the worst moment, losing the shots.  They've tried to make some changes, including designing a brand new battery for it, but it still shuts down, or doesn't save the file correctly, and I never know if I've got the shot until I get into the house.  I have lost more than one series of videos due to this.  More than once I've wanted to throw them into the burn pit.

Then you have to get into the editing part, some people don't do it, but I spend a decent amount of time on it, several hours, on each 8 to 10 minute video.  Generally, for a quality video to TV show, the scene or shot should change every 4 to 6 seconds, so with a 10 minute video, there are maybe 6 to 8 shots a minute, so 60 to 80 shots or cuts per video, plus the audio, plus the titles and stuff.  I figure I want to make them so my kids aren't embarrassed to watch them, and maybe my grandkids will see what Grandpa used to do.

Then, there is the money, or lack of it.  It's a totally non profit thing, at least with the number of subscribers I have, as I make about $70 per month, which come out to about working for free, especially considering that filming lowers production significantly, and I lose that every time I pull the cameras out.  To put it in perspective, filming doesn't make money, it costs money.  So I'm not really sure why I do it.

Old Jarheads got some nice videos, I watch them.