Staying Busy and out of trouble, 2020-21?.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well today I sho 'nuff got in a pretty full day. (yesterday I played the part of an old retired guy that just could not get his butt going in the heat  :D). Actually we had to take one grandson down to the school to pick up his 1st grade diploma, both his parents were working so we made it out mission for the day. On the one hand I am thinking 'poor kid, no little ceremony' but on the other hand I am remembering how stressed these little folks get being put under the spotlight. Seems like it is always a rough day for them, so this wasn't so bad, and we made the rest of the day for him. SO I didn't get much done except when he and I did some cleaning in the shop. He likes to help me clean, especially if there is a vacuum involved. ;D
 Today was the day to fire that mill back up and get the decks cleared for my quarter sawing experiment. I had a bunch of short logs I had culled out of the firewood to make curved benches. Those benches the @WV Sawmiller makes have been growing on me and yes, I am trying the 'flat on two sides' method also. I like the way they look better than what I have been doing so I am stealing the idea. 8) I had a RO log on the mill that I had left 3 weeks ago when the firewood called me. I finished that off first, all in 8/4 slabs and got that stickered up. Then I had 4 or 5 of the short logs and I had fun with the easy manipulating of them and getting the cut to give the best curve.
 It was really nice to be able, for at least once, to back the logs onto the mill.



 

By golly it was hot when the sun came around the back of the shop and I finally had to work with no shirt. This is very rare for me, I cannot remember the last time I did it, but I can say I had a better looking body then ;D. The sweat was running off in streams, but I wanted to get these logs done.


 

Above is one of the RO logs. Not a great curve, but it is a curve. And this is the one ash log I had in the lot:


 
 
I went through these as fast as I could with the sun beating on my back, still it pretty much took all day to cut stack and sticker. I wound up with this stack, plus two other small ones on the far side of the rack.


 

That sun makes you work fast and these little logs went fairly quick, still there is a lot of handling and sometimes I moved too fast. I had as close a call as I want to this log clamp. Any closer and it would have slipped up and hit the blade.


 

Still, no hits(today). When I started this morning I had my first ever 4° blade on which I had already used to do all the cherry a few weeks ago, plus some other stuff and the beginning of the big RO log. It had the tell tale shine on the blade tips telling me it was time for a change, but the thing is, it was still cutting SO DanG Flat! So I figured I would let it go for a while and see when the cut started to degrade. I milled all today's wood with it with hardly a wave or complaint. It was getting a little hard to push on that last Ash log, which was old, dead, and very dry and hard. It's still on the mill. I will open the next log with it and then change it (maybe  :D). I am so happy with these WM double hard 4° blades that I will never order anything else unless there is a darn good reason.
 After all the milling, I finally cut those cookies with the holes in them and loaded them into the mule. All is in the shop now, but I am too tired to work on them tonight. I don't know if I can keep the pace up tomorrow, but I have a green and short RO log by the mill I will probably make 4/4 boards out of, then we proceed with the quarter saw project on a bass wood log. They are predicting good rain for tomorrow, so that may be a wash, we shall see. I might get a couple of hours before I am rained out. Right now, I just want a beer.  :D

[thecfarm]

Your Grandson does better than mine.  ;D 
I had him sweeping, next thing I know he is sweeping dirt into the garage.  ???  Oh well he was having fun. I don't think he was even 5 years old. One of my friends was here, and I can still hear him laugh about it.

[Old Greenhorn]

Your Grandson does better than mine.  ;D
I had him sweeping, next thing I know he is sweeping dirt into the garage.  ???  Oh well he was having fun. I don't think he was even 5 years old. One of my friends was here, and I can still hear him laugh about it.

Like most human behavior, mine has deep roots. We went through that a couple of years ago (and are still going thru it with the 4 year old to some extent). When I wanted to learn how to use tools and run machines my Dad started me out by learning how to sweep the shop. He said 'you need to learn from the ground up and if you can't keep the shop clean, you can't take care of the equipment, and if you can't take care of the equipment, you have no business running equipment, not my equipment anyway.'
 SO yeah, I have a 'thing' with that. It's not like I am a nutso clean freak, but I hate working in a shop full of sawdust, scattered tools, and scrap everywhere. So I don't clean everyday, but I do clean regularly and the boys like helping with that because they can do it without an adult holding their hand every second. Yeah, we did the sweeping dirt into the shop thing for quite a while, but we are making progress. ;D
 I guess it's like my version of "Wax on, wax off", the zen approach to mechanical aptitude. (tm)

[Nebraska]

They are learning so much just watching you work. They see a work ethic that somehow society seems to be teaching many kids that it's unnecessary.They will see that hard work and perseverance will pay off. It has for you,  being your own boss and everything....(mostly) ;) you are married.....

[Old Greenhorn]

,  being your own boss and everything....(mostly) ;) you are married.....

That is an illusion most smart women allow us to believe. :D ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Didn't get much done yesterday just some piddling in the shop painting, sanding, cleaning, planning, etc. The humidity was way too high to apply any finishes.
 Today I put a coat of urethane on that table that warped on me after finally getting it to lay back down. I should go do the other side when I finish this post if it's dry enough to flip before it moves again. Then I headed out to the mill and finished off the last RO (small) log I had queued up and cleared the decks to start this quarter sawing test. Just a handful of 4/4 boards because I don't have any 4/4 RO in the rack. Nothing special. This had a rot hole up the center so I had to work around that and used the remaining 4x4 center to make 2 short ramps to help roll logs up on the mill. Near the end of that log the engine on the mill started balking under load. It had made one funny 'pop' when I tried to start it, but then ran just fine at idle. But at the high end under load it was throwing just a little smoke and balking a bit, it got worse as I finished up the last board or two. Now, I had a 4° blade on there, the first one I tried and I knew it was dull, but as it was my first one, I left it on to see how far it would go before it stopped cutting flat, but it hung right in there making good boards all along but it did get harder to push and did make the mill buck near the end, so I had to go slow and controlled. When it was done I stickered everything up and then put a new 4° blade on, cleaned and greased and oiled some stuff as I went. I also pulled the air filter and cleaned some dust out of the pre-filter, but the paper filter is pristine. Tomorrow I will check the plug, but the first cut should tell the tale. I spent some time marking out and planning how to cut the log and was just about ready to give it a shot when the sky opened up and I had to cover the mill and get under cover myself. So just another day. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I thought today was a washout/shop day and it started out that way. I did some finishing work in the shop, but around lunch time it kind of cleared and the radar had big enough breaks that I thought I could risk it. I took the smallest basswood log and took a shot at quarter sawing it. It is a really tough wood to see the grain structure in. It is so white that all I could go by was the check marks in the ends. It came out pretty well. I took 8/4 out of the center, then worked on one log half and tired 2 different methods on each of the halves. The first one I did as a single half up on the edge. The second half I cut into quarters then laid those two down and milled them together. It took me a couple of hours to work through it. I got 50BF out of the log (which scaled to 40), but a few of the pieces are not quarter sawn. But obviously, it wasn't a big log.



 

I also ran into this little guy today.


 

Now I gotta run off and skid some logs. Hope it's not too late of a night. ;D

(edit to add 2.5 hours later): Just got done unloading logs. Forgot to mention that I pulled the plug on the mill this morning and cleaned it, it had light carbon build up. Between that and cleaning the air filter, it ran like a champ all afternoon. No issues. Also, I started with a new 4° blade on that log and managed to hit a log clamp on the second cut. It really ticked me off, I only have 5 of those blades and no cash to get another full box yet. But the next blade worked well and I am back to being careful again. SO not a bad day all around, and now it is raining again. >:(

[Old Greenhorn]

Kind of an odd day today with the rain coming and going but not much rain coming down. I got out on the mill at 10am and put up the oldest log I had laying around. Got an order for 8' tomato stakes last night, yes, 8'. He wants 2 dozen. Man it was humid and I sweat buckets. The log wasn't as good as I thought and I will get a bunch of 3, 4, and 6' stakes out of it, but not a lot of good stuff at 8', so I threw up a fresh pine log after lunch and milled that one too. Now I have a mess of stakes waiting to be pointed. I just stacked them on the little trailer and drove the whole thing around and backed it right in the shop. Rain kept threatening all day and at a few points I was milling in a light rain, but it always passed. 3 miles away they got clobbered with some good rain.


 

 Now I just have to figure out how to point these. My buddy has a lumberjack pointing tool he will lend me, but he can't find it in his shop. :D
 SO I will rig something up on the RA saw so I can trim the top square and point the end in the same handling. Tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well today was a full workday just putting in the labor. I pointed just over 7 dozen tomato stakes. I did the 8 footers for my customer order and he picked them up withing 2 hours ago when I told him they were ready, cash in hand. I took the remaining ones I had and cut them pretty much in half, thinking not too many folks want an 8' tomato stake, but 4' might sell. If I made 5', the remnant would be waste, so I opted for 4' to get two out of each (or most of them). There was come loss due to poor wood. So he has his 2 dozen, plus some extras and I have a little over 5 dozen with no immediate plans. Plus I have some random shorts (hey, you never know). SO what to do with all these things?
 SO I thought on it while doing the grunt work of pointing. As I have been meaning to throw a coat of paint on that little junk trailer I use for hauling stuff around the yard I had an idea. If i painted the trailer so it didn't look like yard waste itself, then made a rack and some signage, I could park the thing out on the front lawn during the day and see if it generates any traffic. Maybe I'll meet my neighbors at least.
 SO I have no photos of the stakes (just a 1.5" square stick with a 2 sided point) here is the trailer all painted up.


 

Tomorrow I will make a rack and figure out some signs and how to make it look decent. Not a bad day. A lot of sweat, a happy customer (I didn't get a photo, but he did send me a photo of his garden with the stakes about and hour ago.), and a full workday with no 'old man' breaks. I will take a chance and try this out, who knows? The worst that will happen is i wasted some time finding out what folks down't want. i have a bunch of stakes that will sell eventually, or I can give away as good will, the trailer got painted and I was going to do it anyway, just needed an excuse, and I will have to make a display rack, but I am using job scraps of PT my son dropped off last night so the cost is just my time. I am still learning everyday.

 I also talked with my customer's wife, she wants a 6' bench to go with their large kitchen table, if she likes it, she will get a second one for the other side. We talked wood and sizes and other considerations. Looks like it will be pine to match the table, no live edges, with nice solid legs. I will have to work on the leg design, and of course, the log I need to use is at the bottom of my log pile, but it's an order, and I think I will make two from the get go, so they match. I'll take a risk on the second one, since they are taking a chance on me.  Baby steps.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I don't feel like I got much done today but I am tired and didn't quit until after 8. When I got in the shower the salt flooded my eyes all over again and burned like pepper spray on the second go 'round (or so I am told ;D).
 I had in mind to get the lawn mowed when it dried enough, but that never happened. It is tall enough now to be driving me crazy because it looks terrible. Every time it looked like I might have a shot, some rain came in, then in the afternoon we got a gully washer and we stand at about 1.5" for the day. 
 So shop work again. I made a rack for the tomato stakes and put that on the trailer. All from leftover drops from some job my son just finished that would have gone to the dump if I didn't take them, and of course I over built it as usual. But what are you going to do when you have a 4' piece of 2x12? So I used it. ;D I made up some signs, printed them and took them to the copy center in town to get laminated. Then I came back and tacked them up. I have a couple of small cheap things I can also put on the trailer, just to generate questions or interest in other stuff and I added a sign that lists other 'services available'. I figure the tomato stakes are just a conversation starter, if nothing else. I took inventory of the stakes on the trailer and it comes to just over $150. which is nothing and not really worth the work, but if it gets a connection or two, then it is worth it. So here is the trailer setup.



 
After it was all done and I stepped back to asses my work I realized there was a pricing error on the sign for the 6' stakes. No matter, I am 'out of stock' on those anyway and I corrected it with a sharpie. I will get a new sign laminated next time I go to town.


 

Then I looked around for some other small stuff to put on the trailer. I don't want to put any of the really nice tables out in the sun, but if folks express an interest, they can see them in the shop. So I found two of these cookies I have been messing with for a year and a half. I put the legs on them, did a quick light sand and a final coat of urethane to clean them up.


 
I also found a bookshelf and a stool. I will also put a business card holder in there and call it good, for now. It's a work in progress, we will see how it goes. No rain in the forecast until Monday. I had thought a little about security too. I am not too worried about theft because I plan to put it out in the morning and take it in in the evening. That's the nice thing about the trailer, it's easy and I can pull that with the lawn tractor and just leave the tractor out there too. But I did find a nice spot to put a trail cam, just in case, and I set that up tonight and will check the card in the morning to see if I have it aimed right.
 The whole point of this, for me, is not to sell tomato stakes (which I never even THOUGHT of making until 4 days ago). The point is for the folks that travel my road to know I am here and have something to offer they might want. We are still just like a small town, and I am hoping I can use that network to get some sales going and get this ball rolling (slowly, but rolling none the less).
 My wife also tells me that an open air market in Woodstock has gotten the OK to re-open. This is like a cross between a flea market and a farmers market. You see household junk, LP's by the thousands, artists, food stuffs, craftsman, and any other creation you could imagine. Yes, the Woodstock nation is alive and well here. ;D Given the tourist load in Woodstock, it is a good location with possibilities for me. We (or I) plan to make a visit tomorrow and check it out and find out the details. My wife has never done this one...yet. I have not been up to Woodstock in 4 months, but judging by the weekend traffic which I can barely tolerate between Friday and Sunday, I would say the town is hopping pretty well under the circumstances. Since it's 'tourist season' and apparently we are still not allowed to shoot 'em, maybe I can sell 'em something?
 Anyway, tomorrow is another day.

[WV Sawmiller]

   The cookie stools look real nice but underpriced. Can you show the bottom with connections and such. Did you make the legs and if so more details. What kind of wood are they? The more I think of cookie benches the more I think they have to be thicker than my 8/4 LE benches. I like the looks of yours.

[Old Greenhorn]

Those are junk cookies I have been using for testing for 3 years now. The legs are from a clearance store and are really a little table. They can't be used as stools and look funky if you look underneath. Yes, If I had really strong hairpin legs they would be worth more, but these are just drink holder tables for a porch or fire pit.


 
 Not real proud of the workmanship on this 'mount'.

[Old Greenhorn]

It was a lazy day yesterday. I figure it was a holiday and it couldn't hurt to goof off a little. I took a run over to Woodstock to check out that market first thing in the morning and see if it was something I might be interested in. Still thinking about it. I ran into a husband and wife pair making and selling nice little woodcarvings and we chatted a bit with an exchange of business cards at the end. They are interested in some basswood and also pointed me at a large local carving club. They want 16/4 materiel. We will be in touch soon.
 Then I came home and mowed the lawn which really needed it and I put out the trailer by the road edge and updated my Facebook page to let folks know. 


 
Not one car or truck stopped all day. >:( I did notice about 3 slow down just a little. There was one FB share out there and as a result of that word got back to me that a fella I know with a land clearing and septic field business said he would "take everything I had". When I finally got hold of him late last night and this morning, that was refined to be '3 dozen, 4' stakes'. I gave him a price and he is happy, now he just has to pick them up, and the last time he bought some huge top boards for his dump (which I milled in a rush) it took a bit to get him to pick them up. But, his cash is the same color as everyone else's. ;D
 I spent most of the day sticking to the 'lazy' plan. Mostly I think I just needed a day 'off' so I took it. It was hot and humid and I soaked my t-shirt through before 10am. We had my son and his boys over in the evening for a little campfire and to watch the next door neighbor's shoot off a couple of paycheck's worth of fireworks. Much better this year than last. Last year it was too dry to think about it and they had stuff flying horizontal through the trees. (There may have been some alcohol involve, just guessing.) This year it is wetter and the stuff remained mostly vertical. The boys enjoyed the show. We managed to find a bag of stuff from years ago in the shop of little stuff and we shot off some bottle rockets and had sparklers for the boys. Then we got into the marshmallows for a while and they did pretty good with those, very few 'sacrifices' :D. We loaded them in the car around 11:30 in a semi-conscious condition. Apparently it was tough work for them.


 

As for today, I have no idea. I slept really late and am slow to get going. Guess I will give that trailer another day and see if anyone stops to look. Maybe it was just a bad idea, but maybe not. You never know until you try and it only cost me a day or two of labor, so, what the heck?

[doc henderson]

most folks were probably in route and or returning from plans and activities for the holiday.  You may get inquiries in 2 weeks generated by that roadside advertising.

[Nebraska]

Yes my first thought was be patient, all good things take time. I think that little trailer was a good idea especially with all the other stuff you do. Glad you had a good fourth with family.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I figure it's a long game type of thing. 'bad idea' was not the best term to use. Just another idea. You try stuff and don't put too much money or effort in until you know if it works. I learned a long time ago the best opportunities came from the strangest places. Never thought I would run into carvers looking for wood yesterday and putting out the trailer did result on the indirect sale of 3 dozen stakes. So there is that.
Funny but I never noticed before that most folks drive with tunnel vision looking straight ahead and never even notice the trailer. Of course they are driving too fast so I guess that has something to do with it. My neighbor right across the road passed by at least 6 times yesterday I will bet 20 bucks he still hasn't seen that trailer. Every time I pass him on the road I wave and he never sees me even though we are facing each other. I think that is very strange, but he is not alone. It seems a lot of folks are like that.

[Ljohnsaw]

How much road frontage do you have?  If you have a bit, make up some Burma Shave signs...  Something like

"Just" 

"Ahead" 

"Sharp" 

"Sticks"

or 

"Beef" 

"Steak" 

"Tomato" 

"Stakes" 

or some other goofy thing to make them slow down and look around.

[firefighter ontheside]

"Should"
"have"
"Bought"
"A"
"Squirrel"

[Old Greenhorn]

Great ideas guys, I love the burma shave signs, I have a book around here with a lot of the text from them somewhere. 
 Sorry, but I don't have that kind of frontage, but it is a fun idea. Now y'all are going to have a good laugh at this, but I never told you that I live on a 'no outlet' road.Yeah, I know, on your side of this page your are probably laughing and wondering what kind of an idiot I am, but it's not as bad as you might think. You actually can get through and out the other side, but it requires a couple of things: A vehicle with a good suspension, knowing the landowner of the last piece of property, or the ability to drive faster than said landowner can draw a bead. ;D The road is about 2-3 miles long and we get a fair amount of traffic. What I miss is the folks that live between me and the corner, they rarely come down this way. Again, mostly I am doing this to raise curiosity. Another dry day today though. >:( Now my wife wants me to add some small bundles of camp wood for the folks that rent B&B's on the road. I dunno. I was thinking of putting a short slab or two out there for a few days.
 Another lazy day today. pretty warm here and I think maybe if I took it a little easier on the weekends I can be more focused during the week. (Well anyway, it sounded good today when I didn't feel like doing anything. :D) It was just such a pretty day and the neighbors were away so it was quiet. I listened to the birds (and a few minutes ago, the owls) and relaxed. Back to the normal grind tomorrow. ;D
 

[Old Greenhorn]

"Should"
"have"
"Bought"
"A"
"Squirrel"

I assume this was your reference?

[Old Greenhorn]

Been a while since I updated. I haven't been doing many photos either, mostly household chores. I spent Friday afternoon at NYBHH's place, we were postulating on a design for a portable fire control system he can move around his property and have a water supply so he can burn safely. I brought over a pump, some plumbing, and another tank and we played by the creek moving water and talking through the design. I got pretty wet here and there when I wasn't fast enough on the valves, but it was SO hot, who cared? ;D By the evening, we had some good concepts to work with and before I got home he had a lot of the basics spec'ed out already. Sorry, no photos.
 As I said, it has been hot so I have been diddling on little things here and there but nothing special. I did get one person stop to look at the goods on the front lawn yesterday, a neighbor I have known for many years.  He didn't need any of the stuff I had on the trailer but asked if I knew where he could get a few batten boards.  ;D 'Yeah, sure, c'mon back to the stack'. It didn't take long to find some of the little basswood pieces I threw on the drying stack with no plan for them. He even liked the one live edge that I offered to take off. So no direct sales from the display, but at least I got someone who stopped and another connection resulted from it. This is exactly what I had hoped for.  It's' slow, but it works, sort of.
 My son finished a job on Friday that he had rented scaffolding for and he can't return it until Monday, so he left it in the shop for the weekend. ;D Since I put that little 45° loft up, the ceiling fan has intruded into the working area and is not safe. I have already had a few close calls. I needed to move it for a 3rd (hopefully final) time. My original new spot had the scaffolding out in the middle of the floor and the design on this system has you climb up the outside then swing around the rail on the outside to get on the deck. This thing is narrow (2') and with all my weight 8' off the floor it got pretty tipsy when I tried to swing around. I didn't have a step ladder high enough to get me up there either. I re-thought my location choice. And settled for something safe, but closer to the upstairs decks. I could step from the deck onto the scaffold. However the thing was pretty wobbly for an old guy and I was not comfortable working above my head. So I ran a couple of strap boards  and screwed them to the deck on the floor and the scaffold.


 
  
This firmed it up pretty well. I was mindful of many 'did something dumb today' posts (had a few myself) and I did not feel like creating a new one today. My balance isn't what it once was and I was, admittedly, very tensed up which is also not good. But I managed to get it done and do a proper job.


 
 
After I got all that stuff cleaned up and the scaffold ready to return to the renter I decided to get some logs ready to put on the mill. I got one old clunker EWP yanked out and I thought the pile would drop, but it didn't. I don't like having an unstable pile with the boys playing here. They know not to climb on it, but that is something I am not taking a chance on, so I rolled one log with a can't hook to fill a hole, but there was another 'hanger' and I could not roll it by hand with the other logs on top of it. What to do? Well I found another application for the MagicMan Hook (tm).


 

I gave it a tug with the Mule and over she came and the pile settled down. My problem is still the big EWP on the bottom I need to get out and milled for a job. I'll figure that out another day. I tried to  discuss it with my office manager but she didn't seem to care.


 

Tomorrow is another day.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH,

  Great to hear from you again. I was getting worried since I had not seen anything here in about a week. Glad you had a productive day. I am surprised about the basswood for battens as I would not think they are durable enough but once the customer buys them that is his issue. I try to give them a suggestion but ... I took a sample piece of buckeye to a lady at the flea market today. A 1X4 about 3' long (1 bf). It has air dried 18 months, very light and a pretty sample. She is doing more woodburning and her husband does my Lichtenburg engraving. I will see what she thinks of it. I think she uses a lot of 3" pieces 8-9 inches long. I told her I could stand one on edge and resaw one of my 12/4 pieces into thin pieces if she likes. We will see.

[Walnut Beast]

Like WV said good to hear from you 👍

[Old Greenhorn]

Aw, you guys missed me. ;)  I have been posting on other threads all week. I guess those weren't noticeable? ;D I think I spent this week trying to figure out if the heat is just getting to me, or if I have the early 'retirement blues'. :D
 Yeah, I would not have picked the basswood either and advised him as such, but I believe he is going to paint it, so it should still be OK. He needed so little that it wasn't really worth worrying about. 
 I don't get any buckeye here, hope your customer likes it.
 I forgot to mention in the previous post that I spent a day jacking up and supporting the new drying rack I built several weeks ago. I underestimated the weight (actually just didn't think about it enough) so I had to jack it up in the middle and add supports or legs as I could to get it back to flat. Probably gonna make another smaller one this week. We will see how the weather goes. 

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH,

   Actually I had noticed your posts on some of the other threads so I figured you were still alive and assumed you were too busy to post. Reminds me of the time I got a letter from an old HS buddy I had not heard from for several years. He wrote "I'd have wrote sooner but the fish were biting." Who can refute logic like that? :D