The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[Old Greenhorn]

The log arch won't work Doc, it doesn't fit. I need to make a dolly and would have to buy the wheels, which is holding me up, then I would have to fabricate. No time for that yet. I can make that little trailer work much quicker.

Tonight I started working on the bill of materials for my next loft addition in the shop. Just 12'x12', but it's more floor space, right? At least with a framing list I can start knocking off some of the lumber I need to make. The 6x8 columns (5) will use up a lot of logs, so I guess I just figured out what to do with the last few logs I have. Then I need more logs for the 2x10 headers (6), and the 2x8 joists (10). So I guess my project just made my milling plan for the near future. At least now I know what I am milling for so I can cut the logs the right length.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, it's been so cold (in the teens most nights) that I don't feel like going out to the shop, too much cold, too soon. Most nights I get home from work mentally exhausted. So I have been thinking on things and making sketches of build ideas. Maybe you saw my thread on the shed roof. That's been changed to a dog house for the mill head, so I have something else to mill for.  ;D I am going to need more logs when I get the mill moved.  I am also planning a short extension on the mill bed, so I need to break out the welder and brush up on those skills. Yeah, I am thinking way past my available time. But this is what I need to do to shake off the bad vibes from work. 
 I got voluntold to be in the office Saturday morning to do data validation after a server swap. I have unlimited unpaid overtime, so there is that >:( and I lose more time on the mill. Hopefully I can get it done early and fast. They said it would be done by 6am and I could get to work, but last weekend they said they would be done by 2pm Saturday and they in fact didn't finish until 7pm Sunday night. ooops. Have I mentioned how much I hate my job? ;D

 Anyway, I have sketches for a neat corner shelf with live edges and a nice little end table I'd like to try. I am also thinking about trying a few live edge clocks with diagonal milled oblongs. Those will be my winter shop projects if I can come up with the material. Now I am motivated to get that mill moved and back to work. But of course, I have those logs to finish first.  The weather is not helping me out. I may take a day off next week if one of them has good weather.

I try to plan my projects out so I can get the long lead time stuff moving along and it is ready when I need it. There are a few logs I can grab for current needs, but I don't think it's near enough. I have a arborist/logger/sawyer down the road that passes my house at least 4 times a day. I may see what 'arrangement' I can make with him to give or sell me some logs and drop them off on his way home just to get me over the hump.

So I am not posting much and have no photos to share, but the brain is busy. I am doing anything I can to keep my mind off work and sleep through the night. I'd like to make some stuff through the winter and try a small (cheap) craft fair in the spring/summer to see how it goes.

[doc henderson]

remember with overtime they are getting closer to paying you almost 1/2 what you are worth.  ;) we need both time and money so the OT  is helping on the money part. without the job, you would have all kinds of time but no pot to pith in!  I hope things calm down, but you seem to thrive on problem solving.  make it a game if you can, this gets you the money to buy the stuff you need when you have time to do the stuff you want to do.  god bless, sleep well,  you are a good egg my friend!

[Old Greenhorn]

Doc, read my post again. I don't get paid for overtime, in fact they don't pay me at all for extra hours.

[doc henderson]

ahhhhh unlimited "unpaid" overtime.  well that sucks  then! better?     best regards!

[doc henderson]

I will send you a note to take all next week off!  ;D

[Ed_K]

 Please send me a note that I can go back to work ;D. This retirement is for the birds .

[Old Greenhorn]

Please send me a note that I can go back to work ;D. This retirement is for the birds .

You want to trade places @Ed_K ? ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, today was a pretty good day all around. I had to work in the morning but I managed to get my secret decoder ring stuff back working so i could work remotely from home. I don't have need to do that often, so I had to reset all my passwords and my decoder ring, but I got to work fairly early, got it done, and was finished before 8:30, all in my slippers.
 SO I headed to the mill, but it was 20° and I really wasn't looking forward to the weather adjustment. Turned out to be one of those days where your toes are frozen and the rest of you is sweating. I slabbed a log that I have some ideas for and got half of it up the hill, then had lunch.
I am thinking of a corner shelf.


 
The left end would be the bottom and trimmed off square.

I have enough to do a table or something else.



 

I had to do some thinking on how to trim off the one edge. I tried this and realized it wasn't too workable  ;D


 

I cut them in pairs. Again, trying to stock to start working on over the winter.
 There was some nice grain in some of that wood.


 

After lunch, I threw up a nice maple butt log. 12-1/2 feet long, it was heavy (you gotta love manual milling with no lifting equipment). I didn't think to speand a lot of time taking photos, but I milled  that into a cant, got some 8/4 and a 5/4 or two, plus 1 6x8 I need for the loft extension in the shop.


 

I have one more major log to mill, and perhaps one I can get another 6x8 out of, otherwise, it might become next years firewood.
 A long enough day, I quit when the sun dropped below the tree tops and started cleaning up. Tomorrow should be more of the same, I hope. Today the high temp was around 32° and I learned two things: 1) you have to watch your blade lube. mine never froze, it it ran dang slow, and 2) You had better scrape the sawdust off your boards pretty quickly in lower temps because if you don't do it quick, it will freeze in place.  ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

For the second day in a row I had a pretty good day. First, I slept 11 hours last night. I needed that. I have not slept through a night in over a month due to the stress I have been under. But I did so much heavy physical work yesterday that that I fell asleep in my chair at 7:45, got up and went to bed at 8:30. Didn't get up until 7:30 this morning. It felt really good.
A little slow starting, but I headed down to the mill around 9:30 when the temp hit about 23°. I had some sore muscles. ;D I pulled my bigger trailer down because I could not do anything until I got that heavy 6x8 (full green) off the mill. I also had a lot of lumber to move as part of the overall relocation plan. I had to cut the 6x8 to a rough length and of course I had left the chainsaws in the shop. So I unhitched the trailer and did the loop to get the saw. Even cutting it off to 86" made for a heavy piece of wood. My lumber calculator puts it at just over 100# (DRY) and this has to have an MC of at least 60%. SO you can take a guess, mine is around 150# or more judging by how much I sweat. :D I was thinking of @ManjiSann while I was dong this, given his issues handling short logs ad the challenges he faces (and overcomes).
Getting it here nearly popped my eyes out, and the next move was a bit tougher.


 
Still I got a pretty good load on. Some 2x6x12's, some slabs for benches, and a bunch of other stuff. I figure the load was around 1,000# and I was worried about making it up the steep skid road hill.


 

That Mule was screaming and for a little bit I was thinking I bit off more than it could chew, but it made it. I got caught on the game cam when I rounded the bend at the top. My enthusiasm may show just a bit. That load was touch and go.

https://youtu.be/9Nfoe4Fkkrs

I went back down and emptied off my drying skid into the trailer, then managed to flip the skid itself onto the trailer and hauled that whole mess up too. I off loaded and flat stacked it all. Most had been air drying for nearly a year and a lot of it is remnants and junk I made as I learned. I will reset the drying skid when I get somebody to lend me a hand moving it into it's new home. I had a quick lunch.  I had called a neighbor to help move the skid, but he had food poisoning. It's not THAT important.
So I parked the trailer and headed down to the mill again this time to do some work (as if I had been goofing off earlier). I had a couple of poor maple logs that I thought would wind up as firewood, but now that I am making lumber for the shop loft, I realized I might get another 6x8 out of the one, and some 2x6's out of the other. Funny how a day or two can change your perspective completely, isn't it? So I grabbed the bigger one and made a long 6x8, plus some good bench slabs. It has a little wane (or is it "wain"?, maybe "Wayne"? Wayne is my middle name, after John Wayne, but I digress), but that just adds to the attraction, I think. Anyway, this one I opted to  put cross ways on the Mule to get it up to the shop, the sun was dropping. Not as bad as the other one, for sure but still quite a load on my back and I nearly lost it a time or two. I think the MC was lower in this one. I am not sure which was tougher, getting those pieces up on the Mule, or getting the strap around them working alone. :D I felt like a one armed paper hanger.



 

At any rate I got them up into the shop, off loaded and stacked the 4 pieces I have. 2 of them are not usable for the loft, too short. But I will look at them for a bit and come up with something for them to do. ;D I did note that the 6x8 I cut yesterday weighs at least 30% more than the ones I cut today. Interesting I think.
I was so pooped after all that stuff that I sat in the shop to catch my breath and I was looking where the loft will go. I think I may just put a 6x10 header of the front face of that loft so that I can hang a winch from it for lifting 'stuff'. It would be right over the front of the main bay. Something I have have to ponder some more.
So again, it was a pretty good couple of days. As my Dad always said, "Progress is being made".

[doc henderson]

glad you had a good couple days, it musta been the pep talk i gave ya!!! :D :D :D  maybe 1 %?

[Old Greenhorn]

glad you had a good couple days, it musta been the pep talk i gave ya!!! :D :D :D  maybe 1 %?

There was a pep talk and I missed it?  :D Yeah, sorry, that was it Doc, the pep talk! 
 I think being able to spend 2 days in a row working on my own stuff without leaving the property. (OK, we went to a diner for dinner last night but the wife drove and I forgot to bring my wallet, so that doesn't count ;D).
 I just keep pushing forward. Any progress is good progress, right? At this point, this afternoon, I figured I can mill up those very last 2 logs and start moving the mill Thanksgiving weekend. Before today I had not set a date as a goal. Getting near the end of the 1st season now and I am starting to firm up the prep work for the next session.

[Nebraska]

 8) 8)Glad you had a great day, it was beautiful here  all in all an excellent weekend. 

[ManjiSann]

Glad you were able to load those boards!  

It never ceases to amaze me how much some of this stuff weighs    I keep meaning to get into body building so I can lift it easier  ;D

Brandon 

[Old Greenhorn]

Glad you were able to load those boards!  

It never ceases to amaze me how much some of this stuff weighs    I keep meaning to get into body building so I can lift it easier  ;D

Brandon

If you are a sawyer, you are a body builder whether you like it or not. ;D I am a bit sore today, not a lot, just a bit.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well as stated, I got a fair amount of work done this past weekend and I am happy with that. But now it's the miserable work week again. >:( It's pitch black before I leave work now and all my lumber is pretty much green so I can't do any shop projects. However I can keep my mind busy with that loft extension in the shop. I need to keep whittling away at that lumber so it's ready when I start building. I went out to the shop and took dimensions more specifically than I had before and made a sketch as the previous one was in my head and as I change the design it is getting hard to keep track. I also roughly calculated the board footage I will need. The framing comes out to around 380 b/f. I changed again yesterday when I decided to put a 6 x 10 x 12' header across the front. This will allow me to hang a chain fall at the front of the bay if I need it.
 The build is a way off, I have a lot of work the prepare and clear the area, but once I start, the build should go quick as it did with the last one. (That was 12 x 20, this one is 12' x 8.5' with a small bridge to the other deck). So I would like to have all the framing lumber ready to go before I begin. I figure January if all goes well with the mill move.
 I need more logs for these headers and rafters and a few columns and am not sure where they are coming from yet.
Now I am pondering the question of the deck. On the other loft I used 2 layers of plywood (17/32) and that worked fine, but it cost me cash. My sawyer at the time suggested I use his planks. So now I am thinking about 1" boards (maybe 5/4?). Now I have a good friend here on the FF who is always offering me pine if I need it. This would be a good opportunity for that. Here's my quandary: I need a 12' run, which means 12"+ logs. I don't have a trailer that will fit 12'+ logs, I can only carry 10' on mine. I MIGHT be able to get some 12' logs dropped off, but not sure yet, haven't asked.  Now if I cut those boards on a 45° bias, I can use random lengths. I would need about 190 BF it it were 1". I think 1" is too thin. It won't compare to the carry capacity of 1" of plywood. I am not sure how 5/4 would compare.
 So my questions for those still reading this thread:
1) Plywood or planks?
2) Bias or square?
3) 1", 5/4, 1-1/2 inch, or something different?
4) anything I missed?
 

[SawyerTed]

Did you say what the spacing on the joists will be?  That will determine the thickness needed.

[Old Greenhorn]

Did you say what the spacing on the joists will be?  That will determine the thickness needed.

Sorry, the joists are 2 x 8, spaced 16". All lumber is full sized.

[Nebraska]

5/4  gets my vote. Straight  or edged at 45 °

[SawyerTed]

+1 on 5/4 

[Old Greenhorn]

@Nebraska and @SawyerTed I am reading my post in the light of day now, it generates some new details for me. First some clarification: When I said on the 'bias', I meant that the floor boards wold be at an angle to the joists, say 45 or so. I did not mean edged at a 45. However I will have to think about the edging, it might make for a smoother floor.
 Second, I should have mentioned that I want to put some small machines up there and some potentially heavy hardware cabinets. Probably 2 floor drill presses, a sanding bench, possibly a small Logan lathe and maybe set up my apron brake again. So I would like to have it pretty stiff. 
 I am thinking it doesn't really matter the lay direction. The edging is something I would have to set up on my radial arm saw and it would be nice to have a helper. That's a lot of wood to edge.
 More important to me is rigidity. I think if it is softwood I would be better off with 6/4 and if it is hardwood I could do fine with 5/4.
 Any thoughts?

[btulloh]

5/4 is pretty good, but 6/4 means you'll be able to put just about anything on the floor.  Cheap insurance.  No regrets later.

Nix the 45 degree edges.  They'll split off and leave voids.  Square edge, nailed well will be fine.  Consistent thickness on the flooring pays off.  Plane if necessary, but should be ok with the rough sawn if it's consistent.

[Old Greenhorn]

Actually, I'd like to see if I can get access to a local planer to plane the tops at least and hold a consistent size. It would also make for easier floor sweeping. I am a notorious sweeper. I hate junk on the floor.

[Nebraska]

I read it at first and couldn't decide what you were getting at, but yes I understand laying the floor at a 45, it's how the old part of my house is sheathed and decked. 6/4 will hold for sure then no worries,  I think the flooring in my  barn hayloft is only 1 inch  tongue and groove on 16 inch centers back in its day I it held a winter's worth of hay. 

[btulloh]

Actually, I'd like to see if I can get access to a local planer to plane the tops at least and hold a consistent size. It would also make for easier floor sweeping. I am a notorious sweeper. I hate junk on the floor.

Good point on the sweeping.  Rough sawn lumber can really defeat a broom.  Laying it down herring bone style guarantees it won't wiggle, so why not.  Triangles are good.  Also helps on the length issue.
Sure sounds like a nice addition to your shop.