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Just curious about how y'all got started sawin

Started by Roger_T, July 16, 2001, 04:08:08 PM

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Roger_T

Hey guys,

Just kinda thinkin out loud to myself and was wondering how you all got started into sawing wood.  Was it more or less a learned trade from someone in your family, a relative or what.  Being a Sawyer is not a real common job. At least not down here in Chicago area.  

I know more than a couple of you saw for a living, just have not been able to determine if you saw for yourselves, or for a company.

Anyways, thanks for everything, and im sure learning tons here hanging round y'all.   ;D  ;D

Roger

Jeff

Roger, I got a job in a large sawmill as a lumberhandler when I was 17. 1979. I lied about my age so I could go to work right out of school. If not I would of had to wait until July 21. To long!

Right away I saw that the only guy in the place that made any real money and appeared not to have to die to do it was the head sawyer. So I started bugging the boss to train me. He must have saw something, because it did not take much to talk him into it. Maybe it had to do with that I was the only one there other then the sawyer that could think and breath at the same time.  That was a longtime ago. It almost never happened, because when I went to the boss on my birthday and confessed that I had lied to him about my age, he called me the son of something among other things, and told me I was lucky I had worked as hard as I did, or I would be gone. And if I ever lied to him again, I would get blown up in the chip van and be somebodys subfloor. Needless to say, I never lied to an employer again.
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

Tom

Well Roger, here's another story

I could drag this thing out and make volumes and call for intermission, but I'll make it short and sweet.  Well, ......short.

I retired from corporate america and always liked wood, trees, flowers, insects etc.  I figured if I was to ever have a sawmill then that was as good a time as any.  I loaded my 3 boys up, took a long trip and came home with a sawmill.  The idea being to have a company that my boys could work in and make something of themselves as well as give me something to do.  It took about 3 weeks for them to realize that they didn't want anything to do with a sawmill so there I was, alone. I sawed for neighbors and friends and myself.  My wife bought me uniforms to save her washing, printed me some business cards and before I new it I had a business that covered a territory about 100 miles in diameter and included a very large metropolitan area.  

I have really enjoyed it and would do it again.  Perhaps I would do some things differently but I wouldn't let it stop being fun.

timberbeast

Just in the family......my pop grew up in a logging camp,  when I lost my factory job I figured I'd give this a shot for while.  If it works,  great,  if not,  fine.  I can shovel pig doo-doo into the wind if I have to.  As long as the kids are eating and the mortgage is paid,  I figure I'm doing OK.
Where the heck is my axe???

Kevin

I needed something to keep me entertained through the winter months and harvesting fur isn`t what it once was.
Milling for recreation and enjoying every minute of it.

KiwiCharlie

G'day Roger,

I grew up on farms.  At 14, the olds decided that marriage wasnt for them, so there I was, the man of the house with all the responsibilities except for earning the wage!
Thats when I really got into chainsaws, out of necessity, and haved loved using them ever since.  A spell of full time after leaving home, but right now it is a passionate hobby, but soon hope to move back to the country, and saw a bit more than at the weekends!

BTW Kevin, harvesting fur is taking off again here.  The pest Possum is getting very good prices for its fur (not the skins) and is worth doing again.  After the Govt stopped subsidies for the skins, the skin trade basically died, and the possums population took off again!
They use an invention with small rubber flails on a motor to remove the belly fur (the softest).  Of course you have to shoot them or poison them first!
Have done some cyanide runs for possums - very effective.
Means you dont have to be up all hours of the night shooting them too!

Some Possum facts and figures:
Population in New Zealand - @ 80 Million
What they eat is estimated to be @ 21000 tonnes of vegetable matter each night!
Amount of fibre per animal depending on the season is @ 50 grms.
Lets get 'em!

Cheers
Charlie.
Walk tall and carry a big Stihl.

CharlieJ

I am a woodworker and it seems every time I need a log sawed, I couldn't find anyone to do it.I
bought an Alasken and now its to much fun to stop.

Charlie

Ron Wenrich

I have a degree in Forest Science from Penn State.  For summer work, I worked for the BLM is Oregon and at a sawmill in PA.  After graduation, jobs were scarce.  I ended up being a choker setter back in Oregon.

Didn't like Oregon to well, and migrated back to PA, taking a job in a sawmill. I ended up being mill foreman, and also graded and scaled all incoming logs.

Eventually became a consulting forester, but, during the '82 recession, went to work for a local logger.  Convinced him to get a mill, and I would do the sawing.  Steep learning curve.  I still sub-contract to him.

I have also sited a wood-fueled co-gen plant, helped set up several sawmills, and worked on a few projects in the industry.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Bibbyman

My dad was a logger and I had three uncles that ran sawmills so you could say I grew up with sawdust on the brain.

In '77 I bought 140 acres the family farm and in '82 built a house in the middle of it.  Each year I would find really nice red oak trees that had died.  I didn't really have a way to market them so I ended up cutting them up for firewood. Then the Great Flood of '93 took my "retirement trees" away from me.  I had about an acre grove of young walnut trees about 12" DBH and 30' to the first limb – probably 30 in all.  The major stream that ran through the farm undercut and laid these trees over into a rack heap in the bend of the stream.  It was then that I decided to get a sawmill.  It took me six months to talk Mary into it but we got a Wood-Mizer LT40 manual mill in the spring of 94.  We pulled all the walnut out of the rack heap we could and sawed it up – plus some other lumber for the farm for our use.

My brother-in-law wanted us to saw him some farm lumber so we took the mill over to his house and set up.  Even though it was on a back road and in an obscure spot, people could get a glimpse of the mill and us sawing as they drove by.  The first few days were not productive because people would stop to see what that machine was and what we were doing with it.  Without really wanting to,  I got five more sawing jobs.  People were bringing logs to the mill there to have them sawed before we were able to get back home with the mill.

In mid summer '94,  Mary could see that we could make some income from the mill and proudly announced one morning that she was going to quit her job and an accounting manager and an insurance company.  Well,  everything keep growing and expanding with the sawmill business.  We started selling lumber and then got some grade lumber dried and started selling that. Then the customers wanted it planed so we got a planer. We built buildings,  got a bigger tractor with 4WD,  got a flat bed truck,  then later a new Dodge 3500 flat bed,  two blade edger, added to the buildings,  expanded the log lot,  started selling grade lumber off the mill to brokers,  started making specialty products like survey stakes, etc. Mary trained in lumber and log gradeing and started buying the logs. Then she took up sawing so last year we bought an LT40HD35G Super.  

She's about taken over the business except for maintaining the equipment.


 8) 8)
Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25 Super 25hp 3ph with Command Control and Accuset.
Sawing since '94

CHARLIE

I sure am enjoying reading about how y'all got started in the log sawing business. It's hard work though....I know that first hand.....or at least the pulling the slabs and stacking the lumber is hard work ('specially in 97 degree heat with a can of peas in my belly and when the sawyer only cuts 2" X 12" lumber). :D  I hope there are more notes to come on this subject  :)
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

timberbeast

Ah,  Kevin!  Another ex-trapper?  I still have a big pile of 1and 1/2 Victors hanging around!  When I was a kid in the 70's,  I'd get 4.50 for a 'rat and about 40 bucks for a red fox....my buddies with paper routes were jealous!!!  I still call a dollar bill a "weasel skin"!
Where the heck is my axe???

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