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Memorial Day weekend sawing job

Started by WV Sawmiller, May 24, 2015, 11:04:06 PM

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WV Sawmiller

    Months ago when got interested in setting up the milling business I put together a contract and had my local attorney review it. He blessed it and sent it back with no charge. He did say he wanted me to come cut some locust posts for him when I got up and running. He called me a couple weeks ago to schedule the work. I went out and looked at the site. He had a bunch of short, crooked posts and a few someone else had cut but needed reworking. Basically he just wanted 4X4 posts out of them and the other guy had squared 2-3 sides. He also had a big maple, a cherry, one small eastern cedar and some trashy poplar from a storm 3 years ago. I told him I'd come cut it for him but not to get his hopes up. I told him because of the small mixed up lot I'd have to bill by the hour and he was fine with that.

    I went over yesterday and started cutting. The first locusts were the re-works and so hard I thought we were going to get a friction fire. We got into the maple, some logs had big holes in them but once opened we found some really pretty spalting. We got nice 4/4, 6/4 and some 8/4 out of them then the cherry. All live edge stuff. The poplar was awful weak and I'd have trashed it but cut what he wanted. Finally back to his locust pile. We found old hornet nest, black ant nests, chipmunk or mice nests, etc. He'd put a 5' post on there about 5-6" diameter with crook in it. I'd cut the best we could often with wane on all 4 sides. He was fine with that so I kept cutting. Wore out my customer/helper so we quit yesterday and resumed this afternoon. Finally finished the locust and cut the cedar. Hard to clamp because so short and knotty but sliced it into 1/2" boards like he wanted.

    Had a lot of problems with bands coming off because of the short stuff, hard to clamp and associated operator error but got through it all. Had one 4 degree band that just would not stay on the wheels. Had 2 others out of the same box. They look fine. WM replaced the others with no question . Had one new 10 degree band just would not cut at all. No explanation for that as old blade previous was cutting but worn and next one cut fine.

      Was a long day but customer was satisfied and never batted an eye at the 9+ hours rate which is what we actually ran on the mill. I guess sometimes it is just best to advise then when the customer wants something else done go ahead and do the best you can with what he provides you to cut.

    Came home and rinsed off the mill and parked it in the front lot, put up the tools then the grandkids arrived before I finished. Conned them into picking up my wood scraps from a shed I'm building and we had a nice fire, cooked hot dogs and smores down on my lot with my big rock picnic table and half log benches.

    Now if I can get my grass cut and trimmed tomorrow before our fish fry later in the week It will have been a wonderful weekend. Happy Memorial Day especially to my fellow veterans out the.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

Ljohnsaw

Sounds like a great time.

Spent my day not sawing but digging out the roots of a big pine stump with my Davis Little Monster.  The old ad says it has 10,000lb roll out force but all it did was lift my tail up in the air!  Finally popped all the roots but no go getting the tap root to pop.  Had to use my SkyTrak to lift it out of the hole.  All in all, I had a fun day, too!
John Sawicky

Just North-East of Sacramento...

SkyTrak 9038, Ford 545D FEL, Davis Little Monster backhoe, Case 16+4 Trencher, Home Built 42" capacity/36" cut Bandmill up to 54' long - using it all to build a timber frame cabin.

WV Sawmiller

Ljohn,

   I was reading your thread on that backhoe. Sounds like a major rebuild to me but I gather you are having a good time with it. Be careful and keep up the good work. Some days are diamonds some days are gold.
Howard Green
WM LT35HDG25(2015) , 2011 4WD F150 Ford Lariat PU, Kawasaki 650 ATV, Stihl 440 Chainsaw, homemade logging arch (w/custom built rear log dolly), JD 750 w/4' wide Bushhog brand FEL

Dad always said "You can shear a sheep a bunch of times but you can only skin him once

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