Whatcha Sawin' 2025 ??

[Nebraska]

Yeah I have a place that could probably use them. 

[SawyerTed]

Birdhouse material, stock for produce crates, shims, wedges, sign making stock, wood-burning media, charcuterie boards, veneer and more are all useful byproducts of a missed step or other sawing technique malady.  

Just don't use the same one twice in a row with the same customer!

[barbender]

The problem is cataloging and storing all of those missteps...I'm going to have a huge bonfire with all of mine. Kind of like a can of random nuts and bolts, it's almost a curse😊

[SawyerTed]

Almost a curse?!?   A container of random hardware IS a curse.  

It seems I was a very bad person in a past life.  Every time I get one sorted or used, I seem to have another.   All I can figure is it's a character flaw.  

[barbender]

Ted, sometimes I think that I am a container full of random character flaws. That's why my wife gets so frustrated trying to sort them all out😁

[WV Sawmiller]

  I got up and left home at 6:30 am in the cold and spitting now. I drove 51 miles to a repeat customer from 3 years ago. I got about 3 miles from his place and met a big loaded log truck hauling a pup on a tight curve on a small mountain road and had to back up about a quarter of a mile to pull into a side road so the trucker could pass. When I finally drove up the steep drive to a house place on a narrow ridge here are the 2 log piles I found.




I got turned around and backed up to the first pile which were cut over one year ago.  The other stack are fresh cut. I loaded the first log on from higher up on the stack (so it would not fall on us later).The customer said it was tulip  poplar but I told him it looked more like red oak but when I sawed it maple inside. On further review I found it was Sassafras which is a new species for me to saw. I sawed it and several more. The big one on the front was a big red oak with some sweep and butt swell and I used my magic hook to load it on the arms. My hydraulics complained but lifted it. It took some gunbarreling to make it small enough to saw.

  I sawed the Sassafras, several Red Oaks, a maple and white oak. Off every new species I saved a 6/4 "plank" as the customer called them. He plans to make a table from the different woods on his place. The rest were 1-1/8" boards as wide as I could get them, up to 12" wide.

    Oh yeah, on one log I had sawed the hump off set it aside to saw some short boards. On the can in mid stream the customer said cut a 6/4 so since I had already started on my mark I cut his 6/4 then a trim cut about 1/2" thick and when he saw that he asked if I could cut more that then. Sure. So I cut the hump into 1/2" boards he wants to use to make a deer blind. It always amazes me when the customer see a trim cut like that and suddenly want more thin stuff.

    About 1:00 pm I loaded an 8' X 16" diameter RO log on the mill and everything slowed to a standstill. My mill would run but not enough power to cut.  new blade did not help. I checked and found the operator side coil showed no power so I was running on one cylinder. I rolled the log off and the one flitch I had produced and packed up my mill and went home, via my small engine repair guy's shop. He confirmed the bad coil and has a pair at home for them so I will meet him at the shop in the morning and replace both and I guess I'll keep the working one as a spare.

We did not tally but looks like around 500 bf rough stacked lumber made and 3.1 engine hours on today's sawing so far. Looks like probably 2+ days work left for the 2 of us to finish and it will likely be 2 weeks or more till I can return due to weather and family schedules.

Just another reason I don't like long distance jobs.

[caveman]

John and I sawed some cypress Saturday afternoon.  The customer brought us another trailer load of logs and picked up the cypress boards we sawed and stacked for him a week or so ago.  Sunday, I sawed most of the boards on the sawhorses and the flitches pictured.  I stopped sawing when I ran out of room for more flitches.  

John came over after he got of work this afternoon and we edged, scaled everything and got it ready for the customer to come pick up.  We have some more cypress to saw for this fellow.

This morning, I delivered a pallet of 6"x 6" and 4"x6" dunnage to a place in town.

Notice the mud packed ends on some of the boards.  These were the dirtiest logs we ever had to deal with.  They came from an I-4, U.S. Hwy 33 project.  They were harvested with an excavator without much care given to the logs.  Regardless, they are making some beautiful boards.  Several of the logs had woodpecker holes.  I saved one flitch with a hole because I thought it was cool.

I'll be guiding fish trips the next few days and we'll likely be sawing again Friday afternoon and Saturday.

[Old Greenhorn]

My gosh man, you are working harder in retirement than I was working full time! You suck at this 'retirement' thing.  You are doing it all wrong...I think.

[caveman]

I did not work real hard today.  Yesterday was long, but not hard.  I took three separate parties fishing in a brisk breeze and fished in five separate pits.  

Retirement for me is getting used to not having my life and activities dictated by school bells.  I have plenty to do to stay busy.

The sawing the past few days was not incredibly pleasant with the south winds we've been having.  The sawdust was blowing right into my face, but at least it was cypress and other than having to shovel sawdust and clean out the stopped-up sawdust chute periodically, it was easy sawing.  I disconnected the dust collector hose prior to sawing.  Our 120v collector would have choked on this job.

I noticed that the drive belt would squeal a bit if I sawed too fast.  We checked the belt tension, and it was low.  It has been so long since we've had to adjust it, that neither of us remembered how.  We got it figured out and I wrote directions that even a caveman can understand on the belt shield with a paint pen.

[GAB]

Dear Mr. Caveman Sir:
I'm elated to read that you have failed at retirement.
Carry on.
GAB

[jpassardi]

My gosh man, you are working harder in retirement than I was working full time! You suck at this 'retirement' thing. You are doing it all wrong...I think.

Yeah, a guy who goes by Magicman has a similar retirement schedule - though he claims to be slowing down...

[Magicman]

A One Log Job.  The Red Toolbox shows it @8,000+ pounds:

Yup, this one was a 37" butt & 30" top X 20' long Red Oak.  Yes, the largest and heaviest log that I have ever sawn.....But.

I have sawn plenty of 20 footers and many over 36", even up to 46" but never one both this diameter and long plus being fresh felled Red Oak.....But.


It took the loader, log clamp with a Magic Hook, plus the backhoe FEL to boost that thing up onto the sawmill bed.  It was actually 21' when we loaded it and then I bucked 8" off of the butt end.....But.


Don't it look mighty purdy up on the sawmil.....But.


Another view.....But.





After bucking the butt end off there were obviously two nails.  The gun barreling has begun....but.

(Insert But and the Good and Bad here.)      LINK

OK, back to sawing:


Gun barreling the log down.  Notice the two blue spots on the far side. 


This is the entire edging from the log so virtually no waste/loss.  I was able to capture both nails within flitches without hitting either nail.


Nothing but 1 1/2" X 6's & 8's.  I used two blades.

I had quoted a fixed amount for sawing the log so I did not scale the lumber.

But and the Good and Bad later.  Right now there is supper plus a shower.

[doc henderson]

I was wondering if that is skill or just living right.  prob. both and a little bit of God's grace and luck.

[Resonator]

Where's the beef beam?  
That was my first thought when I seen how big that log was, that it would be for cutting a beam. Impressive none the less.

[Don P]

Helene damage, this is along the New River, a 4' butternut at the Wildlife Club. They need a new counter in the kitchen.  6' bar on the CSM. We stripped out the sprocket on the 3120. Tomorrow is another day.

[jpassardi]

4' butternut with a CSM - that'll keep you in shape!

[LeftFinger]

I love butternut  A CSM not so much

[Resonator]

Spruce. Got the spruce I had on deck sawed into natural edge paneling. Took some time to peel all the bark off, I've learned it's easier to do it now than after it's dried.


White pine. Slowly but surely working my way through my big winter stockpile of white pine logs (reply #278). Like eating an elephant, one chewy bite at a time, nom-nom. 
Trying to get at the best ones first for framing lumber, lots and lots of 2x4's. Also a few 2x6's and 2x8's, kind of going by what the log will best yield. I do enjoy sawing white pine, cuts like butter. Just got to remember not to grab the end of the log, or my glove will end up stuck like glue in the goo.

[fluidpowerpro]

Those are some nice looking whacks. 

[Magicman]

I am back to normal sawing:


There are three whacks, each having about a dozen logs, so;


I set up on the closest one and will move the sawmill down as they are sawed.  There are only two logs left in this whack.  We sawed 5 hours (probably 1Mbf) and filled his trailer so we had to stop for the day.  The landowner gave him the logs but the lumber must be moved away as it is sawed so it will probably take at least 3 days and maybe four to finish this.  I can only work 3 days this week, so we may have to finish this next Monday.

My customer lives in Lake Charles, LA, so he had a long drive ahead of him and did not want to be overloaded.  It's kind of a strange deal, but it is what it is.

[Daburner87]

Finally some good weather, and I did my first bit of milling for 2025!  Turns out the last guy who used this mill left the tension on the blade  . First log it was dipping and rising all over the place.  Rechecked the level on everything and then I put on a new blade hoping it was the issue, and it started smoking right away.  A quick look at it and I realized the blade teeth were backwards, don't remember these Kasco's being inside out.  Afterwards I was glad to see it cutting true.  I don't think I used my mill for 6 months, last year was just too busy doing other unrelated projects.

I got through three logs, all red oak.  Two made great 8x8x8' timbers for the future sawmill shed, the other log was just too small.  I forgot how much waste milling creates.  So I kinda stopped there and decided to work on a slab rack to turn the waste into firewood sized pieces.  Just one of those run around all day type of days, but it felt good to get back into the process.    Must have had close to 70lbs of sawdust.





Back at it tomorrow, need more timbers.

[WV Sawmiller]

D87,

  Yeah I hate it when "somebody" leaves the tension on the band and similar mistakes. I guess you just need to chastise "that guy" most severe for his mistake.

[Old Greenhorn]

For this very reason I have considered hanging a big mirror on the wall next to the sawmill, so I have somebody to yell at.

[Daburner87]

.  I'm being chastised today by the rain.  

[jpassardi]

"Someone" forgot to release the tension on mine recently as well...Can't get good help these days