True one man (or woman) operations

[Banjo picker]

I was just wondering how many of the sawyers on here work totaly by themselves with no help. If you do how do you do it.  When I first got my mill my youngest son worked with me, but the job market in this area improved and I couldn't match what he could make in the metal trades.  I am glad for him, I am also glad that the AC36 is a pretty good match for a man working by himself.  I use the drag back most of the time to pull the slabs and material back to the operator station, where it comes off the back roller and on to roller tables that we built.  I have drug back a 16 x 16 cant with it before.  I have three racks by the side of the roller tables, I drop the slabs onto the first one and the product on to the other two.  When any rack gets full, I stop and move it.  

Here is a stack of oak 2 x 6s I cut today.  When I get the cant cut I edge the boards I have on the loading arms.  I learned not to let them pile up.  The AC36 has an arm that will swing to the edge of where you will do the edging...that arm has the controls for the stops and dogs on it.  If you are working by your self that is a handy feature.


 Here is the roller tables.  I have installed a saw in between table one and two for cut to length that I do sometimes. 

 
Thats how I do it by my self.  I have even got to where I like cutting alone.  When someone is trying to "help" I am always watching them to make sure they don't get in the wrong place and then you make other mistakes.  I guess if you got use to someone it would be different, but I usually just shut it down if someone comes up.  Any one else want to tell how they go about it jump in.  Banjo

[Bruno of NH]

That's a great set up

[WDH]

I always saw alone.  My slabs go straight to the tractor forks so that when I have a load, they get moved to the slab pile well away from the mill.  Customers come get the slabs for $10 per pick-up truck load or $20 for all you can load on a 16' trailer.  The pile ebbs and flows, but the customers generally keep it pulled down.  

I use the drag back and sticker each board as it comes off the mill onto an adjacent pallet if the board does not need to be edged.  If it does need edging, it goes on saw horses set parallel to the mill as the edger is position parallel to the mill.  sawing alone, I cannot imagine having to edge on the mill.  I consider the edger to be better than sliced bread.  

[Sixacresand]

An appropriate sized forked FEL would definitely improve life for a one man operation.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   When sawing at my home I am typically a one man show. I do not claim to be particularly efficient but I do operate a shoe string operation. I drag the log to be sawed to the mill with my ATV or JD750 tractor with a small Bushhog 1846 model FEL. I have a bucket on the FEL with 20" forks in the bucket. I can lift and move small logs with the FEL. My mill is hydraulic so I roll the log on the mill arms with my curved Logrite and lift, rotate and saw. I either park the tractor or a 5X8 utility trailer at the end of the mill and slide the finished boards and slabs off onto whichever I am using. I throw my waste slabs over the sawdust pile on to dunnage at the back side of the mill. When the pile gets to big or I move the mill for a mobile job I move the slabs to a staging area out in the pasture. Customers come and buy them over time. When I get lucky the customer picks them up right behind the mill and I don't have to double handle them. I charge about $10-$25 a pickup or trailer load and they load. I move the sawdust with the FEL bucket to a low spot I am filling. I take the finished lumber and slabs over to my shed or stack and sticker them on blocks in the lot and cover with old roofing tin for air drying till used or sold. My biggest drawback is lack of adequate covered storage space and inadequate MHE. My mill is more for a hobby and supplemental income than any kind of primary source of income.

[moodnacreek]

Yes, I saw alone but on a circle mill for which there is little interest these days. The carriage has no on board power [yet].              It starts at the log deck, powered with stop and load on the carriage, through the saw and slab/board drops on spiral rolls on to belt conveyer to flipper table that flips r/h to slab drag or l/h to green chain. Back on the spiral rolls is a flag stop to drop boards to be edged on the floor that is a trap door with a lift under it to raise the flitch boards up to the edger. The slab drag goes to a Cornell slab wood saw.  The logs come in on and old gas tandem with picker. The boards are stickered on the green chain in 4 foot bundles and moved with a fork lift.  The edger has a sweep table to another green chain. The edger sticks are pulled out by hand and burned in an old tank. All this took years to build. Also it is powered by a 175 kw diesel gen. set.

[WV Sawmiller]

Moody,

    I'd love to see a video of you running your mill. Every circle mill I ever saw operated looked like at least a 2 person and usually better if 3-4 people were required to keep it running efficiently. You must be one busy man when sawing on that rig!

[longtime lurker]

There never seem to be enough hours in a day.

I lose an hour to an hour and a half most days on administration: phone calls, quotes, dealing with customers and suppliers and chasing up parts and all that kinda thing.
Probably spend 3/4 hour most days sharpening saws of one kind or another.
Then theres pulling stuff from stock, and kilns that need checking, and working the log yard. 
Throw in a quick run into town for a bolt or a bottle of milk or something. 
Theres always a mess to clean up somewhere and something needing fueling or maintenance.
Stickers: I am forever making more stickers.
And a mans got to eat.

Most days I'm lucky if I can get 4 or 5 hours to actually saw in a ten hour day. But with another man I can usually get  7 or 8 hours a day on the saw because the other guy can do some of the other work as well, and material flow is better if theres someone to run the docking saw and stack some. I like sawing by myself... but with 2 of us production doesnt double, it triples or quadruples depending.

I kinda wish it wasnt necessary but sawing solo has become a bit of an indulgence I can't afford. Sadly.

[Percy]

I was just wondering how many of the sawyers on here work totaly by themselves with no help. If you do how do you do it.  When I first got my mill my youngest son worked with me, but the job market in this area improved and I couldn't match what he could make in the metal trades.  I am glad for him, I am also glad that the AC36 is a pretty good match for a man working by himself.  I use the drag back most of the time to pull the slabs and material back to the operator station, where it comes off the back roller and on to roller tables that we built.  I have drug back a 16 x 16 cant with it before.  I have three racks by the side of the roller tables, I drop the slabs onto the first one and the product on to the other two.  When any rack gets full, I stop and move it.  

Here is a stack of oak 2 x 6s I cut today.  When I get the cant cut I edge the boards I have on the loading arms.  I learned not to let them pile up.  The AC36 has an arm that will swing to the edge of where you will do the edging...that arm has the controls for the stops and dogs on it.  If you are working by your self that is a handy feature.


 Here is the roller tables.  I have installed a saw in between table one and two for cut to length that I do sometimes.  

 
Thats how I do it by my self.  I have even got to where I like cutting alone.  When someone is trying to "help" I am always watching them to make sure they don't get in the wrong place and then you make other mistakes.  I guess if you got use to someone it would be different, but I usually just shut it down if someone comes up.  Any one else want to tell how they go about it jump in.  Banjo

This is great! I have done similar things too for working alone. Speed to the next cut is as important, or even more so , than feed rate....You got a system there that works....

[Bruno of NH]

I can't get over how nice it is to have an edger
I'm saving lots of time and lumber

[Larry]

With roller tables and dragback I never carry a board more than a step or two to put on sticks as I saw.

Live edge (read heavy) slabs slide off the log onto the loader arms to be picked up by a machine.

I edge on the mill.  With my modified clamp and chain turner I can stand the flitches against the cant which eliminates one manual step.  I can also flip the flitches using the clamp if aligned correctly.  After edging I usually drag back about a 1/3 of the boards along with the waste.  The remaining 2/3's is manual work and slow.

I get sawing production nearly the same as running with a helper.  A helper is really worth while running a machine to remove slabs from the rack and bringing more logs.

[KenMac]

I'm watching this thread with interest since I just got my AC36. One man operation played large into my decision to go with Cook's. I hope to find ways to do things the right way here. Thanks, Banjo!

[Lawg Dawg]

I sawed by myself for 8 years...but hired a young guy in high school (couple months ago) to help me in the evenings and Saturday mornings...now I can do my woodworking jobs during the day and saw like crazy every afternoon when he comes in...my income has tripled in the last two months   . I know because I also started keeping a book!  :D and he cuts all my grass also!  8) good kid.

[moodnacreek]

Longtime Lurker, Sounds like we have a lot in common as I have all the problems you mention.              W.V. , I have never learned to post photos or even take them. Also I never bought a cell phone. I spend a lot of time working if I say so myself and at nite and at 70 I am tired but I would like to get some one to shoot a video of my set up and post it here some day.

[YellowHammer]

I don't have a one man operation but I do saw 90% of the time alone.  I have adjusted my sawing technique to fit our sales operation.  We sell both live edge 8/4 and edged 4/4 and I will get both strategically from the same log.  

I will take off the first opening cut and drag the bark slab back onto a perpendicular roller table which has a 1 inch per 4 foot slant, give or take.  As soon as the bark slab goes onto the well oiled roller table, gravity slowly moves it about 10 feet where it falls off the roller table onto the waiting and parked loader forks.  I never have to touch it once it's on the roller table.  Gravity does all the work.

Then I cut of my first 9\4 live edge slab, which I will take one or two, until I get to where I anticipate I have the depth of a clean cant face.  Then I rotate 180, take and roll an opening face slab down the gravity conveyor, take another 1 or 2 of the 9/4 live edge slabs, then rotate 90 and start sawing 4/4 edged wood off the cant.  Then finish the cant doing that.  So the only wood that goes onto the trash pile is 4 barky slabs, the rest of the log is converted to 9/4 live edge and 4/4 edged.  Nothing goes to the edger, all are pulled back onto the same pallet with my drag back carrier.  All go plop and next cut.  Real quick the log is gone and I load another.  My log deck holds 6 logs and that's how many I can mill before the loader arms are fullof waste bark slabs.  So when I'm out of logs, I crank up the loader, drive to the log yard, dump the waste and grab 6 or so more logs and the cycle continues until I have the pile of dead stacked wood at the height of my roller table.  That's about 800 to 1,000 bdft.  Then I pick up the dead stacked pallet with my forklift, transport it to a covered shed and load another empty pallet and saw another pallet full.

I get a proper mix of 9/4 and 4/4 from each log and never have to edge.

It's a pretty fast throughout technique and generates a lot of product very quickly with minimal steps, minimal waste, no edging and no stickering.  

[Lawg Dawg]

I don't have a one man operation but I do saw 90% of the time alone.  I have adjusted my sawing technique to fit our sales operation.  We sell both live edge 8/4 and edged 4/4 and I will get both strategically from the same log.  

I will take off the first opening cut and drag the bark slab back onto a perpendicular roller table which has a 1 inch per 4 foot slant, give or take.  As soon as the bark slab goes onto he well oiled roller table, gravity slowly moves it about 10 feet where it falls off the roller table onto the waiting and parked loader forks.  I never have to touch it once it's on the roller table.  Gravity does all the work.

By then I have already started the cut of my first 9\4 live edge slab, which I will take one or two, until I get to where I anticipate I have the depth of a clean cant face.  Then I rotate 180, take and roll an opening face slab down the gravity conveyor, take another 1 or 2 of the 9/4 live edge slabs, then rotate 90 and start sawing 4/4 edged wood off the cant.  Then finish the cant doing that.  So the only wood that goes onto the trash pile is 4 barky slabs, the rest of the log is converted to 9/4 live edge and 4/4 edged.  Nothing goes to the edger, all are pulled back onto the same pallet with my drag back carrier.  All go plop and next cut.  Real quick the log is gone and I load another.  My log deck holds 6 logs and that's how many I can mill before the loader arms are full are full of waste bark slabs.  So when I'm out of logs, I crank up the loader, drive to the log yard, dump the waste and grab 6 or so more logs and the cycle continues until I have the pile of dead stacked wood at the height of my roller table.  That's about 800 to 1,000 bdft.  Then I pick up the dead stacked pallet with my forklift, transport it to a covered shed and load another empty pallet and saw another pallet full.

I get a proper mix of 9/4 and 4/4 from each log and never have to edge.

It's a very fast throughout technique and generates a lot of product very quickly with minimal steps, minimal waste, no edging and no stickering.  

Yellow Hammer, you gonna be open anytime for demonstrations

[YellowHammer]

Sure, come on by.  Actually, I give them, to one degree or another, several times a year to local cubs or organizations.

[PAmizerman]

I saw by myself. Your set up is very nice. You should be able to get good production with it. 

I'm crammed in a small area so I can't extend straight back from the mill.


 

[Bruno of NH]

Lawg
I had a high school kid good kid too
But when he got a full time girlfriend it was all over.
All he cared about was checking up on her on the phone.
Sent him home early one day to think about his job,never came back

[Bruno of NH]

Also his mother called the cops on me for sending him home :D

[Oliver05262]

We used to call the part timers "summer help". Some are help, and some are not.  We had one foreman who used to look at someone who wasn't much help and say to himself "I might as well whittle a wooden man".
  Maybe I missed it, Bruno, but where are the pictures of the finished edger shed? 

[YellowHammer]

Our helpers are true W2 salaried and insured employees, and the reason they can work on Saturday is they they have full time jobs during the week so they appreciate the extra day of work and salary.  

We've found its pretty hard to find a good part time employee to work during the week, because if they were any good, they would generally have a full time job somewhere else.  However, some really good people want to earn some extra pay on Saturdays and we've had employees from college kids to oil rig workers and house construction guys.  

A few years ago we got involved with an employment agency who can supply us with part timers, if we can't find our own.

[Bruno of NH]

We used to call the part timers "summer help". Some are help, and some are not.  We had one foreman who used to look at someone who wasn't much help and say to himself "I might as well whittle a wooden man".
 Maybe I missed it, Bruno, but where are the pictures of the finished edger shed?

 

 still need to add siding