TRAINING A NEW SAWYER

Dewey · March 06, 2014, 10:29:29 PM

I have a younger guy 20 yrs old that I hired last spring to stick lumber for a couple of weeks.... He ended up working 6 days a week ever since..... I think I lucked out .... He wears his pants where they belong and his Cell stays in his pocket..... He really took to the yard work real quick and started sharpening my blades ( did a better job than me )
I have started training him to saw the last week or so....
And gosh I guess I forgot how tuff it was to learn how to saw .
I have a 30 HT Timber Harvester.
I saw Northern White Cedar and he has been sawing 5/4 Decking..
So between doing the math and running the hydraulics . It's interesting watching him learn how to run the mill fast and smooth..
Any thoughts of things to show and or ways to teach him ??

5quarter · March 06, 2014, 11:45:05 PM

Economy of motion. In my college days I was a line cook at a high volume restaurant. Being very competitive, I was out to be the best and fastest cook on the line. The guy I worked with was old enough to be my Dad at the time. No matter how hard I worked he was always 10 steps ahead of me, Though it looked as though I was working 3 times faster than him. After a particularly hard and long breakfast run, I was venting my frustration at being unable to keep up with him. He explained that I wasted huge amounts of time jumping back and forth like a jack rabbit instead of thinking and working systematically. some of the best advice I ever got.

backwoods sawyer · March 07, 2014, 01:54:35 AM

Training a new sawyer takes time, but if you take the time it pays off.
I started Little Jo on the control panel from day one, and we co-sawed a lot of wood last year. Now I can take off with the customer and head over to the other side of the hill to take a look at more logs and come back to the mill just a buzzing along.
A lot of times I will start a log and in mid cut change sawyers, sure helps my daily production rates and frees me up to talk with the customer more.

ladylake · March 07, 2014, 05:39:23 AM

Sounds like you got a good one , teaching himself by watching and paying attention . Steve

dgdrls · March 07, 2014, 05:53:26 AM

Safety, safety, safety. Show him by being the example.

Sounds like you found a "Padawan" :D

DGDrls

Chuck White · March 07, 2014, 07:23:15 AM

I have a nephew that wants to help (tail) on the mill again this year.

This will be his 3rd year, and he is usually right on the ball.

I have to remind him to slow down once in a while and when we're sawing big stuff, to wait for help!

All in all, it should be a good year!

drobertson · March 07, 2014, 07:33:07 AM

Glad you found some good help. I think is was 5qrt that said watch for wasted motion, Learn to work smarter not harder, this is pretty good advice. After training a lil while with my son, and then another helper. I realized that two of us were learning. It's amazing what we can learn from teaching. Experience is one of the best teachers. david

thecfarm · March 07, 2014, 07:33:35 AM

Quote from: Dewey on March 06, 2014, 10:29:29 PMHe really took to the yard work real quick and started sharpening my blades ( did a better job than me )

It's interesting watching him learn how to run the mill fast and smooth.

I really noticed the "run the mill fast and smooth" part He might figure out how himself to do all you want him to do. Maybe just a few suggestions and maybe even some brain storming.
Sounds like you have a keeper..

bandmiller2 · March 07, 2014, 07:52:42 AM

Reminds me of the joke an old bull and a young bull on top of a hill looking at a heard of heffers. A man if he's going to be a good sawyer will pick it up with minimal instructions, just the basics he will develop his own style. Frank C.

justallan1 · March 07, 2014, 08:37:08 AM

Your very lucky to find someone that wants more than a paycheck. I'd say if he's able to safely run the mill and you've already shown him every function of it, give him a few logs (possibly some old junk laying around) and tell him you'll be back in a while, then actually leave. You'll probably have to go back about dark to make him go home. :D
At some point you can't show him any more, he'll either get it or he won't.

Allan

Onthesauk · March 07, 2014, 11:06:03 AM

And take good care of him too. Pay him right, give him the tools he needs, maybe eventually give him a piece of the business. People that good will eventually go out on their own and you're back to square one again.

dboyt · March 07, 2014, 11:24:48 AM

Quote from: Onthesauk on March 07, 2014, 11:06:03 AM
And take good care of him too. Pay him right, give him the tools he needs, maybe eventually give him a piece of the business. People that good will eventually go out on their own and you're back to square one again.

Exactly right! You'll be worse than square 1, because you'll have competition who knows the business!

As long as he's working safely, patience is the key thing. When he saws into a clamp, rolls a log off the deck with the turner, or forgets to tension the blade before engaging the clutch, remember back when you did the same thing. What don't you know that he can learn (for example, lumber grading, kiln drying) to compliment your skills and knowledge?

landscraper · March 07, 2014, 01:16:50 PM

I'm not a skilled enough sawyer to give specific advice on teaching anyone about that :D The go-getters like accomplishing things, mastering skills, facing challenges. You've already identified that he has potential. Teach him the reasons why, not just the rules, and turn him loose. He will screw up, everyone does, so long as he learns from it. It's painful to watch an employee make mistakes, trust me I know,. I tell my guys "S*&T happens, but don't go making a habit of it." I imagine it is as hard to find good help everywhere for this kind of work these days, sounds like you got a good one. I'd rather have 1 helper who is really trying than 10 know-it-alls. Good luck.

Brucer · March 08, 2014, 08:29:56 PM

Well, I haven't taught anyone to run the saw, but I have taught pretty complicated things to lots of people. So, for your consideration ...

There's lots of things to be aware of in sawing, and the more complicated the machine, the more there is to remember. The trouble is that as the teacher, you know it all and don't think about it in your day-to-day work. So when you saw, think about all the things you do and decide which of those things is really important. That's what to concentrate on first.

No matter what the subject, we learn by doing. We need enough instruction to let us do the task (however badly), and then we absolutely must have some time to practice it and to experiment. Sometimes we'll know we're doing something slightly wrong, but we'll be concentrating on getting something else right first. Then when we get the something else more or less right, we'll go back and fix the other stuff. So, if you keep trying to correct little mistakes each time you see them, the person will never have a chance to practice anything thoroughly.

This doesn't mean show them once and leave them to it. You need to monitor them and make sure they have "got the idea." Then let them practice a bit (don't hover -- pretend to do something else while you keep an eye on them -- people get self conscious at first and make more mistakes if they're being watched). When it looks like they're starting to get it, go back and give them a refresher -- and include any points they may have missed.

One point though -- never let someone carry on doing something that's a danger to themselves or the equipment. If you see that happening, intervene immediately.

You can show a person all sorts of stuff, but until they actually do the work, what you say, or even demonstrate, won't always sink in. Most people need time to comprehend how, or why, something works. Until they've spent that time, some of the things you explain will be meaningless. So after the person has some experience, be prepared to go over everything again. A lot more stuff is going to be meaningful the second time around.

If someone is doing something inefficiently, but not in a way that endangers them or the equipment, let them do it for a while. Then show them how you do it. Or point out any tips you may have to make the work easier. "Why'd you let me do it that way?", someone once asked me. "You knew there was an easier way." I said that yes, I knew there was an easier way. "And now that you've done it the hard way, you'll appreciate just how much easier my way is :D"

If someone is doing an independent task, let them do it differently if they want to. Give them the freedom to experiment. There is a reason I have a first rate helper. When she suggested a different way to do things, I told her to try it. When she said maybe we should do things differently around the mill site, I said we'd try it out and see it worked out. Sometimes her method was better, sometimes it wasn't. The point is, I always listened to her and let her try. Before working for me she worked for a guy who always insisted that his way was better. It was pretty obvious that quite often it wasn't. In the end she got fed up with working for him and came to work for me ;D. Now, six years later, she has a full time, year round job. She still comes to work for me on one of her days off.

I've learned that people are often more likely to follow a suggestion for a better way to do things if it doesn't come from you. ??? ???. My approach is to say, "Here's a little trick that I learned from an old timer." Amazing how much buy-in that will get you (but don't overdo it :D).

We joke around on the forum about not being a real sawyer until to try to saw a piece off your mill. Take the same attitude with a helper who does the same thing. Or makes any mistake that isn't a threat to safety. As in, "OK, now that you've proven you can't saw off a side stop with the mill, don't keep trying :D." On the other hand, someone who does it regularly through lack of attention needs some correction.

bandmiller2 · March 08, 2014, 08:50:02 PM

Most smaller mills have one sawyer, and he's like a mother hen if someone else is running "his" mill. Frank C.

thecfarm · March 08, 2014, 08:51:57 PM

And also if you shpw someone 20 things to do,you will be lucky if they remember 15 of them. It's hard to remember everything, no matter who you are.

Dewey · March 08, 2014, 09:16:31 PM

Well thanks for all the advice... I knew I would find some opinions here ;).
What I have started to do to keep production up a bit, is I saw half a day and he saws the other half.... I have been tailing for him .He has been tailing for me when he is caught up on the other jobs he has been doing around the mill...But I think I will leave him on his own a bit next week, While I work on getting my planer up and running. I think this will give him some time on his own which may be good .... He claims he wants to learn to run the planer too but I told him to get the sawmill figured out first :D :D

Jim_Rogers · March 09, 2014, 10:49:55 AM

Many years ago, my wife ran the sawmill and I did the lifting and carrying lumber off the mill.

She sat in the operators seat and could "run the machine" but she didn't understand the layout of how to get what we needed to get out of the log. I had more or less to tell her where to make just about every cut. She had difficulty figuring out where to start the first cut to end up at the last cut.

That's when I decided to teach her the "last cut first" story. That is plan where the last cut will be on a face before you make the first cut. And work back from the last cut to the first.

When cutting timbers that is important as you want the "heart/pith" to be centered on each end of the timber. So you have to adjust the log ends up using the taper controls to make everything come out right.

I would think that you might ask him if he understands the "last cut first" idea. And if he says he does, then ask him to explain it to you. And see what he says. See if he gets it right.

When I teach, I ask the student to teach me back what I have taught him. This is where or when you'll see how much they understood or remembered. Having a student teach another student can show/help the first student more. And it again it shows how much he does know or if he has forgot something. He may realize he has forgot something and ask you to refresh his memory on that point/subject.

Good luck with your "new sawyer"

Jim Rogers

bandmiller2 · March 09, 2014, 08:32:51 PM

The skill of the sawyer is the profit margin in a mill. Like a lot of manual things that look simple, theirs a lot to it. Frank C.

Brucer · March 10, 2014, 11:58:35 PM

Quote from: Dewey on March 08, 2014, 09:16:31 PM
... What I have started to do to keep production up a bit, is I saw half a day and he saws the other half.... I have been tailing for him .He has been tailing for me when he is caught up on the other jobs he has been doing around the mill...

That's a useful system. Let him do as much tailing as possible while you saw. He will gradually fall into a pattern of sawing that works for him, but probably won't be as efficient as you methods. When he's tailing he will have a chance to see what you do and will probably start to notice the difference. The next day he'll have a chance to experiment a bit with what he's seen you doing.

He may not be able to figure out why you do what you do. Be as open to questions as you can. Encourage them, in fact.