The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[doc henderson]

for a guy who is not a woodworker, your shop is looking like it!  double the chaos and quadrooople the projects, a little more wood on the floor and i think I would feel right at home at your place!  yes that is a compliment!   ;)

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, slow start today. Too much party last night.  ;D
 I did a lot of sanding today. I had finish sanded the bottom yesterday and put a coat of tung oil on. Then flipped it to let it dry. i started onthe top today and got all the excess resin sanded off, worked my way down to 220 grit. Then I out a layer of tung oil on the top and flipped it again. Cleaned it then applied the first layer of verathane. I think it is starting to look like a bar now.



 


The large gap filled in well and stayed fairly clear with just a bit of haze.



 

I took one photo from each end. Considering the poor slabs I started with I believe it doesn't look too bad. These photos just show the bottom. I like to start there to get my hand practiced in applying the finish because I was never very good at it. I will say, it is as smooth as a baby's bottom and I like that. Tomorrow I'll light sand again and add another coat.

[doc henderson]

looks clear to me... maybe some ibuprofen and a bit of hair of the dog... and it will clear up!!!   :D :D :D.  look really cool.

[Nebraska]

Looks like you did a nice job should be great for the party. You'll have to raise your prices afterwards it's likely to generate more requests. 

[Old Greenhorn]

You'll have to raise your prices afterwards it's likely to generate more requests.

"Raise my prices"? You mean, people get paid for this?
 No, this is a just a small gift. My skills aren't really good enough to command a price yet.

[doc henderson]

well then might as well triple your prices! :D :D :D.  when I get something for free and then give it to someone else.  If they ask what I want for it , I tell them "twice what I paid for it".  when strangers ask for gifts, that is when you can charge.  I allow friends who ask for something (not a gift) I tell them they can donate to the Dr. Henderson Polyurethane fund.  it is a non profit that pays for my finish 8) .  One Pediatric surgeon friend of mine, wanted a step for her aging dogs so they could get on the bed.  she offered $260 and I accepted 60.  I have now made 3 steps for docs with old dogs.  on line they sell units with 3 tiny steps for dogs.  big dogs do better with 1 big step



 



 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I have been working on the bar every night sanding and giving it another coat, nothing worth reporting on, then I have shifted to trying to fix my Mule for the rest of the evening and going to bed depressed and frustrated. But now the weekend is approaching and I set a goal of getting this bar set this weekend. I still had to put a finish on the bottom straps after drilling and countersinking the holes. I found some nice solid bronze wood screws I had that were left over from my Dad'a boat building days in the 50's  8).  Nobody will really see these straps unless they are on the floor under the bar, and in that case, I don't think they would be too critical. ;D But I wanted them to be sealed. The straps will screw to the top of the stumps and then I can run some screw up through them into the bottom of the bar, just to make it nice and secure. SO I did all that, and sanded and put another coat on the bar.
Then I had the stump to work on. I did not like the top surfaces. They will sit on gravel/dirt so I can deal with the bottoms and get them to set right, but the tops should be flat to accept the straps without distortion or stress. I at least need them to be flat for that, and the chainsaw cuts were no were near close enough and there was too much of a slant on one. I grabbed that power planer I bought a while back and went at it by eye just taking the high spots, looking it over, then taking more. It was pretty hacked up with the lines from the plane edges but was coming along. I was going to be happy with this but then I stumbled on something. If I turn my pattern and planed 90° to the first set of cuts, I only took off the high spots and it looks like one solid plane across the whole thing. No, it is not dead flat, but darn close. I did not flatten the entire top, that was not the goal, just to have a good flat area that will seat the strap.
In this photo the dark area is the wet, fresh cut (planed) area that I need.


 


You can see that is is pretty flat now, it had nearly a 3/8" swoop in it before.


 


I am pretty happy with this concept and will try it on some cookies soon.


 


All the pieces of the bar are pretty much ready, less drying.


 

And I think it is starting to look like a fairly nice bar.




Tomorrow I may do one more coat on the bar. Saturday morning I will haul the legs up and get them set, then attach the straps and top either then or Sunday. I'll be glad to have this done and out of the shop, and also glad to have kept my promise on time.

[WDH]

Are the legs too tall to stand up on the mill to have the tops sawn flat as if you were cutting cookies?

[Old Greenhorn]

Are the legs too tall to stand up on the mill to have the tops sawn flat as if you were cutting cookies?

Yes, I mentioned above, much too tall.

[Old Greenhorn]

OK, the bar is delivered, set, installed, and complete. I also brought them up another finished slab t use for a serving table for sift drinks, etc. set on 24" tall blocks. I did a bunch of cookies for them on the spot just clearing out dead ugly stuff to make it look nicer. They are happy, which makes me happy. It too them a while to figure out where, at waht angle and in what position they wanted it. Once they decided and were happy I leveled the blocks with just two shims, screwed the straps down to the blocks, then screwed the top to the straps. It is rock solid and only out of level about an 1/8" over 6'. I am calling that a 'drain feature'. ;D It turned out the dry-layed brick patio is not flat (surprise) so my blocks worked quite well with their variations. 
 I may do some campfire benches for them later in the weekend, we will see, but I don't think they need them.


 


 


 Now I need a dry shirt and a short nap before I get back to my stuff, like cursing at the Mule.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, yesterday, as already noted was a good one. 
 Today, not so much. I'll just put in a link here to another thread where the gory details are detailed. LINK I am trying to decide now how to proceed, whether to buy a used differential or get a new gear set. Think I will wait until tomorrow to decide. Whiskey and early bed is the best course of action now.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, yesterday was the happy day for my neighbors and the weather was just perfect for them. I spent the morning running errands and filling in some gaps for them and also cut a little more firewood because with the surprise warm temp we got a bug hatch that was annoying. The smoke helped, so we kept a fire going all day. We parked cars at my place to handle the crowd and they had folks from all over. I had license plates on my lawn from Virginia, Maryland, Mass, Florida, and Alaska  as well as others. Many came from across the pond for the day. I have rarely been to a better event. I would love to show a picture of the happy couple because they looked like something from a fairy tale, but they have requested no social media postings due to the celebrity status one of them endures. Because of that I rarely took my camera out but sometime is the wee hours, after the caterers were long gone and the party was thinning, i did think to take a shot of how the bar held up. This was taken during the self-serve period in the early morning hours as was not very well framed, but given my condition, oh well.


 

 I met a lot of fine folks, and got to work a little on my German which has been long gone for a long time. ;D :D  met a fella who spoke very little english but is apparently a Journeyman floor layer (I forget the term he used) he specializes in custom flooring with various woods in high end buildings and re-construction/repair of very old buildings. We had a very enjoyable chat that lasted over an hour. He loves the variety of woods we have available here. Everything for him is pretty much an expensive import and he was envious of what I have access to. That gave me a new perspective.
 I have no idea what time I climbed onto the 4 wheeler and putted my way down the hill. ;D
 Now I should really get moving and go lend a hand with cleanup, but my head hurts a bit still. I also have the Mule to work on a little more. Still waiting for the replacement differential to show up. The seller might be playing some games with me, I am not sure. I am hearing excuses that concern me. I did get the tires and got them mounted, I just have to put them on the rig, but there isn't too much more I can do without the parts after that.


 

[donbj]

Whiskey and early bed is the best course of action now.

Bed yes, whiskey, no, I enjoy your posts.

[Old Greenhorn]

That was last week. Now I am just sitting on my hands and waiting for the differential to show up. I got a bit of a song and dance from the seller about how he broke the one he was shipping me, got another and was shipping it overnight. He also refunded the entire coast. If this is all true and the proper unit is on the way, this is a terribly honest man, but if the thing shows up and it is incorrect or sub-standard, I start the process all over again and lose another week.
 So here I sit and wait as this perfect working weather slips on by.

[donbj]

Important thing is just don't spread yourself too thin.

[Old Greenhorn]

 ;D ;D :D :D :D :D :D 8) 8)
 I feel like I am spread so thin folks can see right through me. :(
 I have so much to get done and ma dead in the water. You would not believe the stories I am hearing from this guy who supposedly shipped me a differential. Now I don't know if I should order from someone else, or just believe him and wait. Money is tight, and this ain't cheap. Time is just burning away and I am dying here.

[thecfarm]

You said he refunded your money? That is quite the man there,no matter what. 

[Old Greenhorn]

You said he refunded your money? That is quite the man there,no matter what.

Well it might seem that way, but...
 I wasn't going to put all the details of this miserable ordeal here, but then I remembered this is supposed to be a record of sorts of my first year, so here goes as succinctly as possible:
 I ordered that differential last Monday. The seller indicated it shipped on Wednesday and would arrive Friday, which put me a weekend ahead of schedule, right? No. One Friday the wife calls at work to tell me a package arrived, but it is a small package with 2 iight bulbs in it (?!). SHe also said some guy from Arkansas called about my Diff. and wanted me to call him back ASAP.
 SO I call him, seemed like a nice fella. He explains that he always puts new axle seals in his units before he ships them and when he was working on mine (on Wednesday) he dropped the unit off the bench and the housing broke. He says he has another he can go over and ship overnight, or he can give me a refund. I don't want the money, I want my part. SO I tell him to send me the other one and why did he wait two days to contact me? I also wonder why he didn't just ship the second one, it would have arrived as promised. I asked about the light bulbs. He says "Oh, I send those as a free gift to everyone who orders more than $100 dollars from me". I am wondering why he didn't just put them in the box with the diff. (It dawned on me days later, this provided a tracking number so that eBay thought the package arrived on time, duh.) He promises to knock $150. off the cost and ship the thing on Saturday overnight. He will give me the tracking number when he has it. I have to take the guy at his word and give him a chance right? But the hair on the back of my neck was tingling. Something felt 'off'.
 So I had the wedding Saturday and no tracking number arrived. Sunday I sent him a note and ask. He says he dropped it off Saturday for overnight ship and starts calling the guys at the Fedex drop-off some very disparaging names and questions their intelligence. He apologizes, then gives me a number.
 The number indicates that a Fedex label was printed at 11:15 Sunday morning and they were waiting for the package. As I write this (Tuesday morning), the tracking Still indicates the same thing. No package yet. I know there are some weather issues in the southeast, so I sit on my hands all day Monday and sent him a note last night. He goes off about the low intelligence in the labor pool where he lives and how everyone is an idiot. He tells me he went back there on Monday afternoon and screamed at them, but Fedex has the box and there is nothing more he can do. He also refunded what I paid for the unit less the 50 bucks sales tax. (I might have to get that back from Ebay, not him. I am not sure.)
 Now I know Fedex can and does make mistakes and have delays, but it always gets right at some point. When I saw that there was still no movement at 4am this morning I became pretty sure I had been had. I have NO idea what this guy's game is, but the story he gives is way too bizarre to be true. He had 3 units listed when I ordered mine. The next day one was sold to me and the other 2 were taken down (removed from sale by the seller). I can't guess what is going on at this guys place, but he really made no money on this, spent some time dealing with it, lied to me, and cost me well over a week of lost time which is the thing I can't forgive. What is his point, I wonder? I can always make money back, but I can never get back the time. i will now lose another weekend of work while I wait for the next one I ordered. 
 I sent him a polite but pointed note this morning wherein I state that it is clear he is a cheat. I also state what he cost me in time and that I don't understand his goal. I told him I ordered from another seller and that I am still out the sales tax. I resent being lied to very much. 
 As I am writing this I just got a note from both him and paypal, sent at 5am his time. He tells me he refunded $60.00 for the tax (more than he owed me to cover any paypal fess) and the paypal note confirms it. Now I am really confused because this deal is now costing him. I want to believe what he is telling me, because he went overboard getting the money back to me, but nothing else fits into a normal scenario. He insists he is legit. He says he will be making calls this morning to see if he can locate it or he will try to find another one for me. At this point I just can't trust the guy. I have been scammed on ebay before for much bigger money and the whole thing took several weeks to resolve and a month before I had my money. I can't afford the time, every weekend is precious this time of year. I need to get back to work. If he is telling the whole truth, I can't believe that Fedex messed up this badly with a 20 pound box.
 I don't know what to think. If the thing shows up I would be happy to pay him for it, I don't want anything for free, that is not fair. But I have a hard time believing I will ever see it and I can't just sit here. As I said, I wasn't going to share this, the whole mess has me pretty upset because I just come home from work and sit around or waste time. I can't do what I want to get done, and I still have a lot of work to put this back together when the part arrives, hopefully in good usable condition. I suppose this is just another bump in the road of life, but at the moment it is really making me a very grumpy guy.

[Nebraska]

Fishy at best, but you are square less time wasted. Part ways, return the phantom one if it shows, nobody has time for this. Wasn't  anything you could control. 

[doc henderson]

maybe he is a very small operation, and is in a bit over his head.  hope it turns out he is a regular guy who is trying to make a living, but not very good at it.

[Resonator]

He says "Oh, I send those as a free gift to everyone who orders more than $100 dollars from me".

That sounds fishy, especially sending it separate from the ordered part, and if his ad never mentioned getting free light bulbs.

[thecfarm]

The rest of the story.       :

[Old Greenhorn]

The rest of the story.      :

Not yet...
 I had ordered another unit from a different seller at 6am today in LA. I added a note explaining that I would appreciate it they could ship it soon as I had lost a week dealing with a 'poor' seller. I figured the request couldn't hurt. They printed the label at 7:30 am and it was picked up by fedex at 10:30 headed to the depot in MS. Should be here Friday. I hope it's in good shape.
 Meanwhile, back in Arkansas there has been no change in the status of the one that was "shipped on Saturday", fedex still has not received the package and I have heard no word from the guy that was going to 'start making calls at 8am and see if he could source another one", which I told him I don't want.

[Old Greenhorn]

Whilst I sit on my hands waiting for the Mule differential to show up (it's coming) I have been filling my evenings with odds and ends, getting parts cleaned and ready to go back on, mounting the new tires, etc. Tonight i bench sharpened my saws which I like to do once in a while to bring all the teeth back proper and get the rakers right. The bench allows for comfortable work and good light. Then when my buddy drove by around 9pm and beeped, I went down to his place and we (he) welded the nuts in place for my winch mounts so that I don't have to fight with it anymore. From the wled shop we moved into the garage and played around with his temporary setup on his new Slabmizer. I had an ash cookie that had dried fairly well with minimal cracking, but the saw cuts were really rough, so we took a lot off of it. It was just a fun thing to do. He is trying to figure out how to work this into his business plan. We decided an hourly charge is the way to go. Too many variables involved.
 SO I sit and wait, but I am getting a few things done. I hope to pick up some logs this weekend for another project next year. Hopefully I get it milled by winter.


 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I have really needed a vacation/mental health day and this weather has been perfect, so I took one today. I tried to put my Mule issues out of my mind and do something productive. The plan was to go over to the Ashokan Center and load up the ash logs I had cut back in mid-august, then go down to the creek and finish the bucking work on that bog blowdown, and MAYBE get the logs dragged up above the high water mark. It was a fair plan. 
 I got there and the maintenance manager was ready for me. There was still kids programs going on, so we were patient and worked around them, but loading the trailer went easy, as I had hoped. I pulled out in the pasture and we dropped the logs right in the trailer hung by chains from the loader bucket. It was my first ever log load with 5 small logs. 


 

When done, we waited a bit for some kids to finish their program before we pulled my truck out of the pasture. I drove slow and he walked along and we chatted as we went. But I heard this strange PSSSST! noise come from the trailer. It wasn't constant, it was intermittent and related to the tire rotation. Very weird. 3 of us looked all over the tires and found nothing. I pulled the trailer up to a flatter spot up by the shop, then slowly backed up until the hiss was constant and watched the one tire just drop. We pumped it back up and I drove the trailer 100' to a safe relatively flat spot. My plan was to chock the tires, disconnect the truck, remove the tire and go get it fixed so I could safely drive the load home. Jacking a loaded trailer, even with a small load of logs, is not something I would choose to do, but oh well. I used caution, double checked everything, and got the tire off. I really didn't have many tools at all, but I made do. When I got the tire off and flopped it down, I was shocked to see a flat spot on the rim.


 

 It looked like it must have hit a rock or something to bend it. The issue here is, that never happened. This trailer has never had the opportunity for this to happen. There was nothing in that mowed, flat pasture or any other place it has been. In addition there was not a scratch on the rim or tire. The paint was intact, not a chip. I couldn't figure it out. The guys were looking at it thinking I needed a new rim. Well, next to the maintenance shop is a blacksmtih's shop. I asked if they had a cross pein hammer. Turned out they did, so I let the air out, set the rim on wood blocks and went at it. The guys were amazed, looked just fine, except for the paint damage. I pumped it back up, stuck it on, and drove the load home without issue.  I think the log load, my first ever, was enough to show the problem with that wheel that I may have had since I bought the trailer new.
 I didn't get a photo of the flat spot, I was too shocked at what I found. but here is the rim after my "fix". The bad spot is at 12 o'clock. I was pretty happy my hammer work held up, it was a stressful drive.


 

Anyway, got the load home and parked it on the landing without issue. It will sit there until the mule is fixed and can drag the logs to the mill, then the lumber goes back to the center for restoration work.
I had lunch and drove back to the center and got a bunch of bucking work done on that big tree (more on that in the other thread about that tree). But near the end I had saw problems (more on that in another thread about that saw) and I had to quit before I did the final cuts on the butt log. SO I hung out with the guys back at the shop who were repairing canoes and fixing a shop bandsaw and shot the breeze for a while. A very enjoyable thing I do WAY too seldom. I headed home, helped my wife load up for a craft fair tomorrow, and figured out my saw problems before dinner. After dinner, I went out, fixed the saw and put it back together and put on the 28" bar to finish that big log.
 Tomorrow? I have no idea. I may go back and finish that tree off, but I don't like working on something that big when there is nobody around if something goes wrong. Yes, I worked alone today, but the crew would drive by and check on me every once in a while. Tomorrow, nobody is there. They have a rare open weekend due to a canceled wedding.
 Today was a good day, and right in line with my goals. Sure, things broke and went wrong, but that is part of the game, right? It's not the problems that ruin your day, it's how you deal with them.
 The Mule differential is planned to show up tomorrow, but I am not going to hang my hat on that. I will work the day as it comes and if the part shows up, I will change gears (ok, bad pun there) but I need to keep doing 'stuff' instead of waiting.