Making it through another year '21-'23

[Old Greenhorn]

Catching up here and not quite fully recovered from The Project yet.  :D It will take me a while to process all the thoughts and learning in my head. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed and I think slow, so I file away what I can and think on it for days afterward, in this case it will be weeks or more. I wrote most of my thoughts over on that thread and I'll not repeat them here. I am glad many did a much better job of documenting the weekend than I did. I was overwhelmed frankly.
 I was a bit stressed about the trip down with all the changes in TSA since my last go-round when I was flying for work a lot. Turned out I was properly prepared and the trip down was pretty much a joy. Nice plane too with TV's at every seat and wifi through the whole flight. No problem hooking up with Dennis in ATL at all, painless and easy, and no problem getting over to the international terminal to meet Stephen either. The 2+ hour drive down was filled for sawmill breakdown discussions, then after checking in, a nice dinner with Jim Rogers and more good conversation.
 From Friday morning on, well, you can read that on the other thread. Let's just say it was a super weekend. :D  The only downside was leaving way too early. Saturday night came in the blink of an eye and I had to be prompted a couple of times to get in the car to leave.
 The trip home was going smooth...until I got to the train to take us to the gates. Dennis managed to get squeezed into a car and the doors literally pushed him in and me out, so I had 2 seconds to wave goodbye. I got the next train and got to my gate as they were going through some series of complicated announcements about 'changes' and calling a list of names that they didn't have room on the plane for. Not good. I had my boarding pass on my phone and brought it up to double check that I was good and as I refreshed it, it went blank! Now I am thinking I am in trouble and I walk up to the counter to seek help, how do I get on without that stupid code thingy on my phone? As I was waiting my turn, my code thingy re-appears, but now it is for a different flight at the next gate over. Fine, so I walk over there. It's a cluster. Apparently they overbooked enough people on the first flight that they had to add another (smaller) plane because everyone showed up. The confusion added a half hour to boarding and delayed everything as well as put everyone in a sour mood, plus this plane had overheads that were not big enough for an average carry-on suitcase so we had to check our bags on the jetway. I was just in a t-shirt and spent the whole flight home with my jacket stuffed in my bag under the plane deck. But it got better. ;D ;D They assigned me to the last seat in the back of the plane, crushed up against the window by a rather large woman who was very proud of her obnoxious perfume and wanted to share it with the world, or at least anyone within 100 feet of her. It reminded me of acetone. We also had the crying child serenade going full bore with 3 part harmony before we even pushed back. There were a lot of people, mostly families with small kids flying home from spring break or something. No wifi, no TV, no nuttin', and I was freezing from the air conditioning. Getting off the plane and trying to collect bags with a crowd of people on the jetway was another cluster event. I think there were 3 of those double wide strollers that came up, got expanded and filled with kids and eventually clogged up the aisle while they figured out if they found all their kids or not. Yeah, good times.
 When I finally got out of the terminal and got to the shuttle bus I felt like that driver was an old buddy and was very happy to see him. I was alone on the bus and we sat and chatted for a while waiting for more folks that never came. Nice fella and we talked weather and where I was coming from etc. Got to my truck and took my time relaxing and catching my breath and adjusting my attitude. Hadn't eaten yet since the night before and it was 2pm. Tried to hit a local Denny's for lunch, they had a waiting line, I walked out and grabbed a barf burger on the way down the road from a drive through and ate as I drove. 
 I was still missing Doc and gave him a call and woke him up (Sorry man) and we chatted as I drove down the thruway.
 Got home and visited with the wife and caught up. Cleaned out my suitcase and was glad I didn't have to fire up the shop stove. I had let it go out on Wednesday and with the warm weather while I was away, there was no need. About 68° in there yesterday and 65 now with 55 outside temps. So this is the first week of full shutdown on both stoves and I am adjusting to not having to do those chores every night. I was in bed at 8:30 last night. Just plain wiped out.
 As Jeff said in the other thread, it's back to reality here. Heavy rain when I woke up and still raining steady. I will do a drying fire in the shop today just because of the chill in the air.
 Bill called me last night. I had texted him some photos of the cypress log Friday. He asked me how it went. "I had a GREAT time, holy cow did I have a GREAT time!" He poked "Really? you had a great time, glad to hear it." I said, "let me put it this way, if this happens again, YOU WILL come with me! No excuses this time." 30 seconds later he was standing at my door staring at me as I (thought) I was still talking to him in his truck. He brought his splitter by to drop off on his way home. Smart Ash. ;D
 I'll spend today getting my head back in the game and my feet back on the ground. What a great weekend. My thanks to everyone who made that happen.

[Nebraska]

Glad you had such a good trip. ( minus the flight home part) 

[Old Greenhorn]

ANother weekend another trip. I spent a day and a half settling my thoughts from last weekend, then a few days doing more sanding on the bar and did a final pour of the shotglass shelf. It came out well so I sanded all the corners adjacent to the top preparing for that final pour. That yook a couple of sessions because my mind would wander and it would get tedious and I would miss details/ Pick it up again the next day and that section would dress up nice. I found 600 grit discs at HF and that made things go a lot faster than hand sanding and me up well for the final final pour/polish.
 Time to flip it. I got a call from RiteLeg on Friday that the legs are ready for pickup. Too bad I could not make the open house today, it would have been a win-win.
 We spent 5 hours in the car today driving over to my cousin's memorial service in VT. I ran into a FF member at the service (Sorry I cannot remember your forum name, shame on me). I had been asked to introduce a section of the program a few weeks ago and when I arrived today I found out I was the MC for the entire service and they didn't have a lot in the way of an agenda. ;D So I winged it here and there and we managed to pull it off. Part of the service was the Final Call, End Of watch, or 5 Bell Ceremony depending on what it's called in your region. So that was something I have been through too many times, the rest I had to improvise, but apparently it came off OK. My cousin David was a lifelong member of his department with over 25 years as Chief, his son still serves his department in the next town over, and there was representation from 3 states and about 5 departments. (Yes, I wore my uniform, it still fits, and no I don't have a picture.)
 Tonight I am pooped and off to bed early I think. Bill tells me we finally got the parts from WM we've been waiting for. Tomorrow I'll go see if they are the right ones, then back to work and maybe some firewood. Weird weather today, in the 60's here, but high 40's in VT and I saw snow patches here and there. 
 Tomorrow is another day.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I got down to bill's on Sunday and confirmed WM did in fact send the right parts to rebuild that debarker arm. Unfortunately the pin on the swing arm id a bit too big to fir in the bearings and will have to be cleaned up with a few thou taken off to get it in, but if this breaks again (lord I hope NOT), then we have what we need to fix it. Case closed, 11 weeks after it went down.
 We also spent some time tinkering on the Sky Trak, see other thread for that, then the rain returned and I came back to the shop in time for dinner.
 Monday and Tuesday I did shop stuff and worked on getting some videos done, they takes hours to edit, process and upload with my pitiful gear, but what the heck. I did a seconf version of the sawing project to use on my webpage where I just added an intro clip explaining a bit about it from the layman's point of view. It's stuff that holds no interest for the folks here, but some already saw it because they are among the hordes of subscribers I have (14). :D I also uploaded Episode 16 (!) of the bar build saga. Which I share here if you have an interest:

The Bar Episode 16 - YouTube

-----------------------------------------------
Sometimes you eat the bear:

 Today, Pat and I (she came along for company) made the 5 hour round trip to LogRite to pick up the custom legs for the bar. It was my best round trip through the Consptiaption state corridor around Haatfurd (some pronounce it 'Hartford') ever. Traffic was there but kept moving and drivers are crazy there plus the odd Mass. driver comes in and really scares everyone good, but pretty much normal. I met with Shaina and the legs looked great, as expected, she took me to the back room to look at some oddball legs and I picked out a pair of bench legs that I can make a demo bench out of for shows and clients to see. These were pretty shopworn and painted with a discontinued color, perfect for me. I also got some Blue Creeper for Bill. (I'm trying to get him hooked on it.) Packed the truck and headed home, we stopped for a nice sit down lunch just to break up the drive. Got home before 3pm, caught up on the forum reading, then unloaded the truck. My plan for tomorrow was to shoot the next episode covering the legs and all about where I get them and the minor customizations I had done on these and how I mount them up on an irregular slab shape. 

And sometimes the bear eats you:


So in thinking that through I stood the legs up (upside down) on the upside down bar top and looked them over. Something looked a bit 'off'. I went into a mild low-level panic and started checking my work on the bar, the flatness and parallelism, and levelness. Then I reluctantly started checking the legs themselves and I checked them 3 different ways before I had convinced my self there was an issue. I truly did not want to find a problem with the legs, nor did I want to find a problem with the bar. I was heartsick.
 I needn't go into deep details, let's just sum it up by saying there was a mistake made when the welding was done and I could measure it and put a number on it. The last thing I wanted to do was make that phone call. I thought about how I could compensate and found a way to do that, but the fact is, this is a very expensive piece the client has waited a long time for and I wouldn't do it unless I made full disclosure to the client and got their approval in advance. That was also a phone call I didn't want to make.
 I have bought lots of legs and other stuff from LogRite and I really did not want to call them with a 'complaint'. We have a great relationship and I don't want to be 'that guy'. But then a thought popped into my head when I realized both legs had the exact same issue and were 'out' the exact same amount and in the same direction. It dawned on me that there may be a tooling issue in their shop (or something else) which would effect these products and others, so I knew the right thing was to let them know about it. I spent my life in manufacturing and I know how these things go. I have also been in their shop and know that Kevin is VERY good at tooling up his jobs with nice jigs and fixtures to make repeatable products every time. I fugured there was an issue someplace. If they don't know, they can't fix it.
 So I called Shaina and left a message, which got cut off when the call dropped. I didn't complain, I just told her I don't know what to do, but I thought they should know about it. Truly I was a bit sick over it, thinking I was causing them problems, but that they needed to know and I was still trying to figure out how I could fix this. I also took photos of how I checked them so Kevin could see what I saw. I knew he'd want that at least because I would. 15 minutes later, after I thought they had all gone home, Kevin called. I apologized and he cut me off saying "I'm sorry this happened, we will remake them." He explained that he knew what the welder did (or rather didn't do) and they would remake them as fast as they could and he would make it right. I was dumbstruck, then I got a little upset because they are taking a big hit here and we should be able to fix these things or "something" short of making new from scratch. The delay is no more than a bump in the road, I really didn't want to see them take that hit making a custom item twice, but he insisted it's the right way and the only way to do it. This is the reason I am sharing the story here, I wanted folks to know how they do business and why I remain a dedicated (but small) customer of theirs. It's not always about what folks sell, or the prices they charge, the real measure of a company is what they do when something goes wrong. Kevin's bottom line was that he felt bad there was a problem which cost me time and all that driving, etc.,  and they will fix it and that he doesn't want me to take a bath on any of this. "We'll make it right." was his final statement. Well, I don't want to see them take a bath either. We need to get the new ones made, get them here, and then get these back to them so they can use them 'for educational purposes'. Funny thing is, I would buy those legs anyway for some speculative project down the road, but he wants them back and I fully understand why. Since they are custom, maybe I will find them in the back room next time I visit? (I make light of this, but really I am still a bit upset that they are absorbing the cost on this and there isn't a middle ground.) I already let the client know we have a slight delay and it's not a big deal. They've been waiting a long time for this bar, another couple of weeks won't mean much. They may stop in this weekend just to see the legs and how they will go with the bar. They probably won't notice the defect until I explain it, but they would notice it when it is sitting in their pool room for a few weeks.

[aigheadish]

Good on you and good on LogRite, Tom. 

As a fellow manufacturer a major part of my job is hoping issues like this don't come up (we had one today) and man it sucks to pull stock to figure out what's wrong and what's not. It's nice to hear LogRite wants to make it right at any cost. 

[Peter Drouin]

Greenhorn, when you work for yourself and have an LLC, You all ways make it right. ;)

[Old Greenhorn]

Well Peter I would, and I can assume you would, but I can't assume that about everyone. I have a repair job sitting in my shop right now waiting to be picked up by the client, no charge, no questions. The thing got whacked in a weather incident and the top spilt in half. I know that top should have been thicker than I first made it, so I re-did it twice as thick and repainted everything (brown). Part of my business model is to be able to sleep well at night. But that's me.
 Not all companies are created equal and share that ideal. Kevin could have just as easily pointed out that it wasn't off by much, I could shim it, or he could knock a few bucks off, but none of those options were on his table. Just remake it and do it right. That's the highest road you can take. I don't see that very often these days and I thought it was worth noting.
 I used to be in Austin's shoes for many years, running down quality issues and 'excursions' as we called them. It killed me when I discovered a mistake that was our fault and the customer deserved to be made whole and my employer tried to find a 'cheaper way out' or a compromise implying that the customer shared the blame. These forums are chock full of stories like that from little guys like me being ignored by our vendors and suppliers. I think this is a good great news story for a change.

[newoodguy78]

Making a post like you did is the best advertising a company can ask for I feel. Mistakes can be made at any level at any point. How they're dealt with tells the ultimate tale. It's nice to read what their answer to the problem was. More businesses should operate as they do. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I have no idea what I did on Thursday, but I must have done something. ;D I was out in the shop a lot of the day (more rain) and started to wrap my brain around making the lower shelf for the bar. Maybe I cut some 'stuff'. Friday I got into it and cut the shelf to length and routed a step around the outside edges to set a rim in and I ripped down strip to create that rim. Then looked around at some old cutoffs I had from some dining room benches I made and started to layout how I could salvage them to make a simple bench to go on the demo legs I got from RiteLeg. One had a big taper along the length and I figure if I cut that off to make it 'sort of' straight then I could flip it and glue it back on then glue on the other single live edge and wind up with a slab about 15 or more inches wide. Doing those long cuts straight was the challenge, so I let it sit while I thought on it. 
 Saturday I got back into the shelf and did final fitting up of the trim edges, then glued them on and threw in some brad to hold it all in place. Then I jumped back to the bench and made all the cuts, laid it out dry and figured how to clamp it. I did one glue edge, waited 2 hours (lunch) then glued the second piece one. Not my best glue up, but workable. I let that set over night. 
This is the glue up which I think you can see where the glue lines are:


 
 Then after trimming the ends off.


 

And once more, after rough sanding.



 

I did some edge sanding on the shelf to match up the joints and that looked pretty good. I quit at 5 to get cleaned up for our monthly dinner at Bill's this time with my daughter joining us (her hubby was playing a wedding gig, his loss). It's a semi-planned meal, we bring half, they do half or so, but the women folk have a fun time planning it. Bill and I talk shop or play games with little Inga. A lovely evening.

 Today more time in the shop, but first the grandsons all came over. They wanted to make a simple bench for them to sit on while they wait for the school bus each morning. So we worked on that together for a couple of hours, then they had to get to their next gig. I worked on the bench I started yesterday and did a mess of sanding to even out the glue joints. (see photos above). Then I did some epoxy pours to seal cracks on the boy's bench and mine.

 I quit around 4 and came in to clean up and change clothes. Today is out 46th Anniversary and I took the wife out to dinner. But man it's raining cats and dogs and it looks to be this way almost all week.
 Tomorrow is another day.

[Peter Drouin]

46th good for you two. 8) 8)

[thecfarm]

I betcha them grandsons will have to point out the bench they made with you!!!
46 years, good for you two.

[Nebraska]

Congratulations on your anniversary, we certainly could find a spot for that extra rain....

[JD Guy]

Happy Anniversary to you both  8)

[Old Greenhorn]

Thanks for the good wishes fellas. The wife and I aren't big on celebrations for birthdays and such, it's just another milestone closer to      something else. But we do something simple for the day like dinner or a little ride or whatever. Simple folk, right?
 Today I was back in the shop early-ish and had more sanding to do and more little epoxy pours. After all the fine dust we generated yesterday I decided that I was done breathing all that stuff and cleaning up the mess. So today I hooked up a vacuum to the sanders and that worked good, but a lot of hose to manage and the hose doesn't really mate with the tools, plus I thought I could de better. SO after I did another epoxy pour I had some time and errands to run. HF had sent a me 25% off any single purchase coupon because 'they missed me' (I hadn't been there in 3 days  :D). They had a small 3 gallon vac that I thought would work just for sanding. So using the coupon I got it for about 30 bucks and hung it near the sawhorses thusly:



 

 It worked just great and I have zero dust on the floor and none that I can see in the air. As a bonus it plugged right in my Dewalt ROS and it also went in my 4x24 belt sander.


 

After initial testing I placed a screw hook directly over the sawhorses so it can just swing around as I move. It only has a 4' hose and I thought that would be too short, but with it overhead, it works just fine, so I'll count that as my improvement for the week. (Corporate would be proud.) It's a small vac, but for just fine dust, it will hold a lot before emptying and the paper filter keeps that dust in pretty well.

 I have 4 projects working in the shop now and I am rotating through them because they all need some minor epoxy fills at this point and sanding just minor cracks and such. I have the bar shelf, the boys bench, a demo bench to use those RiteLegs on, and another 3' thick Ash bench I just started for no particular reason except maybe Howard inspired me with his demo (Please don't tell Howard!). This last I will decide as I go as to how nicely I will finish it and what type of legs it will get and in which style. I might try blind mortise and tenon with wedges for something different, or maybe try something new. I'll let the bench decide as we go along. The others just follow their own course. I did two different little pours today and maybe tomorrow some of this stuff will be cured enough to finish sand out. With the cooler temps in the shop (high 50's) overnight I am finding it takes 2 days before the epoxy is really hard enough to fully sand without melting or gumming up.
 A full work day, so I count that as a win. We had another 1/2 inch of rain interrupted by 2 hours of deceitful sunshine. We are now up over 7" of water in the last 9 days. This is getting old. 
 On the way back from HD I found Bill's truck at the local restaurant/watering hole. Him and his guys were grabbing lunch, so I stopped in and had a beer and caught up with them. (They're jealous I could have a beer, they had to get back to work.) Me, I am just sanding and pouring epoxy and 1 beer won't hurt, might even help. :D
 Tomorrow is what it is, probably more rain.

[Old Greenhorn]

Hah, forgot to mention this because I had nearly put it out of my mind but I got a call today from a guy who wanted to know if I had winter cut mushroom logs to sell. :D As it happens, I do have some, maybe enough for what he wanted but they are for another client and I would have to cut more in the 'bad season' to refill the order (I don't cut now until full leaf out and the trees stabilize). When I found out the guy wanted to start growing mushrooms to call it a business and he could take a tax benefit, I started to lose whatever sympathy I had remaining (which wasn't much). I remarked that usually when you start a business, you have a business plan which includes procurement plans for critical materials. ;D I also could not stop myself from 'mentioning' that all my clients that want winter cut logs order them in January. (you know, like in the winter?)
 I left it off that he would have to wait for June cutting time. He didn't even know how many logs he wanted.(there's that 'business plan' thing again.) I deal with enough of these folks to know that this was going nowhere slowly and I'm not gonna jump through hoops for a (maybe) new client at the expense of a long time client that ordered logs 3 months in advance.
 It's spring, I should know these calls are coming, they happen every year lately.

[Old Greenhorn]

About 5 hours after my prior post I was awakened in severe pain which I spent pretty much all of yesterday dealing with the pain and trying to mitigate it, but that's another story in another thread. Last night I had a very blessed and complete night of sleep, so today was a good day. I got up at a normal time instead of the near noon wakeup yesterday and felt much better. The problem is not gone, but I can deal with what's left. So I got a fire going in the shop and got to work on the 4+ projects I have going now. Nothing special, just routine stuff, I just wanted to work like normal after losing a full day to nothing.
 For some reason I decided to do a video for my web page. I figure I will put some of these up there and maybe stimulate some sort of sales, maybe by accident or something. :D Sometimes you have to make folks think, so I figured what the heck?
 Not a lot going on here, but you can watch it if you want:

Wat Up Benches? - YouTube

 I did get a full day in the shop and worked on the stuff in the video and some other stuff. Probably a 9 hour day sanding, some small epoxy crack fills, some cost of sanding seal and one bottom coat of urethane. I still don't feel like I got much done when I look at it, but I did make some pro-gress. 
 Tomorrow is another day and hopefully I'll do better.

[doc henderson]

 :D :D :D  thanks for the shout out!

[Old Greenhorn]

Just credit where it's due! I can't come up with catchy stuff on my own, I'm a Lutheran. ;D

[gspren]

That vac looks like the same one I have under my Dewalt miter saw, doesn't get everything but most.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I would say 90% or better connected to the tool. Seems what get by it are the heavier crumbles of epoxy that fly right off the disc or belt. That's fine because they don't float in the air. After a full session of sanding on 3 projects I had no need to use a floor broom. I expect the paper filter in that thing to clog pretty well with the fine dust, but it still sucks!  I would like a slightly longer hose though.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   Do you make most of your benches that wide? I've made them from about 6" wide to 18" wide but I think the sweet spot is around 10-12 inches. I had one lady buy a wide ash bench to use as a coffee table. 

   Real nice work joining those 3 pieces BTW. I'm waiting to see them with legs on them.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well Thanks Howard. I like to make them as wide as I can which is generally over 10" and preferably at least 12". I like this for two reasons: A) The stability that a wider bench presents, and 2) It seems wider allows for other uses such as a small table. Also, if I am using RiteLegs, I need to have it over 12" so that there is enough room for the flange on the leg top to be covered. I did make some around 8" wide when I first started with the tenon legs and spreading the legs made it plenty stable but the width to height ratio just didn't appeal to my eye. I don't know why.
The glue up was me being cheap and I actually tried to stretch it to the full length of both boards with a fancy cut when I had laid it out and had one piece flipped the wrong way. The came came out perfect, but I had it backwards. ;D >:( Yes, I am anxious to see how a finish looks on it more than anything.
I'm moving slower today, confounded by indecisions of which 'thing' to do next. :D 4 at a time gets complicated, especially at 3 different quality levels. I still have no idea what legs I am putting on the ash slab. Maybe I will surprise myself.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   Maybe one of these days you can take a couple of slabs of different kinds/colors of wood, clamp them together, run them through a band saw and cut all kinds of fancy patterns and loops and such like they do when making wood puzzles then unclamp and swap the pieces and join the different pieces. Sounds like a project for someone in jail with more time on his hands than most of us would have.  :D

   On the wide benches you are correct they are more stable. If wide enough you don't even need to splay the legs out.

   I had one customer who wanted the lichtenburg etched end tables for his deck so I cut a 6' red oak into 3 pieces about 15-16 inches wide and 2' long, made them mortise and tenon like I do my benches then put them on the mill and cut them off at 20"n tall. I had my friend etch them before I put the legs on. The man ordered 2 but the wood made 3 and he bought them all. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well we've discussed on the bench thread how there are a ton of different options with these benches, it never gets old I guess. If I ever get my shop band saw put back together and working I may just do that. It would be easy work I think but a key point with the glue-up style is that the wood must be kiln dried or at the very least 5 or more years air dried. Different woods dry and shrink at different rates so unless they are completely dry, you will have issues show up months after the build is done. I learned this one the hard way and had to refinish tables a year after building. Kiln dried is the way to go with this stuff.
 I wish I knew somebody around here crazy enough to do that Lichtenburg stuff, but sadly no.

 I did get a coat of urethane on three of the pieces and I cut slots in those device stands and got them ready for finishing. My legs seem kind of wobbly today and I don't know why. I am feeling a bit better after lunch so am hoping to get another coat on some stuff later.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, just catching up here. Thursday afternoon I felt better after lunch, must have needed to eat something I guess. SO I went back out to the shop and did some second coats and also did first coats on the device stands. Still have no idea what kind of legs I am doing on that rustic bench and would like to try something new, so am pondering it a bit. Since I have learned that Tule Peak trick of thinning my urethane, life is SO much better. I do it on everything now from the get go. More coats, just thinner and no issues getting nice stuff. Thanks again Rob! I tell you it's almost as if I knew what I was doing and was a woodworker or something.
 Friday I got out there early and added 2 more projects to the mix to keep me busy and did various work on each and was done by 10am. Then the wife and I went to HD, I needed some more mineral spirits and a box of screws for all the RiteLegs I will be doing in the next week or so. I looked at a new Dewalt ROS, and holy cow, they are up to 90 bucks now! Mine has a lot of hard hours on it and is getting due for a break. The variable speed no longer functions and I would love to have one for upstairs and one for downstairs because I use it so much. I was thinking 60 bucks, but at 90 I have to think on that. Maybe try a battery one? Maybe try a HF one for giggles? I'll keep thinking on that for a while.
 Anyway, we got home and I did some more work and shot a quick video to use on my webpage as a follow-up to the prior one. I include it here for your amusement (or not):

Juggling 7 projects at once - YouTube

 At the end of the day I didn't 'feel' like a did a lot, but I worked all day so I must have done something. ;D

 This morning I got a text from Bill with he first 'official' order of the season (it's not official until I get a BOM in writing or text, everything else is just a rumor I ignore). I cannot adequately describe this text so I will include it here verbatum:

"12. 2x12x10 or 24. 2x6x10. Or. 20.2x12x8. or. 40. 2x6x8"

 So I started to transcribe that to my mill order sheet and got as far as 2x12x10', 12 pieces then realized none of it made any sense. I read the whole thing 3 times and thought to myself " this looks like something I would get from a homeowner who has never built anything!" I just sent him back a text and said 'call me when you are sober. :D '. (for the record, Bill drinks very little if at all these days.)
 On my way down to the mill I ran into Bill and Inga coming out. I asked him about the 'BOM' and remarked that it looked like a typical order I get form a homeowner. He laughed and said that's exactly what it was. He hadn't even read it as it came from the customer, he just forwarded it and after he got my reply, he re-read it and realized it was useless. Translated into English, the customer wants to make 6 garden bed frames 3"wide x 7' long x 12" tall. I never would have got that out of the BOM he sent.
 But I had a bunch of EWP logs to get off the mill deck before I can switch to hemlock anyway, so I knew I really had to get down there today and kick off the season ad I suspected it would be a slow start. It was. He had left the log truck blocking one entrance to the mill and his dump trick blocking the other entrance. I could not get the dump truck started (dead battery) and wasn't going to mess with the log truck, too many levers, buzzers, and control thingies. So I left my truck in the middle of the road and carried my stuff in, no big deal. Then I found that the mill was just packed over with sawdust. I guess they were trying to get a bunch out into the bags they sell to chicken farmers and I think somebody had a party in the pile. I did find some little girl hair scrunchy things in there and stuff was all over. Too me 10 minutes to find the coal shovel. So I spent nearly an hour clearing sawdust to make things workable and then tried to figure what I was gonna do. I saw that the bunks I stack wood on were busted by a log coming over the cliff during the winter (oops) but there was still lumber on top of it that needed to be removed so they could be replaced and I couldn't drive a machine in anyway today until SOMEBODY moved a truck. So I was frustrated pretty completely.
 SO I dropped into 'grab the bull by the horns mode' and the first thing I needed was replacements for those broken bunks and I needed 2x4's to make those. So I got the mill cleaned up enough to run well and rolled up a log and made 15 2x4's, then carried bout half of them to my truck and brought them home. I ran into Bill again on my way out and explained what a 'joyful experience' it had been and what I was doing. Gt back to my shop, opened the garage door and worked half outside and made 4 sawhorses for the mill about 1' tall and a pair standard height to replace a pair of mine that are living in Bill's shop now. By then it was about 3:30 and I piddled around with cleaning up and shop chores. I laid a fire in the stove for tomorrow. No fire today, too nice and warm and NO rain, finally! First 70° day this season!

 Tomorrow the boys come by for a bit to finish off their bench, then I expect to head back to the mill and do more cleaning up, assuming I have access. There is always more to do tomorrow, right?