First Paying Job and First Metal all in the Same day

[DeepWoods]

Well apparently  I have joined the ranks.  I had a neighbor ask me to mill up a birch that should have been cut down when their cabin was built about 50 years ago.  In fact here is a picture of where the overhang of the cabin had an area that was cut out to allow the tree to grow through the roof and soffit area. 




Here is the birch that was dropped.  Note the largest bolt was not milled as there was already a piece of metal that may have been a yard light that was screwed to the top part of the bolt.  I had mentioned to my neighbor that we should not try to mill the first bolt as I had a strong feeling that there was a good chance of hidden metal. 





So after hauling the logs to my mill, I put on a new blade, started the engine and took off the first slab.  Everything looked good so I lowered the head to take a 1" board of the top and pushed the carriage down the track.  I got about three feet down the log and I heard a sound that I knew was not normal.  Pulled the board off and there it was.  My first nail.



Took time to dig out the remainder of the nail and took a quick look at the blade and scraped the metal fragments out of the gullets of about six teeth.  The nail as best I could tell was around 11 to 12 feet off the ground, since the bolt we did not cut was about 7 to 8 feet long.  We continued the sawing without further incidents.


 

By the end of the job we had around 100 bd ft. of birch lumber.



The boards when dry, will be hauled back to my shop to make the tread for the stairs in the above picture. 

I charged him by the hour, and didn't charge for hitting the metal as there was no major damage to the blade.  He was real happy to be able to use a tree that was on his property to use for his stair treads, and at the end of the day I was happy to have had my first paying job. 

[Magicman]

One nail log down and many more to come.  ;)  Happy sawing.   

[Okrafarmer]

Nice job. You're making me homesick for white birch-- we only have river birch around here, it's the only kind. Oh well, where I came from we didn't have some of the other neat species that are here.

I like how you kept your slabs so thin-- I've seen people waste quite a bit of slab wood. Maybe that's called production efficiency, I don't know, but it seems wrong all the same.

And it looks like you might be thinking of some creative use for the slabs other than firewood.