OldJarheads Milling Thread...

[MartyParsons]

Hello,
    Cooling of the Delco-Remy Alternator is done through the fan on the front pulley. I think the air is pulled through from the rear. I had a customer who said he cleaned the rear of the alternator and the end of each shift. He had no issues with alternators. He was one to always keep parts on hand to reduce down time. He had others would would use him as a parts store when they had some issues. He would not let others use his alternator because he said they would not keep them clean and early failure would result. I guess I am passing this advice he gave me on to you.  Clean your alternator with a blower at the end of the shift.  ;)

Hope this helps.

Marty

[Timster]

Years ago, I'm dating myself here, there was an option on most alternators, the "Police" pulley. It was smaller in diameter and had additional cooling so the alternators would produce more power while idling and run cooler. Don't know if it still applies but it may be worth a look.

[Kbeitz]

A little off topic... An Alternator will charge running both ways.
Always make sure you got the right fan. There are made for the rotation.

[Chuck White]

A little off topic... An Alternator will charge running both ways.
Always make sure you got the right fan. There are made for the rotation.

Good point, and often overlooked.

[tomsteve]

I have to admit I hope this continues!  Had another potential customer reach out to me about a half dozen walnut logs he has and wants to have milled up

Nothing beats having a mill except having people book you to do milling for them ;)

just wanted to chime in and say your adventures/journey has been awesome to follow over the last couple years. i look forward when i come on here to see what you're up to

[OlJarhead]

Off to mill up some walnut for a customer tomorrow.  This will be a LONG drive!  140miles each way.  He's paying mileage (one way past my 50 mile zone that I'll travel to without mileage) and by the hour.  Expecting it to be about 4 hrs of milling (or less but my min is 4hrs) and then I'll pack up and head back the 140miles to home.

My customer that I had the breakdown on reached out to me and asked me to come back in June

Should have a couple more jobs in May and a long weekend planned with my honey at the cabin.  I don't plan to do much at the cabin but enjoy it and relax with maybe a little cleanup and tractor work.  With luck I'll be too busy to do much cabin work until summer! ;)

[OlJarhead]

140 miles each way to this customer....but it was worth it I think and he was VERY happy!  He told me: the other guy is about 10 miles away but I'd rather hire you to come back in the future!  You work hard and I am really happy with your milling.  He also took some cards to give to other he thought might want to hire me.

It isn't that I want to drive 140 miles each way all the time but it doesn't hurt to go mill for a half day now and then when nothing else is going on.



Pic of one log to mill


Another 'log'


Pile of Walnut 'logs'  :D

No worries we had fun ;)

 
Setup right off the road.


Closer look at the largest chunk.  Sadly it did not yield much because it was too punky.


Had to put something against the side stabilizers in order to clamp some of these 'logs' on the mill but it worked.


Last of the pics I took (I was too busy milling).  I did one root section for him to see what it would give and it did have some nice grains in it, so too did some of the crooks and areas where branches were removed etc etc.  54 boards later, all but a couple either 2", 3" or 4" thick and everything from 29" short to 8 feet long, most but not all about 15 to 24 inches wide too :D

[Magicman]

I was surprised to read that you give the first 50 miles away.  :P  That 100 miles (round trip) is costing you $54.00.  That is not my figure, but the IRS mileage rate. 

[KirkD]

I was surprised to read that you give the first 50 miles away.  :P  That 100 miles (round trip) is costing you $54.00.  That is not my figure, but the IRS mileage rate.

Even if you give it away keep track of your miles for tax time on cost.

[OlJarhead]

Inside 50 miles I charge a mobile setup fee of one hour.  Outside of 50 miles I charge the setup fee and mileage over 50 miles plus a higher milling rate.  So to deliver and setup the mill I charged $174 and then a slightly higher rate ($10/hr higher).  In the end I look at it this way:

If I'm milling close to home (say within 50 miles) and mill for 8 hours plus 2hrs drive time (there and back) and 1 hr setup I'm working at 11hrs total that day (if it's a one day job).  Those 11 hours pay me $675 which works out to just over $61/hr for my time ($75/hr to the customer plus setup fee).

If I mill for a half day 140 miles away I drive two hours (Interstate) each way, 1 hr setup and mill for 4 hours I'll 'work' 9 hrs and earn just over $57/hr ($85/hr to the customer).  It's not the same but it's pretty close.

I setup my fee structure that way because I don't really want to mill that far away but I will if someone is willing to pay me to do so.  This last customer was very happy and told me I was more reasonable than the guy who was 10 miles away, has more or less the same mill (older LT40) and I produced more for him and worked harder.  My take?  If he's the only one to ever hire me I might be asking too much but then I don't really want to drive 140 miles each way to every job so it might be just right ;)

I started with this fee setup 4 yrs ago on the SMLT10 and got the idea off a guy in southern Oregon who charges more the further he has to go.  Not sure it's really what I'll be doing in 6 months or a year from now but since I've just gotten back into business this year it's what I'm doing.  His rate for anything over 100 miles is over $100/hr though he may also travel with a helper.  I see rates anywhere from $65/hr and billed from the moment they leave their home to $85/hr with a setup fee and mileage but most of those, no, all of those are over on the coast where there are dozens of mobile mills and portable mills if not hundreds.  It's forestry country over there. 

On the other hand I'm in the desert and can drive a long way to get to trees when I am home in Moses Lake, as such I charge based on which location is closest to the customer rather than where I am at.  My place up in the hills is in dry forest country and closer to most of my customers so what I do is drive the mill up to my place and then go from there.  Most of my customers have been 30 to 50 miles away.

My thoughts are that I should really consider a flat rate and a flat mileage rate instead but with the mobile setup fee I kinda debate whether I should do a flat mileage rate or not and as mentioned I don't really want to drive too far without it at least paying me what I'd earn if I didn't drive that far -- make sense?  Ultimately I'd earn the same driving 200 miles to a job and putting in a 16 hour weekend as I would working a 16 hour weekend close to home and that's my goal with pricing.

On that. my thought is that I should be able to produce 2800bf of softwood in an 8 hour day if the logs are perfect, the help is stellar and the mill is running like a champ.  That's 350bf/hr and this is an LT40HDG26 after all.  So, if all things being equal and right in the world my rate for milling softwoods would run about $250Mbf or 25c/bf which is pretty good for softwoods.  However, if the customer has a bunch of little 'pecker poles' and I have to do all the work myself my milling rate is going to hit the bottom pretty quickly and the charge per bf is going to go way up on an hourly job....and that's ok too as long as they understand they are paying me by the hour.  I find there is an incentive there for them to get me the best logs they can and help me as well as they can because then I'm making sawdust and they are getting more lumber per dollar of their hard earned cash

[bkaimwood]

Thank you Eric, for such a detailed report of your current rate system.. All makes sense to me..I don't pick on or sweat the small numbers either...some jobs just make a bit more $$, some less...as long as the customer understands all charges ahead of time, and you are fair, its all good. I agree with having higher fees the further you migrate from home....makes sense for many reasons, overall risk being primary. I never agreed with, used, or considered using a mileage rate, and here's why...we are all essentially selling time in the end...a 50 mile trip can take 45 minutes or 3 hours, depending on roads, speed limits, construction, rural, suburban, city, region, the list goes on.  So my travel/destination/setup fee is based upon an estimate as it relates to time, by the hour...I've sawed multiple locations with a 50 mile trip that was about an hour and 15 minutes...so that would be 25 bucks, or 20 bucks an hour...nowhere close to cutting it. Everyone has a varied system that seems to work well for them, in their area...

[Magicman]

OK, I misread it to mean that you traveled and setup within 50 miles for free.  That would be unnecessarily leaving your mileage and travel time on the table.   

We all do it slightly differently, but in the end we must be paid for our travel time, truck mileage, and setup labor.   ;D

[OlJarhead]

Good points BK and MM.

Looks like I'm going to be busy next weekend!  Guy called me 117miles away with 20 big logs he wants milled up in two days!    Some are too big for the mill (4 feet in diameter) but he's got plenty he says that are in the 18-24" at the big end (20 footers) and some in the 36" at the big end that are 20 and 30 feet long.  He's going to cut them all down to the lengths he wants (12 footers mostly) thank god!  I hate milling 20 footers for 12 foot lumber frankly.

Anyway, he booked me for the 21st and 22nd so away we go!

Still got some others on the back burner but for some reason May is the month to drive drive drive!!!

[Magicman]

Remember that on the 36", etc, you will have to carefully lower your side supports some and let the log move as far to the left as possible and you still be able to get the head by.


 
I always lay a 2X4 beside the side supports for extra "insurance".

[OlJarhead]

Remember that on the 36", etc, you will have to carefully lower your side supports some and let the log move as far to the left as possible and you still be able to get the head by.


 
I always lay a 2X4 beside the side supports for extra "insurance".

OK WOW!  That's a great point!  The largest I've done isn't quite that big and I didn't have to do that so thanks for that awesome tip!  You probably just saved me a ton of head scratching ;) Funny thing is I've done similar things with walnut 'logs' that have big crooks in them the customer wants milled.

[Upper]

Remember that on the 36", etc, you will have to carefully lower your side supports some and let the log move as far to the left as possible and you still be able to get the head by.


 
I always lay a 2X4 beside the side supports for extra "insurance".

I did not figure this out till my father said son can I say something? I grumbled "What",and then apologized with " that is a good idea". Marginal logs will bite you

[Brucer]

I had a customer bring a couple of 17' logs that were 44" and 48" diameter. He split them in half with a chainsaw (30" bar) and I loaded the half logs on the mill and stood them up against the side stops to break them down.

The job involved a lot of timber handling and I had to resaw the faces that were cut with the chainsaw. However, there was a lot of really nice edge grain stuff. The customer paid by the hour and was very pleased with the result.

[Upper]

After splitting a log, do you make a flat cut of say 6 inches for the bed side od the log?
  And can you do this with just the Hyd. on the Mill?

[Brucer]

With oversize half logs, I break them down to smaller pieces that can be easily handled. The 40" plus logs I set up vertically against the side stops, raised the head as high as I could (maximum blade height = 35") and sawed off an "edge". I had to remove the dragback arms to handle that 48" piece .

Next step was to drag the bottom back across the mill (with the clamp) and easy my newly cut edge against the side stops. At this point I could either make a cut parallel to the split face, or stand the half log up with the split face away from the side stops and saw off the other "edge". In this case I didn't have a flat face to hold against the side stops so I used the clamp to hold the bottom edge in and a square to ensure the split face was approximately vertical.

From there on I had manageable pieces so I pretty much did what the customer requested. Like a 4" x 20" edge grain "slab" ;D.

[Weekend_Sawyer]

I been using my buddy's LT35 for the past month sawing trees from clearing my lot and this thread and videos have given me some great tips for running this mill. Thanks

[OlJarhead]

A 6x10x16 bounced off the ground when I dropped it and jammed/broke my middle finger so typing is tough....but 27 logs later I'm done! [edit: 27 not 25 logs]

Only trouble was my drive belt was loose on day two and after wavy cuts I couldn't stop I checked and tension was 10lbs so an hour later and I was at 15lbs and really going good!
My last log scaled at 450bf and was an adventure to mill!  I wish I recorded the time when I started but I'm certain it was 6:38pm and I finished it an hour later!


24" at the small end, 17 feet long and a large flare on the big end that took some creative milling to get past!


I cut it down to 18" CANT then knocked off a 6x18" beam and dropped it onto the forks,  my mill doesn't seem to have the power to mill 3 2x6's at once or I'm doing something wrong!

I then milled down the 12x18 cant into 2x6's and flipped up the flitches and milled them down against the remaining 6x6's before finishing them off.  Then flipped the 6x18 back on and ripped it down in a hurry.  DONE!

Man that finger hurts too!  Swollen and bruised....not much can be done with broken fingers though :() other than wait it out.

[OlJarhead]

Day one was 1920bf produced out of 1670bf of logs.  There were over 130 1x6's in that too!  So that could have been much better production if, for example, it was all 2x's instead!


Another big pine - with stress to work out!

 
This was typical of what I milled this weekend but I did have some small logs too!


A wack of lumber....mostly 1x6's but some 2x's, 4x's and 6x's too!

[paul case]

Boy it sounds like you are getting along good on the milling. Sorry to hear about the fingers though.
We learned on those bigguns with a flare to put the flare toward the saw. When trimming it down you will not get stuck chainsawing a piece off to get the guide by the log. Of course I know when doing portable you have to take them as they come unless the customer has a lift or loader.

PC

[OlJarhead]

Ya I'm beginning to hate the big ends not being at my end!  But his tractor could barely move that sucker!  Got stuck on the debarker once and darn near on the rollers but sneaked it by.

Only real issue was the darn drive belt!  Grrrr can[t adjust it too much more either so it better settle down and stop stretching!

[OlJarhead]

 8) Finger is NOT broken!  just jammed pretty bad.

Turns out I did just over 4500bf for this customer.  Biggest issue I had was squaring the first two faces, seems on the bigger logs I have a hard time making sure the log is tight to the side stabilizers and though it looks good the first open on second face reveals it's not.  Rolling a 450bf log around to try to get it right can be a challenge so I'll probably be looking around here to see who might have a good way to do it.