Sawing a 2"x4" oversize to shrink to exactly 2"x4".

[Dave Shepard]

This was a first for me. It's eastern white pine. Do I just calculate the shrinkage over each dimension and add that to the 2"x4"? Say 2 1/8"x4 1/4"? Or is that going to change if the orientation of the board changes from quartered to flat sawn? Fortunately this is my last custom job. I should have just handed him the piece of paper and told him to write down exactly what he wanted, and let the Accuset do the rest. :D That way I'm not responsible for any weird ideas. :

[WDH]

You must be a magician if you can get all the boards to shrink exactly to 2 x 4 inches. 

[Dave Shepard]

That was my thinking. I'll just saw them some uniform size over, and if they don't shrink right, he can plane them. They are just concrete form board supports anyway. : :-\ ???

[Magicman]

Fortunately this is my last custom job. 

What have I missed??

[WDH]

I had a guy bring some nasty little hickory logs to saw.  Biggest one is like 9" on the little end.  After unloading, and after he left, I stood there looking at the logs and thought, "Why did I agree to do this????"

I, too, have about had it with custom sawing. 

[Dave Shepard]

I didn't buy the mill to custom saw, but I have had three custom saw jobs literally dumped in my yard, unannounced, this spring. They have been nothing but a waste of my time and an aggravation. I will still saw timbers for other framers, but I don't have the time, nor do I want to educate these people who bring junk, short, or inappropriate logs with no understanding of what to expect from their logs. Do I really want to explain to someone that you cannot get "all 1"x12" boards from a 12" diameter log?" No. I don't. I have other things that I need to be doing. It is nothing personal, but I only have so much time to spend at the mill, and I can't afford to be away from my other projects, or be interrupted unexpectedly when I do have time to be there.

[WDH]

Here is one of my custom sawing jobs  .



 

[Dave Shepard]

If all I was doing was running the mill, and I had a more retail location, then I could make it work. Educating the customer is part of any business, but when I have to spend 1/2 to 1 hour on an initial consult, then 1/2 an hour to unload logs from between the fenders of their trailer, then another 3-4 hours sawing, and then 3/4 hour trying to get my neat stack of lumber back in between the fenders of the trailer with the forklift, how do I charge for all of that? I'd have to charge $200/hour to make it worth it. I have over $100k just in orange paint in my yard, and that doesn't include the Lull forklift when it's here for specialty stuff. That also doesn't include the real estate and other infrastructure and clean up (I'll switch to Chrome in a minute and upload a pic of my slab pile shortly) etc. that goes with the mill. To put things into a little bit of perspective, I cut a bunch of timbers for a couple of different framers this spring. One of them was a 9"x12"x31' white pine. It took i hour to cut the timber and cut and stack the side lumber. I got 1 timber at 270 board feet and it was billed at $2/ft. That's $540. I also got I think it was about 500 feet of side lumber that was mostly dead clear or D select. I don't know what that is worth air dried, but let's say an average of $2/ft. Let's also call it another hour to edge and sticker the side lumber and shovel the sawdust from around everything. That's $1,500 gross in two hours. Not every two hours is like that but it sure makes up for the hours when I'm only grossing $250/hour. ;)

edit to add photo:

This slab pile is from 60 hours of sawing and edging. It is an average of 16' wide, with some 31 footers on top. It is 20' tall, and about 30' from front to back. I'm glad I don't saw 40 hours a week!



 

[NMFP]

I quit custom sawing about 2 years ago for this reason!  I don't have the time, patience or energy to deal with little pain in the rear orders for things.  High production is where I am going.

Its actually nice because I can send all of the pain in the rear orders to my neighbor and let him figure it out.  I don't think he has made a dime yet and he has a whole yard full of junk logs to cut..... lots of metal!!!!! 

Its a win-win situation.  I don't have to deal with the logs and junk, he saws them, sends me sharpening work  and I don't deal with any of the stuff other than make money! 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)

[Dave Shepard]

Here is one of my custom sawing jobs  .



 

Did you buy a firewood processor you're not telling us about? :D

[Peter Drouin]

Here is one of my custom sawing jobs  .



 

Good one , the only way I would cut that is by the hr $$$$$$$$$$ a lot  :D :D :D

[WDH]

It gets worse. 

I need to refer these jobs to Customsawyer or Slider or GAsawyer, or to somebody who has a hydraulic mill  :D. 

[Gary_C]

How many 16 foot 1 x 12's can you cut out of that pile WDH? 

:D :D

[isawlogs]

  :D  that picture made me laugh, I was sawing today and he did have some nice spruce logs , then he brought another wagon with some hardwood on it, real nice butternut, a pretty good cherry, thenit went down hil. An eight inch elm, I tried to educate him, but I was asked to saw it, so I did, that and the other limbs that where on the wagon....  :-\  :

  Educating some is a waste of time, only good part about this class room , was that I was sawing by the hour and was being paid to do the educating.

[WDH]

How many 16 foot 1 x 12's can you cut out of that pile WDH? 

:D :D

And then there is the guy that brings you 3 foot pecan limbs to saw.....pecan limbs are not rehabilitable  . 

[Dave Shepard]

I just noticed today that pecan/hickory is next to purpleheart on the Janka hardness scale. I think they should just skip over Janka and go straight to Rockwell. :D

[Peter Drouin]

This was a first for me. It's eastern white pine. Do I just calculate the shrinkage over each dimension and add that to the 2"x4"? Say 2 1/8"x4 1/4"? Or is that going to change if the orientation of the board changes from quartered to flat sawn? Fortunately this is my last custom job. I should have just handed him the piece of paper and told him to write down exactly what he wanted, and let the Accuset do the rest. :D That way I'm not responsible for any weird ideas. :

I would cut 2x4 even ,  Whatever you do, they would be all the same.

[Dave Shepard]

That's probably what I should do. A pine 2"x4" isn't going to shrink much. Maybe I should tell him to get his logs vac-kilned first, then I can saw them precisely to the finished size. :D

[drobertson]

First off, sawing and drying to exact isn't going to happen, on some boards maybe.  Now, on the other hand, custom sawing is the way to go, it makes the most buck for the bang for me.  There are hills and valleys for sure, but in the end, it is what it is.  I just have to know what the logs will realistically produce, and communicate this to whoever is enquiring.  I have never had the hard @$$'S or just plan stupid ones to deal with. 

[red]

My friend gets Very Mad on the phone . . Then tells people let me send you $100 now because I have already lost money on this job