The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[RAYAR]

I don't know nuthin' bout smart phones, but I guess I can learn me up some on it.

Now we get to find out who is smarter, you or the phone ...  ;D ;D ;D It's really a computer you carry around with you and has the added functions of phone and camera features. ;)

[A-z farmer]

Greenhorn 
You need what the old timers called poor mans penicillin to get rid of the bad bugs in your system .
They are garlic ,horseradish,and honey .
I have been growing the garlic and horseradish for many years and I think it helps or at least it keeps people away that have germs .
Zeke

[Old Greenhorn]

Well A-Z, that sounds yummy, wonder how you mix that up? Maybe I should take a run up the thruway one afternoon?
 Rayar, I think the phone will win, be we shall see.
 So just an easy day plugging along. Had to do some household chores which killed a good piece of the day, like going to the accountant to review the taxes, etc. But I did a second small epoxy pour, might need a third on the top to even things off.
 I put the penny in the hole I partially filled yesterday then I filled over it. 


 
I refilled a lot of the little cracks that had settled below the surface over night. 
I also filled that mis-cut I made. 


 

Some of these are still settling down, so probably one more small pour tomorrow. I am just using solo shot glass cups for mixing, so not a lot of material. Because it is not real warm in the shop it's not curing very well. I preheated the epoxy by the furnace before mixing and went over it with a torch to pop bubbles after pouring, but it is taking a long time to cure. I cranked the oil burner most of the day, but that block building holds a lot of cold in the walls and floor.

While going back and forth on that stuff, I began work on the next project. Brought the main wood upstairs and started the layout and the first 2 cuts on each to give me some working edges. This will be a corner shelf unit.


 

I just strapped it together to see if I came up pretty square to the floor with my starting cuts.
It still has the bark on, so that will have to come off.


 

 Funny thing about this one is that I have little idea how I am going to do this and make it look good. Each step is a new adventure. The two sides are not equal width so these shelves will not be 45's and each shelf will be a different width. Not quite sure how to attach the shelves yet either. The top and bottom shelves will be fixed, the ones in the middle, I am not sure.
 Anyway, I spent some time setting up the table saw to make the lap joint cuts for the back edges and cut a test piece. But I want a second pair of hands to run these boards through so I don't mess them up. Table saws still scare me a bit. 
 Trying not to overdue things so I don't get run down and give this sinus thing the upper hand, but I need to keep moving forward.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH - I like that corner shelf idea! Now are you going to saw cookies and quarter them and use them for shelves so they have round, live edge front? Just a thought/suggestion. Installing the shelves may help hold the other 2 pieces together while you glue them together.

[Old Greenhorn]

OGH - I like that corner shelf idea! Now are you going to saw cookies and quarter them and use them for shelves so they have round, live edge front? Just a thought/suggestion. Installing the shelves may help hold the other 2 pieces together while you glue them together.

You know, this whole idea came from the wood. When I milled it, this idea popped in my head right away (it was the feet-like things on the bottom from the crotch). I thought of cookies right away. It seemed to me to be the best way to make the shelves. But I have yet to master cookies like Doc has. Cookies crack and split pretty badly for me and they are not really stable. In order not to have this thing weigh 200 pounds, I would need to keep the thickness down to around 5/4 and a cookie that thick I am pretty sure would be really unstable unless it was walnut or something dense like that. I have no such resource. So I am looking at other options and frankly have no planned solutions yet. I may just cut some stuff from the same maple with a straight live edge across the front. This may be one of those projects where I get just so far and can't figure the next step, so I let it stand there for a while and do other things then come back to it when the right idea strikes me. I started this without and 'end game' planned and just want to see where it leads.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH,

  If you quarter the cookies I think you would have removed most of the stress that causes cookies to crack. I haven't tried it but may now looking at this post. I coated some 2" thick walnut donuts (the center was gone or punky) with anchorseal and they have held up pretty well and been cut 2 years or more.

  I like your creativity and letting the wood drive what it wants to be.

[Ljohnsaw]

Cookies crack and split pretty badly for me and they are not really stable.

Whole cookies will crack.  But, if you split the cookie into thirds, it shouldn't crack.  Once it drys for a bit, the outer edge will shrink more then the inner, so the 1/3 will be something less.  Now cut them into 1/4 cookies to fit your standards.  Because of the shrinkage, I don't think you could get 4 full 1/4 cookies and still maintain the very center (pith) in it.  If the cookie is oversize and you don't mind loosing the pith, you could cut into 1/4s and true them up after drying.

Arg, WV beat me to it while I was typing...

[Old Greenhorn]

Well there you go then. Reading my post again and your comments made me think on it some more and I went back and found my post on this thread when I milled this log (post #333 on page 7) and I found this photo. Now those two pieces are NOT the pieces I am working with (well one may be, but the other is certainly not). I don't know what happened to those slabs. I guess tomorrow afternoon when it warms up and the slab pile melts a bit more I will have to pull it apart and find these and either start on a second shelf or at least replace one side of the one i just started. OS my project just hit a little hitch while I reset. The pair in the photo is much nicer than what I am working with. Thanks man!



 

[Old Greenhorn]

OK, this concept of cutting cookies into quarters or thirds is brand new to me. You can bet, the next time I have the saw in my hands and a log in front of me, I will be doing some testing. Very neat idea! Thank you both!

[WV Sawmiller]

   I think @ljohnsaw has the better proposal cutting into 1/3's to allow for shrinkage (Although quarters are probably easier to cut :D) then trimming after drying. There are other threads about drying cookies such as storing them in sawdust and soaking in an antifreeze like solution, and such. Try them all and let us know what works. ;)

[jeepcj779]

Wood stabilizer maybe?

[Old Greenhorn]

Try them all and let us know what works. ;)

:D :D Cookie drying is akin to gas/oil mix here on the forum. I have heard more different solutions to the problem than I can list/ I have yet to hear the  method which requires swinging a dead chicken around one's have a specific number of times, but I am sure it will be forthcoming eventually. ;D
 Trying Doc's method has been on my list for nearly a year (I even bought the alcohol, but I drank it and now need to get more ;D). But cookies will not make it into this project. 
 In my opinion, they are really overdone and don't add a lot to a nice piece of work in most cases unless you can achieve the quality like Doc gets and some of the other examples I have seen here. All of those require good dense wood, and I don't have access to any of that. The general public seems to love them though.
 Funny story: I was helping the neighbors get their place ready for their wedding back in September. The bride had pots with flowers to define the aisle up to the 'alter'. She asked if I could cut some stumps or something to put the flower pots on, so I grabbed a saw and bucked up a downed small tree in the woods. She was tickled pink. then she wondered if I could make thin ones to put under the flowers on the tables, sure, I whipped off about 30 cookies 4-5" diameter. Then she says "Well I guess I can take back all these round wood things I bought at the store for the tables because yours look better." She had bought a dozen shrink wrapped cookies for $10.95/ea. I told her when the dinner was over, they could use them in the campfire.  :D I admit, I don't 'get' cookies, but I will try to work with them as soon as I figure out how to make them look and play nice.

[doc henderson]

thanks for the mention, and I agree that one they are no longer a cont. circle, the stress is gone.  the only aesthetic here is if you want the shelves to be live edge as well.  It will come to you as all things do.  If you cannot decide and it is going in "your wife's house"  I guess you could open up that can of worms and ask her opinion.   :D .  looking good!

[Old Greenhorn]

SO (here I go getting side tracked) I am thinking if you take a round(ish) cookie and just cut one slot to relieve the perimeter stress, do we think it would dry in a nice state? I need to get some logs and try this. ;D

[doc henderson]

yes.  I will try to send pics, but too much going on till Sunday!

[Old Greenhorn]

No rush Doc, I know what you are up to, surprised to even see you here. This is NOT a burning issue a all, its maybe for the next one.

[doc henderson]

did not spend the night at camp.  22nd anniversary.  I made my wife "olive Garden"  

my maple snowmen all had one split to the center and stopped.  I kept one and it is 4 years old and stable.

deer mount.  walnut.



 



 

cottonwood, 3 years in my container.



 

inch and 1/2 thick.  4 years in a heated/cooled shop (maple).  no special care, sopping wet off the mill.

may not have split at all if he was a non-smoker! :D :D :D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well the phone came today so I am trying to get used to it.


 
So I went back to the lumber pile and found the  CORRECT slabs to restart that corner shelf with. :D

Still learning the hard way 😉.

[A-z farmer]

Old greenhorn 
You are going to like the smart phone .You are just a short trip on the other side of the river from me .I will drop off some elixir and a couple 100 year old cortland apple trunks with my flat bed dump.I have not cut them down yet but once they stop salting the roads I will do it .
Zeke

[Old Greenhorn]

Well this weekend was pretty loaded with low level frustration, mostly at myself. A very short list as to what I did, and and even shorter list of what I accomplished. 
 Mostly I bounced back back forth between heating the shop to 'Epoxy levels' mixing and pouring tiny dribbles into tiny cracks, looking at, and taking a few beginning cuts on the (now) 2 sets of corner shelves as I figure how to make these things with what I have, getting the new phone set up, and some household chores. As for what I accomplished: Getting the phone setup, and some household chores. :(
 Now that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything. I learned that it makes little sense to try and make joint cuts on lumber before it is dead flat and has one good edge. I also learned I can't run 5/4 x 16" x 7' maple down the table saw on edge without a helper. I further learned that what looks flat and square on the mill does not necessarily look flat and straight when you start working on it in the shop. The problem with these corner shelves is that they won't fit in the planer I have. I need 18" or more. (and I just now think I thought of one I might use close by)
 All the pieces for the coffee table have been flipped and I am working on filling cracks in the other side. Finished a little glaze coat over the 'date penny'. It wound up deeper than I planned, but you can still see it.



 

Lots of little cracks to fill. I am finding the torch helps a lot to warm it and help it penetrate and flow.



 

My mixing equipment:


 
 (those are shot glasses not 16 once cups, not a lot of filling going on here.)

As for that whole thing with the phone, it seems to work well enough and as expected there are some nice things and some disappointments to deal with. First, it has terrible coverage around my house and this setup doesn't really like the WiFi for phone calls. I also can find no way to transfer photos directly to my computer...yet. I am hoping when I add an SD card it might be easier. I sent out texts to many of my contacts with the new number so they can update my info. Even hooked up with a FF member I haven't seen in a couple of months when he got my update and we caught up a bit. Will probably go and play with some trees and see all the nifty project work he has done since my last visit. He has been very busy.
 At the end of the day, I got on one of those quick print sites and ordered some business cards with what I think will be the new business name. Mostly I just wanted something with the new number on it I could hand folks that need the new number. It was a cheap and quick, probably temporary solution to get it off my mind.

A-Z I would welcome a visit anytime. Wish I had something of interest to show you or trade. That elixir sounds pretty appealing. I love horseradish and garlic, and everybody loves honey. Can't imagine how they taste together. ??? But a visit would be great. I would love to see that farm I have heard about in dibs and drabs. Long history there for sure. Maybe I could run up and help you drop and skid those trees?

 So this week I will do some re-thinking, maybe change my 2nd project to something else until I get the planks planed and maybe jointed.

[trimguy]

I was taught how to add pictures to this site . My wife says just e-mail them and she puts them on the computer in a folder. I retrieve them from there. ( I'm not very techy, no email, no face book , etc. ) Maybe with your experience you might know what she does. Hope this helps. We all like pictures. :laugh: :laugh:. Oh, just type in the e-mail like you are texting.

[doc henderson]

I used to do that.  but you can also get the forum on your phone and go to upload image and put them in your gallery using your phone and taking them direct from you phone album.  then I get on the computer to make a post and have the photos already in the gallery.

[A-z farmer]

Old greenhorn 
That is what is so great about this forestry forum everyone adds a piece to all of us learning something new every day .I have been cutting apple trees for fire wood since I was old enough to swing an axe.My dad and uncle said that is the only thing apple wood was good for .Most of the apple trees out in the orchards now are dwarf trees which do not get a very big trunk .There is a semi dwarf orchard coming out this spring so I can plant it to a hay crop .And it will just get pushed out and burned because it is all limbs .
But I think it would be interesting to see if you could make something from apple wood from our old orchard.
Zeke

[SawyerTed]

Apple wood makes good barbecue and smoking wood!  

There was a brewery near here and a friend as a machinist there.  He said there were conveyors and other equipment that used apple wood bearings.  I don't know if that's true but I've heard from a couple of people that apple wood was used a lot for bearings and rollers.

[doc henderson]

I think the old Babbitt bearings (bushing) had wood and a oiler.  I thought it was oak, but not sure.