Chasing the sawdust dream

[doc henderson]

man killers, those belts and blades. you really had to know where to keep your hand and stuff out of.  thanks for the pics.  

[samandothers]

Great photos and narrative!  Thanks for the time to do this.

I must admit given modern world of safety consciousness looking at some of these devices makes you think how on your toes you needed and how accidents could happens so easily.

[Resonator]

Thanks guys. Though the sawmill is inherently dangerous, the machine that was scary to watch was a wood splitter one guy had running. He used a hit and miss gas engine to spin a big cast iron flywheel with a sharp wedge mounted to the outer rim. Standing chunks of chord wood up by hand in line with the spinning wheel-wedge to split them.  

[doc henderson]

i have seen some like that on you tube.  great to watch on a night shift if feeling sleepy.  the adrenaline combined with coffee or diet pepsi keeps me going!

[thecfarm]

I always enjoy hearing and seeing them things run!!!

[Jeff]

Dont drink diet pepsi doc, its not good for you. 

[Magicman]

diet pepsi keeps me going!

It's a proven fact that diet Pepsi will make you fat.  Have you ever seen a skinny person drinking one??  

[Darrel]

diet pepsi keeps me going!

It's a proven fact that diet Pepsi will make you fat.  Have you ever seen a skinny person drinking one??  

That's true Lynn, also, unless you are a very brittle diabetic, you'd be a whole lot better off with the sugar. 

[doc henderson]

when i was in undergrad college, i also worked full time as an RT in the Lawrence memorial hospital.  i drank 5 reg. cokes a day in 8 hours.  I also did research for a year and a half, so i needed the sugar and caffeine.  i weighed 135# and was 3% body fat.  we would meet and run for an hour after work at 1 am and go to class at 8 am.  i was burning all the sugar.  i drink diet coke cause I am already fat, and I do not want to get fatter!     .

[Resonator]

I do like a good tall cold sweet tea myself, reminds me of years ago driving truck down south in the land of grits, where the waitresses called me "Hon' "

Did a little welding and fabricating recently with some pieces I picked up at the steel supply yard near me. The have a large selection of channel, angle, plate, pipe, etc. and charge by the pound for cut-offs and scraps.



Made a jib hoist out of 6" C channel, 5" tube cut in half, and a couple short lengths of chain with hooks. I use this for lifting logs off of trailers that have sides/fenders that get in the way of the forks. 




Also made a trailer jack bracket to mount on my mill. The bracket wraps around the frame, and the removable C channel at the top holds it in place. That way I'm not drilling holes or welding to the trailer monorail frame. I also added a few pieces of 4" nylon cargo strap for padding to keep from scratching the frame paint. The jack itself came with a short steel pipe section I welded in place, and it can be removed by pulling a pin. Adding the jack made a HUGE improvement not only for hitching and unhitching, but also for leveling the mill before sawing. (Wish I would have done this 2 years ago!)

[doc henderson]

Dont drink diet pepsi doc, its not good for you.  

new study in JAMA says all soda is bad, do not know why but worldwide correlation

[Nebraska]

Meh.... bad schmad, life is 100% fatal anyway.    Some days diet Pepsi is a blessing, most all things in moderation.. oh yeah and Resonator nice pictures as well, like your jib hoist,  my heavy trailer has those fenders in the way as well. 

[btulloh]

Everyday something is added to the list of stuff that's bad for you.  Occasionally something is removed from the list and determined to be OK after all.  It's important to watch the news closely so you know what to scared of.   

Be careful of excessive moderation. 

[nativewolf]

when i was in undergrad college, i also worked full time as an RT in the Lawrence memorial hospital.  i drank 5 reg. cokes a day in 8 hours.  I also did research for a year and a half, so i needed the sugar and caffeine.  i weighed 135# and was 3% body fat.  we would meet and run for an hour after work at 1 am and go to class at 8 am.  i was burning all the sugar.  i drink diet coke cause I am already fat, and I do not want to get fatter!    .

Dont drink diet pepsi doc, its not good for you.  

new study in JAMA says all soda is bad, do not know why but worldwide correlation

I can certainly believe this, soda consumption has moved pretty much in correlation with declining health.  We just don't need to drink anything more than H20, a soda should be a treat once a day or less and not these 32 oz things people consume like crazy.  Just common sense I'd think.  In the poor south it used to be people drinking cool-aid with just crazy amounts of sugar, now it is soda.  Sigh.

[Bruno of NH]

My uncle had kidney cancer last year.
Drinks lots and lots of diet soda
I think that did it

[Resonator]

Some of the Sugar Maple I sawed last year, is in a friends shop being made into an island countertop. This will go into a repeat customers new house (the tree came from his land). Stay tuned for more future work on this project.



Sold 650 bd. ft. of my rough sawn 1" Spruce.  
This customer saw my ad online, and drove about 2 hours each way to buy it, and was glad to fit it all in his short box pickup! While I was helping this customer, another pulled in my driveway and bought a 3' Black Ash natural edge slab. I'm grateful for the business, but do they have to pull in all at the same time?!

[PAmizerman]

I like when customers all come at the same time. That means I don't have to stop what I'm in the middle of to wait on them.

[PAmizerman]

I've had customers drive over 3½ hours one way for hemlock and Ash.

[Resonator]

Stay tuned for more future work on this project. 

As promised the Sugar Maple project continues. My repeat customer found a guy with a solar kiln to dry the lumber for his new breakfast nook. (My lumber is stacked in front.)




He claims it can get up to 120° on a good sunny day. I tend to believe him as I was sweating loading lumber inside on an overcast day. The gray metal duct at the bottom of the wall runs to a furnace for additional heat in winter. During the summer the only cost to run it is the electricity for the fans.




I left my lumber in good hands, knowing he had some large animals standing guard.

[Resonator]

I had a new customer stop in and buy some full 2" x 12" White Pine I had for sale. Some of the wood was from a huge tree taken down by a tree service, and some wood from my own land. I had originally cut it into random widths, but he requested it be resawed into 12" for stair treads. The lumber buyer is a custom builder who plans to build a playhouse - man cave inside a converted grain silo. 




Not long after the lumber customer, I got a call from a many times repeat firewood customer buying the first load of the season. Board footage and cord woodage, just another day chasing the sawdust dream.