Sawing at Lowell's boat shop

[Jim_Rogers]

In another thread, I wrote about sawing some locust and white oak at Lowell's boat shop in Amesbury, MA on Friday June 10, 2011.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, again. But we didn't finish the job yesterday, and I had to go back and finish it today. I left my mill there overnight.

Here is a link to the boat shop site: http://www.lowellsboatshop.com/index.html

As I had mentioned the neighbor across the street had some black locust cut down and donated it to the boat shop. The boat builder/instructor hired me to cut up some locust for him a while ago, probably a year ago spring, and he was using some of this wood to make a dory row boat in the shop right now.

I sawed up all kinds of weird shaped logs yesterday, with bends and sweeps in them. They will use them for the curved frame pieces that make up the ribs of the boat. Some of the straight long pieces will be used for the piece across the stern, I think it's called the transom. And other curved pieces make the piece at the bow, called the stem.

He wants me to mill up some log thin pine for a 27' row boat that he need to make up this coming winter.

Any way, I know you all like pictures and I only took a few today, but maybe the instructor or his brother will email me some more and I can add them to this thread if they do.

In this shot you see the boat builders brother, and a helper rolling a large short white oak log towards the mill:



Here is a shot of the lumber I milled up yesterday, the boat shop is further to the right of this area:



This shot is looking up river from the spot where I was milling:


There are marinas all along this side of the river, and you can see one or two further up stream where the river make a big turn to the left.

Here is a shot of the river looking down stream:



I'm not sure if you can see it or not, but on the left hand side is the bridge which is Interstate RT 95 going over the river.

Behind the guy rolling the log is a dory on a trailer:



It is this type of dory row boat that are usually made here. The one in the photo was given to them, it was made in Ohio. You can see we were right next to the street and to back in and disconnect the mill, I had to block traffic for a short while. Same hooking up to go.

Here is a shot of one of the curved pieces. This is white oak. You can see the curved slab cut on the right in the junk pile.



I cut this log 8/4 for stem pieces. It was a challenge to get it on the mill as it was only 5' 10" long and with the bend it was easy to roll.

I had to use two 1x6 pine boards as a fence along the log upright side; and to create a table on the loader arms to load some of these curved short pieces.

Overall it was a fun job and it's great to see the wood you milled going into something that will be used, for a long time.

Maybe when I go back to get my finial pay, I can get a shot of the boat he's currently working on, with the pieces I milled up for him before.

Everything I cut was live edge, mostly 4/4 for ribs and frames, some 8/4 for stems and other things, and we did do one white oak log 6/4 just to have some on hand. The white oak was donated to them as well. I did hit two nails in the white oak.

I handed out some business cards to spectators, and neighbors.

Jim Rogers

[pnyberg]

Jim,

Thanks for the report. 

I may be reading too much into that last picture, but it looks like you're catching sawdust in a 5 gallon bucket attached to the head, and then dumping it in a 30 gallon trash can at the tail end of the mill.  Have I got this right?  Do you always work this way?  Can you share the pros and cons of this system?

Thanks,
   --Peter

[Tom]

Pictures one two and five sure do give different aspects of the work-site.  I figured you were in the parking lot of a boat yard until I saw that last picture. :D

[Jim_Rogers]

Well, yes, you have it right, I've been doing that for about all my sawing life, except the first week I sawed.

When we first started sawing, all we had was a pile of logs, and the mill. We had to make blocks to stack lumber on, stickers, and everything else we needed, like lumber pallets and such things.

We did have some heavy equipment; like a log truck, dump truck and back hoe for moving logs and lumber around.
Running the mill in the driveway, blowing the sawdust on the ground only to have to shovel it up at the end of the day into the backhoe bucket got real old real fast, like one week at most.

I learned from an old timer years ago, that if you can catch something "before" it falls onto the ground then you don't have to bend over and pick it up.

After a week of shoveling up the sawdust, I said to my brother who was working with me at the time, that there must be a better way.

I had the buckets on hand and he said he had an elbow at home. So he got the elbow, a piece of stove pipe leftover from his coal stove setup. And we pushed it onto the round sawdust chute outlet and got a hook and bolted it on.

It took a while to get it just right so that it wouldn't drag on the ground when you're at the lowest position but we got it.
After a while the metal elbow let go, and I got this white PVC one. Actually this one is probably the third PVC one I've had.
I had one get destroyed when the blade came out the chute, once when it broke.
I have a story about that here on the forum with pictures. You can search for it and maybe you can find it.

Well, anyway, I didn't like walking in the sawdust either. So catching it into the bucket seemed to make sense to me at the time.

Now when you work with a helper, there is lots of times that he is just standing around waiting for a piece of slab, edgings or lumber to be ready to carry off. During those times he can swap buckets, when one is full you just hang a another one. Dump the full one and be ready to hang it again.

Sometime you can make lots of cuts before it has to be dumped. Doing short logs or narrow boards doesn't make much sawdust.
Cutting wide lumber and long logs you may fill the bucket before you make one full pass. It all depends on what you are doing.
Working alone you can swap buckets on wide long lumber yourself. You've got nothing to do while the mill is sawing, so why not dump the bucket.

Here is a shot from my gallery:



This shows an old setup I had, but you can see the backhoe bucket in the left side of the picture with sawdust in it. And the dump truck in the background. The towel around the elbow was to act as a filter and hold the sawdust in. Sawing dry logs or old dry timbers the sawdust get air bound real easy. The towel acted like a filter and only the air would pass through it.

Here is the elbow after the blade broke it:



Here is the blade after it broke one day:



Some people/sawyers think I'm crazy to do this. But it works for me and a lot of my customers, actually all my customers love it. As they don't get their sawdust blown onto the ground. And it is easy for them to haul off. I've dumped into wheel barrows, barrels, backhoe buckets, lawn tractor trailers, everything and anything with wheels on it to haul stuff away has been used on site to haul off the sawdust.

Jim Rogers

[Jim_Rogers]

Pictures one two and five sure do give different aspects of the work-site.  I figured you were in the parking lot of a boat yard until I saw that last picture. :D

This boat shop doesn't have much of a parking lot at all. The river is very close to the street right there. Just enough room for the boat shop. The pictures of it in their gallery show how close it is to the river.

And the spot where I was milling was right on the edge of their property line. The two pine boards on and ground next to mill were on the line. So we had to be careful on that side to not blow any sawdust onto the neighbor's lawn.

It was fun until it started raining today.....

Jim

[Kevin]

Jim, are you sticker thrifty?   :D
Those are some short stickers.

[Jim_Rogers]

Jim, are you sticker thrifty?   :D
Those are some short stickers.

Those were the boat shop's stickers, not mine. They were probably using anything and everything they could find to make some up to stick it as I was milling it.
I told them I'd be worried about it being carried off right there next to the street......

Jim

[Dave Shepard]

Jim, which do you prefer sawing, the oak, or the locust? Other than the fact that locust sawdust makes me sick, I think if saws better than white oak.

[Jim_Rogers]

Well, my blades weren't the best yesterday. They were the ones I had sharpened myself.
They would be ok for pine, but the locust did a number on them. They didn't last as long as usual.
The wood was somewhat dirty as well, they tried as best they could to "debark it" but some had some dirty spots on it.

Today, I used a resharp blade. And I only cut white oak today.

It cut fine.

I don't care one way or the other about locust vs white oak.

I don't get sick with either of them.....

Dry wood made the dust really fly for sure. I was covered with it.
That shower last night really felt good....

[r.man]

Jim I think the bucket is a great idea. One commercial builder has a hopper with a releasable bottom on it at the chute outlet. The operator can trigger the release when in the home position to dump into a larger container. Anything that saves labour is a good thing.

[Jim H]

I use a bucket system as well. I find that customers appreciate not having a big pile of sawdust in their driveway or manicured lawn. On rougher sites we shoot dust on the ground to be cleaned up by a loader, or left in the bushes.

[Jim_Rogers]

I had to go back to the boat shop today, to get my balance due payment.

While I was waiting for the lady to show up, and write out my check, I took a few pictures. I added a bunch to my gallery in the Sawmill jobs album.
https://forestryforum.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3529&page=1

Here is one that shows the boat in progress with the ribs that he had cut out of stock that I milled up for him before:



Sorry, it's a little blurry.

Here is a close up of one of the ribs:



This shows the pencil line from one of the patterns on the blank rib stock for making sure he has enough wood to trim off to make a frame/rib.

Then after he does them he'll cut the sides to lines like these:



These lines show where the cuts will be made to match the width of the planks that will run from rib to rib to make the hull.

Here is another two piece rib:



That two piece rib is on top of the boards that were glued up to make the stern piece called the transom for this boat.

Here is some extra small pieces I found in the attic while I was up there photographing the roof structure:



Nothing goes to waste that I could see.....

And last but not least, here is a shot of a Forestry Forum hat at the shop.....:



More in my gallery....

Jim Rogers

[Norm]

Really cool shop and story, thanks for showing us.