The Greenhorn's initial sawing season 2019-20

[Old Greenhorn]

Wow, lots of chit-chat going on I need to catch up to. Blew most of my evening messing with this ding-dang cell phone. First, I found out the carrier they stuck me with is t-mobile which has terrible, if any, coverage in this area. Very frustrating. Talked to a nice young lady this morning who gave me instructions to get my carrier switched to AT&T without starting over. AT&T is still poor, but better. I ran up to the mall and got the right sim card and an SD card. I also asked her about how to get photos directly from the phone to my PC and she said the only way is to email them. That ticked me off, it makes no sense to me. Anyway, came home, installed the sim card and called them. Got a nice fella this time (after being on hold for 30 minutes) who worked through it quickly. He said it would kick in in a few hours and I would be good to go. He also said there was no easy way to get files from phone to PC. Well, in 15 minutes I got a note I was good to go, and it worked for making calls from the house OK and seems to use the wireless, which it did not before. Tried to set up my voicemail, but every time I call it, it tells me the voicemail has not been setup by the user (me) yet and hangs up. Very frustrating. HOWEVER, in my stubborn way, I figured out that all I need to do to connect the PC to the phone and shift files back and forth is change a selection in the phone as to how it uses the USB port. Seems like I have to do it each time, but it works fine and I can drag files back and forth, just the way I wanted. I even copied a bunch of my music over. win-win! So I am much happier with this phone thing. I still need to improve the wireless in the shop, but that is very do-able, just have to wait until the weather gets a little better.
 At some point I did something to my left knee and it has bothering me more and more all afternoon, now I walk with a limp. Not sure what is going on. No trauma, so I have no idea. Between the wasted time on the phone, and the bum knee, I decided to take the rest of the night off, what's left of it. I just checked on my epoxy and almost all of it is done on the tops and bottoms except one crack that keeps sucking it down with very little leakage. It has to keep going somewhere. I will have to re pour that again (4th time?), but can start some sanding on the others. I may have some end cracks to pour a little in, but it's getting there.

Now this whole thing about applewood has me intrigued! I don't come into contact with it much. This whole valley is filled with orchards, but I never cross paths with it. I am sure A-Z is familiar with some of the ones in New Paltz and surrounding areas, not very far from me. But those trees are all cut and trimmed by the owners and don't get out in the area much at all. I would love to work with some. If it was used for bearings, it must be pretty hard. I know the grain I have seen in some small turned pieces is very pretty. Yeah A-Z, I would love to come up and see if we can find some pieces big enough to fit on the mill, maybe 4' or so? Have you ever milled it? I would think it would take a nice polish, so now I now have to learn how to polish wood. ;D

[A-z farmer]

Old greenhorn 
I have milled apple at 5/4 and 9/4 and it is stacked and stickered in one of our barns but I have not used any of it yet .When you get a break from your busy schedule stop over and you can mill up some apple trunks .They are between 18 inches to 26inches diameter to up to 6 feet long .It is a hard wood but hemlock knots seem to be harder.
Zeke

[Old Greenhorn]

I did do a little research into applewood. Turns out it is rare to find in normal lumber sizes because it is generally pruned back for crops. Used for fine furniture, mallets, handles. Very dense, high shrink rate, sometimes very neat grain structure. My mouth is watering!
---
SO I didn't get a lot done tonight, began sanding again after epoxy. I had two spots that I had to repour before I can sand. Think I have them now. The sanding opened up, to showed me some more minor defects (the finer you go, the more you see) so I poured them too.
 The knee is still bothering me, I may have overbent it a some point. When I walk, it works out a little, but when I first get out of the chair it hurts fairly well. So I am trying to take it easy on that knee.
 The phone is finally getting squared away and training me in how to use it. ;D I've got my tunes working on it, I can play them through the truck system, texts work there too, voicemail is squared away, figured out how to keep the data use to zero or a minimum when not around WiFi, and the battery life is super. I am pretty happy with it all around.
 I Bought my first app this evening. I have been hearing so much about this SawLogCalc and had tried the free version that I decided to make a capitol investment ($2.99) and get the pro version. It took a little while to figure it out, but what I like is being able to run up a log tally and email it to myself so I have a record or could put it in a spreadsheet. It also has some neat uses to convert stuff. The weights are helpful for skidding with my small machine and mostly, of course, the board foot calculations in any scale I care to use. Pretty happy with it. Another tip I picked up here on the forum that saved me a lot of time messing around trying to find the right one. I think the guy would sell a lot more copies if he was a sponsor here on the forum, he already has fans here.
 SO that's it for this day, the knee hurts and I am headed to bed after I fill the wood stove. Getting on a knee to fill that stove is turning into the toughest part of my day. :D

[ManjiSann]

OG, hope your knee feels better soon! When it does you can do a dance like this guy  8)

The SawLogCalc app, do you know if it will let you estimate weights of different species of wood based on diameter and length? I'm thinking it'd be nice to know how much I'm actually trying to move instead of just guessing  :P

I'm toying with trying colored epoxy on some projects in the future so it's great to see you playing with it and read how it's going for you. Keep the projects coming!

Brandon 

[Old Greenhorn]

Yes, go download the free version and play with it. It does weight and BF is several scales. Download the instructions on the writers website, that set me straight.
The knee is fixing itself slowly..
 I have not played with colored epoxy yet but am getting pretty good with it straight.

[Old Greenhorn]

I am just in that sanding finishing cycle and the more I sand, the more little things I find that I want to make right. Last night I didn't even go out because we had my daughter and her hubby over for her birthday and it was much more fun to catch up with them. Tonight I will have to do another tiny pour for something else I missed on the first (and second, and third) go-round. Because it is cool in the shop the epoxy is taking longer to hit full cure which delays things. But I keep moving to other parts and sand away. Sanding is thinking time, just mindless tedious work and the time has to be filled with something so I think. 
 And that's when I get into trouble. I believe that is where I came up with the idea for that last loft which is on hold until I get some logs. Night before last when I was out there I was thinking about the heat and how getting 5 gallons of oil every 6 days or so was beginning to add up. When I go out there the temp is between 32 and 38. After the heat (oil/hot air) is on for about 1/2 hour, it gets up to around 48-52 which is fine for working. However because the heat is off most of the time, the walls, floors, and machines are all cold thermal mass. Keeping in mind this has been a very warm winter, what happens when it hits 10 below? They key is to get that mass on my side of the heat curve and the only way to do that is a full time heat source and oil is not the answer. I heated my last shop entirely with wood and the temp held very well. The only answer I came up with is 'wood heat'. You might say that's a no brainer, but there is a reason I have not done it over the last 32 years, and that is cost. I would have to install a proper chimney and that might run close to a grand. That's where the thought always ended. There is no skimping when it comes to chimneys, it has to be right and with new materials. I actually have a very good stove ready for it, but that chimney cost was always the killer (plus the high ladder work).
 Anyway, while we were getting things ready for the kids arrival last night I was thinking on this out loud and my wife started asking questions. This morning she said, "you know, I think we really need to put a proper chimney in the shop if you are going to be out there so much." (I love my wife ;D). 
 So, now I have another project in the queue but have a timeline for this one that ends in September. I might like to get some of the attic work done before the big heat comes in July and August. It's close to 40 years since I put one of these in so I have to re-learn the codes and make sure everything is done right. I also have to re-furb that stove over the summer, it has been waiting a very long time to be used again. It heated my last shop.
 I'll be back at the sanding tonight. Should give me some time to think through where this thing is gonna go. ???

Hey Brandon, if you have some log sizes and species you want me to run, I can do the numbers for you. I can even direct email right from the phone app to you if you like.

 

[donbj]

You might say that's a no brainer, but there is a reason I have not done it over the last 32 years, and that is cost.

That ole dilemna. There are times when the cost, if it brings enjoyment and adds to your life, it is justified.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah Don, it's been so many years and I could not justify it for working out there on the occasional weekend and wood heat just for the evening doesn't make sense. But now, with retirement looming and me spending more time out there day to day, it just makes sense.
 I am not looking forward to the roof work or shopping for a supplier for the materials but no pain, no gain, right? Of course, it also adds quite a bit to the wood gathering, splitting, stacking, drying chores. But its still 'free' heat, right? ;D :D

[doc henderson]

OGH, the only other thought I had is an outdoor wood furnace.  not sure if the forced air ones are that efficient.  but I think the pipe can run outside, and takes up no floor and clearance space in your shop.  but then you have to buy the furnace as well.  I love a wood stove in my shop.  found my brother a good one used for 250 bucks.

In the mean time, I have used heat lamps (like for chicks) to pre warm and finsh curing paint and epoxy.  so just heat the item, not the whole shop.  I now have a retired military hospital blanket and fluid warmer I use.  goes up to 160°, but I am careful to not leave it on unattended.

[Old Greenhorn]

We have some funny town regs about the OWB's and I don't think I can legally have one. When they got popular some folks were using them on 1/4 plots in tight residential neighborhoods and smoking everyone out, so they put in big restrictions. There are  few on my road with folks that have the land and space to use them right, but it would be tight for me. I did think about it though.
 Funny story abut the stove I have: I think it's an Atlanta castings (now out of business) and very nice welded 3/8 plate with a catalytic combuster ( I call it the after burner) and it throws a lot of heat when that thing kicks in and the flue gasses are clean. Anyway. when we were newly married my wife worked in the testing labs for J C Penney's in NYC and they tested everything Penny's sold from underwear to ratchets. SO they got this new stove in for test from the manufacturer and had a hard time setting it up and finding fire wood (in 1981 in NYC). Ever try to hook up a wood stove on the 16th floor of a 40 story office building? ;D But they managed, and they burned some pallet wood to do their BTU assessments. Then they had this stove sitting there and the builder didn't want to ship it back, it was 'used'. So they put it in an employee auction. I bid $27.98. I felt nobody would know, or have the where with all to get it out of the city, let alone have a truck and the handling equipment. I won the auction, picked it up, and was happy as a clam with it all the days I used it. The stove sold for about $800.. It was full time heat in my shop, 7 days a week, fall to spring, for 5 years until we moved north. Now it sits out in the cold storage hut. I need to knock the rust off, make new gaskets, and get this thing heating coffee again.

[doc henderson]

great deal!  I love that.  I was thinking more the forced hot air type.  but I would rather have a stove I can throw scraps in as well, and see and feel the nearly silent heat.  but it will take up some space.  so can you build a side addition onto your shop, and put the stove in there, and circulate the heat.  I know you are looking for more projects.   :D  I enjoy throwing out ideas, but I am sure you will make the best choice for your situation and location.  with a tall ceiling, at least you can run quite a bit of stove pipe and not so much the expensive chimney pipe.  I do use the double wall stove pipe.  we have a 16 foot ceiling in the living room.  I have bought and sold about 5 stoves that were too good to pass up.  not at a profit, but more like a item that needs a home.  I have not got a deal that good!  love to see a pic. someday.  maybe in the summer or fall!

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, the shop ceiling is just about 16' and I figure the stove to be down on the main floor, so a lot of black pipe and about 8' of chimney or so. The plan is to set it where I can still pull a truck into the bay and work on it, so probably up by the work bench area, but in the spring I can pull the black pipe down and move the stove into a corner. That is real easy with my hand crank fork lift. Like moving a chair. Then in the fall just move it back. It means doing an initial re-arranging again but I am getting used to that.
 I have to do some measuring and thinking, but I have time. Last shop I had it installed with a straight shot up through the roof. That was a mistake because when I wanted to remove pipe sections, I had to lift the whole chimney straight up. This time I will put a jog in it to make disassembly easier, which will also make alignment easier and let me get it closer to the wall. All cement block walls here, so I really don't want to put in an alcove for it.
 I had toyed with the idea of putting a masonry chimney going up the out wall, but I think the pre-fab is less expensive.

[WV Sawmiller]

OGH - if you are close enough to an exterior wall to safely do it I'd suggest run a shorter length of the black stove pipe out it rather than a longer length out the top. I suspect moving that long pipe each season is going to get real messy real quick. JMHO.

[donbj]

Of course, it also adds quite a bit to the wood gathering, splitting, stacking, drying chores. But its still 'free' heat, right?

For sure. Wood is one of those heat sources that you get warmed up about 4-5 times by the time it's thrown into the stove.

Just put visions in your mind of the feet up and sitting back in front of that wood stove next winter on a cold winter night. That should motivate the plan:D

[WV Sawmiller]

   Yes and you just watch - anybody visiting the shop in August will still back up to that woodstove or fireplace as if they are actually warming their backside. Its just an instinctive reaction sort of like scratching your head when somebody starts talking about cooties. (I saw you scratch when you read that. :D )

[doc henderson]

nothing better.  you can keep it a little cooler in your shop so you can work without sweating, but if you have to go outside and your hands are cold you  can stand next to it, and warm them right up.  i love mine. It is perfect for us woodworkers.  no one sees our mistakes.  and the ends we cut off from our own lumber do not go to waste.  my buddy gets a sore back and the first thing he does is put his back to the fire and stands there talking to me sittin by the table saw 20 feet away.  usually drinking a Pliny the Elder (muscle relaxer).

[Nebraska]

I realize there is a budget involved, but I think a block alcove with a little wood storing area alongside (with a cool custom sawn coffee cup holding mantel piece)  would be  nice to have in January. Too cold outside.. no problem just kick back by the fire with some coffee all warm as toast waiting for the epoxy to set up while catching up on the forum.  You've got that new phone,   I can see it now.   Just would  save dragging it back and forth and taking apart the chimney every year.

[Old Greenhorn]

Wow, I step away from the forum for a few hours and look what happens. I have not mastered the multi-quote yet, so I will just do the best I can to respond to each in kind.

 Howard, I worked the wall idea through my head a few times. First, I would have to either go out about 30" past the wall and go up to miss the soffet, or cut through the soffet. Either way, it will give me a lot more prefab chimney to buy at a premium. Black pipe is much cheaper. Also, I have done the 'remove the chimney thing' in my 2 previous shops and it actually works much easier for cleaning and maintenance. I finally decided on the interior route. I think it also makes the outside portion more secure and the install is easier.

 Don, those visions have been in my head for years. I still have memories of the last shop and having my morning coffee doing phone calls, working on quotes, or just planning the day sitting next to the stove. I am concerned about the amount of wood, the shop may well use more than the house and that would put me up around 10 cord/yr. More than I ever thought of putting up, let alone storing.

 Howard, yeah, summer times most folk don't identify with the stove unless it'a a cold evening. I used to sit on that stove when it was in use because it was near my Bridgeport mill. Tough habit to break every fall. ;D (and no, sorry, I did not scratch, well not the first time anyway.)

 Doc, yes, I too am a romantic when it comes to such things. The wood seems to heat my soul and as I write this I am trying to get the temp up in the den to get that cleansing warmth into my bones after a day in the shop with cold feet. As for burning mistakes, my wife has me on this little side trip of making chothckie things out of my scrap to sell at flea markets. The scrap used to look like wood stove fodder to me, now it looks different. But mill scraps are a different story. ;D (see below)

 Nebraska, I like this idea a lot, I really do. I think for my case it would require about a 6x12 area for what you propose. It would of course, be the biggest part of the budget (I have never done block work and my best resource for that died 5 years ago). I think I would still like to keep the chimney inside running up through the roof, and this too is do-able. However, being the conservative that I am, and possessing a never ending lack of confidence in my plans, I think I would like to run at least one season with just the stove on the shop floor and see how it heats, how inconvenient it is, and whether it is a good decision in the first place. Adding the alcove would be a nice idea, but I have to put it down the road a bit. If I make it long enough I can add an outside door on it and bring wood in that way.

 More in the near term, I have a commercial Bunn coffee pot, 2 burner, sitting in the shed that I salvaged. The only issue it has at the time was a small drip. It needs cleaning and when I retire I am anxious to get it going in the shop. I LOVE Bunn coffee pots. 12 cups in 5 minutes. Takes me all the way to lunch time! I need to create a place of honor for it.

 So today it was fairly cold and took a while to get the shop decently warm. I was watching the grandsons for a while also this morning. My plan was to get the coffee table fine sanded and start oiling it. I had decided on Danish oil for this because it seemed to brig out the medullary rays much better on a test piece. So I replenished my sanding paper stock, never seem to have all the grits I want, then got to it. Of course, the finer you go, the more you see, and feel. I found some more tiny cracks. So I did another tiny pour and also did the one I missed 4 times. SO I never got to finishing.

 I had time to kill, so I grabbed some scraps and made more chotchkies. All random, just winging it. All the slot sizes vary, just looking for what works best.  I made about a half dozen.

 

Side views;

 

And yes, that is a new 'business card' you see there. I made those because I just needed something with my new phone number on it to give friends. Nothing official yet. Just kind of trying the name out.

 

I am finding that all these 'devices' have different thicknesses so I will have to do some research and settle in on some standard slot sizes.

 Anyway, not a big progressive day, but I keep moving on. Thanks for all the thoughts on the wood stove, helps reinforce that I am heading in the right direction. If I can't sand tomorrow, then probably I will do some cleaning and storing of stuff in the shop, never really settled into the new workbench downstairs and have stuff I put in boxes that need to be dealt with.

[Ljohnsaw]

Nice!  As far as slot sizes for devices, you can go wide(r), just make them deep(er) and it will work for most anything.

[Old Greenhorn]

Not much happened today here. the dishwasher went down last night with a hard breaker short. The wife was not pleased. So I waited for her to get it unloaded most of the morning so I could tear into it. I hate working on dishwashers. Finally got it out around 11am and disconnected the power feed, water and drain without too much trouble. Didn't see anything obvious. started tracing wires, turns out the main controller is inside the door, removed another dozen screws, checked connectors and then I found one connector on the main controller which was toast, totally melted, smoked out. Lucky it didn't catch on fire. Even if I replaced the main controller I would still have to find someway to make a new connector and then find what caused the problem, which I suspect might be a seized motor or something like that. I did the math in my head and decided we were done with this dishwasher. ;D Wife is still not happy.
 SO by the time I got out to the shop it was about 2:30. Ran out of oil pretty quick. Did some final sanding to take out the last epoxy pours lumps, then bought it down to something approaching 'pretty smooth'.
 Then I started hitting it with some neutral Danish Oil. It really brought out the grain and medullary  lines. Here is one leg with the oil and one without.



 

Those rays are really starting to pop, I hope it shows in this photo fairly well.


 

I stuck it back together and find that the joints are a bit looser than before I did all the sanding. Also the pegs will need a lot more work to be fitted. I expected this so I didn't spend a lot of time on the pegs until it was near finished. Now is about that time. I need to stretch the holes on one end a bit, might have to make some new pegs, no big deal. 


 

I need to do another coat of oil to even out some blotches and I will start focusing on getting those pegs right. I am thinking when it has a couple of coats of urethane, it will tighten back up again. I also need to finally decide on a finished height. I am thinking 19" is abut right, which means I have to cut around 5" off the height.
 SO not much done, but something anyway. Gonna loose more time this week installing the new dishwasher.

[thecfarm]

I have seen my wood stove smoke more than my OWB.  :  Stick with the wood stove and let it smoke and all is good.
Just so you know,the OWB now, don't smoke much at all. But my FIL knows they ALL smoke ALL the time, because he knew "someone" that had one. He had no idea the kind, or what they burned in it, but he "knows" they smoke All the time.  :
Seem like there was a member that got a OWB, a newer one. The neighbor came over when it was being set up and said they would complain about it.  :
I think another member lived in some town in Maine. The town zoned all sawmills, so he could not run one at his home. He said there was a person years ago that had a circular saw with a big diesel motor and did not keep up on the waste. So all sawmills was lumped into this zoning.

[ManjiSann]

I like the card and device holders! I'll have to make a few with the off cuts

I wish I could have a wood burning stove, or fireplace  :(  Unfortunately any "solid" fuel burning is heavily regulated in my area during winter due to poor air quality. I get why they do it and I guess I agree, but it takes the fun out of the simple things in life like a wood fire. Gas fires just aren't the same to me. 

Brandon 

[Nebraska]

There isn't much that can warm a soul like an appropriate fire.... I like your business cards and the various holders, it all looks good. If you were closer I have a concrete saw that would make the addition to put the stove in easier. It will take a fair pile of wood to heat that shop but I bet it's not to hard to come by in that neighborhood. I've been surprised about how much slab waste my little mill made over the last year, it makes heat just fine. It's a significant amount of my heat this year.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, Brandon hit on gas (LPG) for me and I looked into it and ran the numbers because it is convenient, but the costs didn't change my overall situation much compared to oil and that is just not workable for a winter season. I know I will go from using 4-5 cord for the house to perhaps up to 10 cord for the winter with the shop and that is a shoot load of wood. I am running out of dead trees to cull. I am hoping on the slabs to help out and I have a section of neighbors property behind my shop with dead leaners that need to be cleared and he told me to 'have at it' whenever I am ready. That makes for a short skid to the shop  .

 My wife keeps harping on all these little things from scraps to have on a table when I do a show or market. She says the 5 to 20 buck items can really make the difference between a good day and a bad day. SO I am trying different stuff. Gotta get my own planer and jointer. I had a new idea for a tabletop mini-bookshelf that would hold about 12-14" worth of books. They are kind of handy on a desk or in a kitchen, but it's jointing work. She figures those little business card things should start at 5 bucks. I suppose that could add up.

[Old Greenhorn]

Slow progress since Sunday. Monday night I installed the new dishwasher and got almost no time in the shop except to dump some oil in the tank and bleed it out. Took 10 minutes to bring the shop up to 50° because it has been warm and after weeks of evening and weekend heating, the shop is dried out now. I did a little more looking and thinking on those pegs that need adjusting. Last night I had some other chores to attend to but took the table apart and started working on lengthening the slots with careful chisel work. It's a lot of tiny cuts, then fit and try, then more tiny cuts. Trying not to overdo it. Also started a new pair of pegs. I got far enough along to know that this will work fine and fit properly when I get it done. So a short session but I made headway.
 My son has his truck in the shop now to do a water pump so that fills the bay, but gave me a chance to see how the woodstove would fit with a full length truck in there. It seems workable. One thing for sure, a year ago if he had his truck in there, I could not do any work at all except to my Mule in the other bay. Now the new loft has added just enough room for me to work without disruption and still have the two saws and other stuff accessible upstairs. (We moved the RA saw up there late last week sometime.) For this I am very grateful. I think my son is too because he doesn't hear me complaining as much abut the truck. He will have to do the work today but let it set over night for the gasket to dry before he finishes it up tomorrow. He was working on a pre-spring cleanup at an estate yesterday and says he has a 16' dump trailer full of firewood logs to drop off for the shop. He also has some tall spindly hickory and ash (long dead) out by the pond that he wants me to come an drop. We may have to move a foot bridge to be safe on one of them. Two of them have to be cut at the 8' line so I have to think on that a bit and look it over.
 No work tonight either, I have to go to a retirement dinner for the boss (  8) ).
 So i am just plugging slowly and waiting for the weekend when it will be cooler again after this beautiful warm week. Mud season is back already. Not like @Swampdonkey has (or will very soon have), but we have it, just the same.  It is starting to feel like prime milling weather.