Whatcha Sawin' 2020 ??

[Bruno of NH]

She just goes in the pond or brook and gets all wet and muddy before she goes inside. :D

[Magicman]

Do you have a minimum fee to go saw one log for a customer or does the mileage cover that?

Generally a 1Mbf minimum fee and if it's close I may not charge the travel/setup but in the above instance it was 37 miles so fee + t&s.   I have a one 14' ~24" Oak log to saw Monday which is 90 miles.  Yes, t&s + minimum 1Mbf charge.

Marty and I had an eventful sawing day today.  118 miles for 3 logs but it was 3 logs.


 
Pictures can be deceiving.  The top log was 34" and all were 17'+ which were jumped back to 12', 10', and 9'.


 
The butt log was big.


 
After bucking and trimming I loaded and sawed the top log.


 
After sawing the top log I moved the sawmill up to the second log, loaded and sawed it.


 
And then on to the butt log leaving a trail of sawdust after sawing each log.


  
I noticed and avoided sawing these!!


 
The log calculator shows this log at over 4500lbs. and I am quite sure that it is the heaviest log that I have ever loaded.


 
The customer still has some stickering to do.  1651bf of 9/4 and 4/4, plus we got a $140 tip.   ;D   :D 
 

[btulloh]

I'd call that a pretty good yield for 3 logs. 

[Walnut Beast]

Nice pictures Magicman 👍

[jeepcj779]

Careful, you don't want to void your warranty!!

[Hackeldam Wood Products]

Monster Log!

[Hackeldam Wood Products]

 

 
Big Pine. That is as heavy as my tractor will lift. 28"x 8'3" about 1500 pounds. Nothing like that 4500 lb oak Magicman had on his mill!

[Hackeldam Wood Products]

 

 
A nice stack of 1x12's. plus six 1x10's 

[Magicman]

richhiway, I continue to admire your sawing and git-r-done sawing attitude.  Big is relative and we ain't in a contest. :D

[caveman]

A former student and good friend brought John and me a couple of sections of a large live oak that came down during a local tornado a few months ago.  He wanted it slabbed and I asked him specifically how he wanted it cut and his response was, cut it like it was yours.

Anyway, he dumped the two halves in my yard a day or so ago.  The thick bark had some mud that the debarker would have no chance at reaching.  John pressure washed the logs.  I do not have a magic hook...yet, but we were able to position the log halves on the mill and eventually clamp using the tractor's fork and a chain.  The logs were too short for the back stops and the turner to work effectively.  We ended up with 25, one live edge slabs up to 29" wide.  Many had incredible dark grain.  I hope John will post any pictures he may have taken.  I do not have any available storage on my phone for pics right now.

We have some of our own liveoak logs to saw but have been putting them off.  We switched over from 1 1/4" turbos that have been resharpened to 4° to 1 1/2", .050 Kasco 4° today for the wide liveoak.  The first cut had a little wave but the rest were very flat.  We use diesel for blade lube on the liveoak and longleaf pine and cotton picker spindle lube on just about everything else.

We also removed eight wheels from our GN trailer, cleaned the wheels, removed the tires and mounted new tires on the wheels.  Three shirts so far today.

[DPatton]

The TK and I traveled 45 miles to Valparaiso Nebraska today to saw a whack of cedar logs. I didn't make my standard pre-saw site visit on this one as the job developed on a short notice, so I wasn't sure what I was getting into. 

  The client said it was 50 cedar logs at 10' to 20' long but would be bucked down to mostly 8'-6" in length. He wanted it all flat sawn, live edge @ 7/8" thick for vertical B&B siding. I'm thinking I should be able to process 25 logs a day with that type of sawing so I told him it would be a 2 day job to get thru 50+ logs. 

  Turns out they were mostly what Magic Man calls " pecker poles" and I was able to process the entire pile in one long day. I don't know how many logs it ended up being but it was a bunch. More than the 50 the client had me prepared for. It was a huge help that the client had a great labor force who made sure to keep me at the controls and not handling material for the vast majority of the day. 

  I love it when the client and I are on the same page and a plan comes together like we were in charge, and had control of the situation😂🤪😂!


  One of his laborers brought in a couple of cedars and a walnut on a trailer that I processed first. 




He was very happy with the material he ended up with. Especially the 10 year old walnut that everyone told him would be rotten. Turned out to be a really nice log. Sapwood was all gone but the heartwood was perfect.

Next the client and his crew started bucking and lining up cedar logs with his John Deere and FEL.





And more cedars from another angle. Some of them 14' - 16' long.





I apologize for not getting a pic of the original log piles but I just didn't feel comfortable taking pics until the saw started making a good dust pile.

The only square edged stuff was the the one walnut log making it kinda hard to accurately tally being mostly live edge but over 3300 bf total. 




One small hiccup was the client ran out of stickers. But he plans to move and restack all of it in the next couple days. 

[Magicman]

Good Job Doug!!!  That far way I would never make a special visit to see the logs.  Just go and git-r-done and you did so very nicely.  Hourly rate works best for me (and the customer) with jobs like that.

[Resonator]

Black Walnut.



A new customer brought me some small Black walnut "logs" to saw (I charge by the hour, not the board foot) that had been cut down for at least a year. The biggest log did yield some nice 9"+ wide boards.




Add a little water and it looks "Highly Valuable".  ;D

[teakwood]

I'm getting good business right now with the teak sales!

2100$ teak deck, planned 2 sides, 1x5



350$ round wood order

[doc henderson]

Sean dropped off a honey locust.  about 36 inches and over 13 feet long.  green and heavy.  cat 270 would lift it about 4 feet off the ground.  my timber model!



 

had to bibby a little



 


 


 


 

his son Zeak holding his hat  (I offered a forestry helmet)



 

almost needed the cotton picker spindle lube to get the gantry past.


 
yep found metal.  Sean used my tool (Like Jake's) made by Crescent to pull it.  it was some clothes line wire that had vinyl hose around it.  prob to straighten up the tree.  the client who asked Sean to cut down the tree, had planted it in 1955.  


 
got it banded so we could use the crane to load it.


 

a bunch of 6/4 x 11.5 x 13 feet.  and some 3 x 3 leg stock for tables, and a few 4/4 for stickers.  happy customers, Sean and Zeak!


 

stickered and in his shop to air dry.

[RAYAR]

my timber model!



 

Doc, your timber model deserves more pics ;)

[Walnut Beast]

Nice pics Doc 👍

[firefighter ontheside]

My mom asked me to saw some a walnut log for the parish priest and she wanted to pay me.  I said how about I saw the best log of the tree in exchange for me keeping the secondary logs.  I can make some good mantels out of those.  I picked up the logs today.  Biggest log was about 8' long and 25" diameter.  I can see that it has some metal in it, so I will use my detector as I cut and hopefully find it before I hit it.  I got the beast loaded up and ready to saw.  I really need to put together a magicman hook.

 

[Bruno of NH]

Smiley had a tough day at the mill today keeping the red squirrels at bay.

 

 

 

[SawyerTed]

I feel kind of like Smiley except it is raining here.  It started raining Monday.  So the only logs I am sawing are during naps.....

I did cut a 5/4 live edge walnut for a guy on Saturday.  One board is all I've cut in two weeks.  But I have a new pool....

 

[Magicman]

Luke and I started a road trip (66 mile) job Monday and so far we are doing fairly well. 


 
40+ Red, White, and Post Oak logs scattered about but no problem because the customer has them sorted and brings them to the sawmill as he needs them sawn.


 
We are set up under a huge Elm tree so plenty of shade.


 
It's all "farm" lumber for cattle pens and trailer decking.  I sawed the above in September.


 
This was taken at 10:00 this morning so we were moving along quite nicely.


 
We finished the 16' logs this afternoon so the whack on the left is complete with 3237 bf of 1X6's & 1X8's.  Neither of the small whacks have been scaled yet.  All that is left to saw is 10' & 12' logs.


 
My customer on the left, Luke, and Tailgunner with this 31" top end Post Oak that I will start sawing in the morning.

[Larry]

Nothing but live edge walnut slabs.







When I saw this log coming down the drive I thought about running off and hiding but the guy trapped me.



It ended up making four nice slabs and I only had to trim off two branch stubs to get the saw through it.




Easy day tomorrow.  Nothing but 30" plus straight logs to slab.  This one may have a slight problem.  Anybody see it?

[SawyerTed]

I see a little spot there around 8 o'clock.

[Larry]

Good eye.  When my customer brought the logs I saw fence wire sticking out of the butt.  He wacked off about 18" than checked it with his metal detector which didn't show anything.

The ultimate detector is my band, so I'll find out if he got all of the metal tomorrow.  I'll orient my sawing so that spot is in the very last slab.  With the price slabs are selling for well worth taking a chance.

[SawyerTed]

I rarely find one staple, nail, screw, clothes line or fence wire.  Seems like they travel in packs of three to 6.