Well, I woke up this morning and the first thing I laid eyes on when I opened my front door, was a flat tire on my truck. I guees if you're going to have a flat, the best place to have it is in the yard.
Next, I go out and I have a couple logs to cut. I put one on the mill last night, to be waiting on me this morning. I make a few cuts and have to use the manual log turner to turn the log. I'll usually use the turner as a dog, until I can get the actual dogging handle in place and tightened down. Then I'll drop the log turner and keep on sawing.
Guess who didn't drop the log turner after he dogged the log??? Yep, I missing a top tooth off that turner and Dang near cut the other tooth off on the other claw. No matter how careful you try to be, it seems you're going to miss something every now and then.
On a positive note, I recieved my cylinders from the surplus center in the mail yesterday. Just another step closer to going hydraulic.
QuoteI ain't gonna hit any metal....
As soon as I read that I knew either you had either become delusional or done the deed.
It happens to the best of us!!!
Even when you're "EXTRA" careful it happens.
Join the crowd! ;)
I like to leave those lines the saw made on the mill. A little reminder of what has happened and what could happen again.
keep tryin ,you will eventually get that claw modified to fit the blade. 8)pc
Gator, me thinks you have a ways to go to match mine. Ths must be some kind of record. The claw on my pineywoods turner/clamp.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/14000/1037/oops.jpg)
Usually happens when somebody is watching. :-[
I was sawing a big red oak for a customer and explaining things as i went along and sawed my squaring arm because I was engaged in demonstation and not paying attention. I told him "now you can see the changing of the blade..." . Put a new blade on and commenced sawing and you can probably complete the story... I forgot to lower the squaring arm and "DanG" I hit it again!!! >:( >:( >:( :-[ :-[ :-[. I did NOT hit it a third time.
Bob
ez boardwalk has a stop catcher that will stop the head before you cut the clamps squareing arm. but you can lift it up with a cable to get around knots ect on the first cut and this i how i usually prove my stupidity.pc
The tip of Pineywoods log turner looks like mine. I cut the point, smooth off. I was thinking it was a nail. Pineywoods, are you a drinking man??? Or do you just saw a bunch of lumber??? That turner is in bad shape for sure.
Its a rite of passage for sawyers,but one dosen't want to become a repete offender.Frank C.
Whow, what a bunch of scars Pineywoods!
I feel awful lucky when I see someone elses mill with scars on it.
I've only got metal on my mill once (K.O.W.), (Jeff; we need a smiley for "Knock on Wood") but the other 2 guys that owned it in the past left some marks on it.
Oh Well, I gives a mill character!
I guess you probably couldn't help from getting the flat...But leaving a log on the mill will put the vodo on you for sure...at least that is what my youngest son Bobby always said when he was sawing for me....I believe if the mill had broke down with a log on it he would have rolled it back on the deck.. :-\
And I bet Bob knew better than to give a demo...I have done more damage with people watching than at any other time...Like Bob said you just aint paying attention to the right thing....
While we are confessing ...My dogs are run by hyd moters...with chains on them ...I have cut both chains into...and the dogs about 1/2 into...I have clipped atleast 2 of the 3 stops as well...I have managed to steer clear of the log turner...I'll probably get that the next time I fire the mill up.... ;D Tim
i was wondering how you guys didnt hit the gizmos and hozits on your mills that seam to stick up in the way.
i have seen a guy at my mill saw into the log stops and clamps on numerous occaisions ::) i keep thinking he will wise up , but i know in my heart he will do it again and i will watch him do that too. ;D
Quote from: gator gar on August 31, 2010, 07:54:42 PM
The tip of Pineywoods log turner looks like mine. I cut the point, smooth off. I was thinking it was a nail. Pineywoods, are you a drinking man??? Or do you just saw a bunch of lumber??? That turner is in bad shape for sure.
Nope, I'm a tetotaler. My excuse is that I have un-intentionally designed and built a turner claw that will sometimes become invisible. ::) Truth is, I put most of those scars on the claw within the first few days I had it on the mill. I was so used to running a manual mill (all I have ever run) I kept forgetting the thing was back there on the back side of the log. Lost track of the number of blades I ruined. Only hit a backstop once in 7 years, I can see them...
i didnt hit any metal today. but i ran thru a spot in a post oak that was blue stained like it had metal in it.showed up in 4 1'' boards . the biggest was 6''; across and 12'' long. the log was a butt cut 30'' b e and the stain was 4'' from the center of the log. didnt count rings or nuthin but i didnt think any one was here 150 years ago. mineral? maybe a confederate musket ball? no metal though just blue.
first time for everything. pc
I was guilty of sawing into the edge of one of my nice shiny BRAND NEW dogs within the first hour of running my BRAND NEW mill. I didn't hit it too bad.... just enough for the blade to leave a nice fancy design of RiDgEs on every board I sawed the rest of the day. :D
Then one of my first portable jobs was for a coworker. I should have known better when I arrived at his place and saw a shooting bench with the targets setup at the edge of the woods. Long story short he owns dozens of rifles, pistols and shotguns. Loads his own ammo and goes through LOTS of it. I happen to saw some Cherry with several chunks of lead in it. That wasn't so bad. Not nearly as bad as the solid copper bonded bullet from one of his shoulder cannons he hunts Africa with that I ran a blade through. Those solid bullets make all sorts of cracks in a blade!
Hey Whitetail Addict.... Welcome to the Forestry Forum.
This is a very good site for learning the sawing game.
Lots of good people and lots of help here!
I'm not going to hit metal tomorrow, but I am meeting "metalspinner" for a visit. Does that count ???
Just don't hit him ;)
The metal wasn't the problem, I was sawing a monster 34" X 14' white oak for a boyscout camp. The ranger wanted 3"x12" slabs for bench seating in the amphitheater. As I opened up the log I found blue stain and started in with the metal detector. After sawing through a couple nails and resharpening the blade I managed to find the cause of the stain and removed all the metal. I turned the slabs on edge and sliced them to there finished width. I managed to get through almost all the slabs then the last one I loaded on edge started me first cut and 18" in from the top end hit a ceramic insulator. Funny how I can saw right through a steel nail but cant make it through a brittle piece of ceramic. It appears the insulator was attached to the tree 70 or 80 years ago and I managed to put it dead center of one of those three inch slabs. I now have a skip tooth blade or should I say a skip five tooth blade, left about every sixth tooth. This log has been nothing but trouble from the git go, loaded it with a 3700lbs lift capacity skid loader with a grapple and needed two people on the back to weigh it down to lift the log on the trailer. When I got it home parbuckling it onto the mill I managed to break the welds on two leveling jacks on the mill. Then trying to manipulate those 600lbs slabs on and off the mill for cutting to width was a butt kicker. But now its done and the camp should get a lot of use from those planks.
Richland Sawyer
My LT 40 was delivered from New York in 1995. I had logs waiting and the technition/delivery man set it up and started showing how to use the mill. Woodmizer had advertised and there were lots of people there to see this new machine.Well on about the third cut he hit the side support, just a nick ,but he was plenty embaressed.
I figured like the first scratch on a new car, just get it over with. O.K. dont do that again! Yeah Right. 2500 hours, its gotten a couple more.
Welcome to the Forestry Forum HousewrightVA.
This is a really great place to hang out and most likely you'll learn something too! ;)
Great bunch of people here with lots of help.
Welcome to the Forestry Forum HousewrightVA. You live in some very pretty country. Do you custom saw for the public or just for yourself?
Dont you all have to agree that in the beginning that you will never hit your log stop or anything else that the blade can get into. Thats what I thought anyway. I have only been sawing for hobby sake for about 4 months and Monday morning I sawed into my log stop for the second time. Makes you feel like a nut when you know better but dont do better. So today I went down and took a look at what I could do to prevent this in the future. Built a bracket out in front and down past the blade about 3/8" to hit the log stops and stop the mill. Hope this little item saves me some $$ on blades in the future. bg
Quote from: Bill Gaiche on September 15, 2010, 07:50:15 PMdown past the blade about 3/8"
That leaves 3/8" of an inch to get by and hit. :D :D :D
Quote from: Magicman on September 15, 2010, 07:58:47 PM
Quote from: Bill Gaiche on September 15, 2010, 07:50:15 PMdown past the blade about 3/8"
That leaves 3/8" of an inch to get by and hit. :D :D :D
At least the blade wont hit my log stops and that is what I was shooting for. bg
I took some pictures of the blade killer.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13138/612/sawmill_001.jpg)
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13138/612/sawmill_002.jpg)
Just a couple days after I hit this insulator I realized I didnt have enough blades to avoid return shipping costs when I sent them in for resharp. Then out of nowhere a fellar that lives about an hour south of me that sells hudson mills advertised he had 60 woodmiser band blades for sale so I made the road trip.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13138/612/sawmill_003.jpg)
Good for you !!!
First log this morning, first cut. A rock embedded in a tear out. :-\ :-\
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN1066.JPG)
Look at the bright side , figured/stained/textured all in one board . 8)
You forgot to mention wavy. :D
I did it 2x on the same log even! It was such a perdy log. Just wanted to mill it. Nice sharp blade too!
:)
N
I haven't hit an insluator yet...and hope I don't, but that pic the Magicman put up is all too familliar...Tim
This one's titled " Having Fun Yet?"
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21495/metal%3D1.jpg)
and this one
"NO WAY THERE CAN BE ANY METAL IN THESE TREES THEY CAME FROM THE WOODS"
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/21495/metal%3D2.jpg)
My blades didn't fare to well today!
I sawed about 6 logs then all of the sudden "zzziiiinnnngggg" a #16.
Dug the nail out and changed the blade.
Second cut into the next log, "same thing".
Two logs later, you guessed it, "again".
Not much for damage, just set and sharpen tomorrow and they'll be good to go again!
I was slabbing a walnut stump and hit nails. The customer forgot to tell me that he didn't dig it up. It came from a creekbank and had a posted sign nailed to it. :-\ :-\
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/20011/2410/DSCN0329.JPG)
This rock was in the crotch of a Red Oak tree.
Had the saw running sweet today. I think I finally got everything adjusted right and was really running the wood through. About 4ft per second. I was cutting for a set of log bunks in front of the mill and wanted some 8x8s. The log that I had on the mill didn't square to 8" so I thought I would just make a 6x6 out of it, So I doged it accordingly, near the middle of the cant instead of near the edge. Then I thought I really don't need a 6x6 and that 3 2x6s would be more useful so I made the first cut at 6 1/2" and proceeded to make two 2" cuts, of course entirely forgetting where I had dogged the cant. >:( >:(. It all happened so fast The damage was done and the shear pin was broke before I could have stopped even if I had been watching the dog, (which normally I do) this time however I was watching to see that the splitter was just where I wanted it (which it was). I damaged 26 out of 36 teeth. Called the saw doc right away. He thinks it's fixable but may be expensive. :(. Guess we won't be sawing for a few days which really stinks because I had this week set aside to fill an order which was really to be our first official sawmill business. :(
Murphy strikes again :o :o
This thread kind of reminds me of the phenomena many people experience when they get into shooting muzzle loading guns and they believe "I ain't never gonna forget to put the powder down the bore before the ball!" I must have hit my log stops in the first hour on my saws meter and just experienced some of my first yard wood that had nails which I was sawing for a customer. Makes me curious how do you guys handle sawing wood that may include hardware? Charge extra if you hit something or what? tc
Before I got my WM sharpener it was $20 per blade no matter how small or large the metal, because Re-sharp seemed to reject all the metal blades. After learning to sharpen I can judge better what the actual impact is, so now I charge $5-20. I figure first because I am charging hourly the customer is paying already for the mistake in the time it takes me to deal with it. Then there is how much the blade is already dulled from cutting wood, I figure that at $10 (to me), so if a blade is 2/3 dull and hits a small nail and there's no curled over metal, then it might be $5. If a blade is definitely or probably totally destroyed with multiple rounded over tips or the like it could be $20. Usually it is $7-15. Actually 5 boxes at a time my blades cost about $17.
I charge the customer $20 when I hit metal. Even if it resharpens, I still had down time changing the blade.
If I hit a nail and then have to pull the blade before 500-700 bf are sawed the charge will be $5.00.
If I hit enough metal to where the blade has to go around the sharpener twice, then the charge is $10.00.
If I hit enough metal to ruin the blade, then the charge will be $25.00.
I've been charging like this for the past 2 years and don't get any complaints.
What are the odds of hitting a steel bb just inside the bark of a log esp. since that log was at least 25 ft. from the butt. I just caught the bottom edge enough to put a shiney spot on it and leave two teeth with a rounded corner. Even more suprising was that the bb was still imbeded in the slab for me to find
BILL
Just so you know you don't have to be a rookie to hit metal or saw into your sawmill, I sawed into the two-plain clamp yesterday. We were making 3x4s out of rough blocking logs and I had the cant squared down to 12"x12. I was making the last cut when I failed to notice that the clamp was about 1/4" too high. I need to take a picture. It looks like I sawed into it about 1/4". :-\
Ya musta hit da soft spot Bibby. Yup, and it seems to happen late in the day when we are tired and not as alert. :-\
Bit the clamp with the debarker blade Wednesday, around 3:45 pm. Walnut crotch carefully scooted over with shimming side and under, trimmed for 1/4" clearance either side, perfect concentration all day until this. Oh well it still cuts but will probably change it.
Quote from: Magicman on October 14, 2010, 10:05:47 PM
Yup, and it seems to happen late in the day when we are tired and not as alert. :-\
I know just what you mean MM. Monday while finishing up the last log in what looks like my last saw-job for the season, I had a 3-sided cant on the mill and was ready to open the 4th side and ran slap into the bolt that attaches the roller to the top of the log stops. :-[ Cut almost through the head of the bolt. :o
The only good thing was the blade sharpened up nice and only had to go around the sharpener twice. ;)
And, if a crowd gathers to watch an expert sawyer show how it is done.....watch out for sparks. :o :D
Oh believe me, there were lots of sparks going all over the place for a few seconds. :D
I didn't think you were suppose to saw metal unless you had someone watching you. Then it is fair game.
Quote from: Magicman on October 15, 2010, 03:04:36 PM
And, if a crowd gathers to watch an expert sawyer show how it is done.....watch out for sparks. :o :D
I'll just about shut her down and chew the fat with them before I'll saw for some body...Its like a given ...You WILL hit something... :D Tim