Making it through another year '21-'23

[Tacotodd]

I think of it as talking to my wife's dogs. Have an example with you when you say NO! But that's how "I" have learned what little Spanish that I have.

[WDH]

Tom, a tip Jake (customsawyer) gave me when I went from manual to hydraulic was to lower the toe boards each time you turn a log as your first step/motion even if they are not even raised.  It becomes instinctual after a while. Think of it as always the first step in turning a log each and every time.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Tom, a tip Jake (customsawyer) gave me when I went from manual to hydraulic was to lower the toe boards each time you turn a log as your first step/motion even if they are not even raised.  It becomes instinctual after a while. Think of it as always the first step in turning a log each and every time.  

Funny, but after the first boo-boo I kind of got in that habit of making sure the boards were down at the same time I checked that the clamp and stops were low enough. Not the same step in the process, but a step none the less, and yes, I quickly fell in the habit of pushing both handles down on every log turn. I caught and saved myself several times doing that. Making it the first step might be the better way to go, but I am still working on consistent habits. It just takes time and focus. Thanks for the tip, good to know I am on the right track.

[Nebraska]

Looks to me you have picked up a part time retirement job, that ought to pay all right.. ;)

[WV Sawmiller]

  Looking at those pictures I think I'd move the mill over about 2' to the outside to give me more room to move the sawdust and such. I assume you have a stationary control panel because you sure aren't walking beside the mill like I do. Not with that sawdust pile blocking the access. 

   Did the breaker on the debarker solve your problem? I've broken/pulled free a wire on mine a time or two and to test you can turn the debarker on, set the speed control all the way to the left so the head does not move then start testing connections. WARNING - if this is the problem and you make a connection the debarker will spin so stay clear of the blade during such testing. 

   The debarker breaker will trip when it gets into too much of a bind such as running over a protruding knot or with increasing flare when the big end of the log is at the far end so you need to feather it out a little as you move down the log in such cases to keep the tension down. You just want the blade to lightly kiss the bark. Good luck.

[Old Greenhorn]

I didn't get back down there yet to look at it, waiting for more logs, but today we are going down for his big annual party, so I might sneak over to the mill and check it. I see that the issue I had with the feedrate pot may not be unique to me. ;D Apparently you are thinking you may have had the same issue with your 'forward feed problem'?

 I can't move that mill. He has it where he wants it to allow for a stack of logs on the concrete slab ready to load. But I agree, a couple more feet would be a big help. I just have to wait for the right time to broach the subject. There are plans to re-do the drainage in the spot next to the mill to prevent the flooding during heavy events, then we can see about other adjustments. Last week's rain had all the wood floating around that slab. His problem is no time to do these simple fixes. Perhaps if I learned how to operate a skid steer and mini-ex I could get some of it done for him. He has all the materials in the yard: culvert pipe, gravel, sand, stone, etc. Just take the time and do it. With 80 acres, the mill, septic business, the logging, arborist work, the shop, his rental properties, and the trucks to take care of the guy just has no time. He just got an edger and also has a slabmizer with no time or people to run them. He got a LT15 just to do long beams which he ordered last summer, was available in late April and he only picked up 3 weeks ago. No time to pour the slab and put it together.

[WV Sawmiller]

    The shed looks nice but the layout looks unfriendly to me especially since I normally offload my slabs and edgings off the operator side and throw them on the other side of the sawdust. In fact now I park the tractor with FEL there and unload directly on the forks.


This layout looks too confining and awkward with a lot of extra/non-productive steps required, especially if you are working alone. It looks to me like you have to cut the slab, stop, walk around the front of the mill to take it off since the sawdust on the operators side won't let you access it from there. What has been the process for sawdust removal in the past? Is somebody shoveling or vacuuming it out? There is not enough space to run piece of equipment with a bucket or blade to remove it. Is there a non-functioning vacuum or blower system that should be removing it? It does not look like somebody has been "taking steps to prevent steps" here. It looks to me like you have a finely tuned, high performance machine with the training wheels still left on it. If the guy wanted me to run it he'd have to agree to make some changes to allow me to be more productive. Good luck.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well there are some natural restrictions/obstructions you can't see in just those photos. Rock wall 30' striaght up on one side, road on the other, log piles everywhere else. The kind of stuff where if you were standing there you would say "OH yeah, I see why you had to do that now. Not great, but it will work". Also, when he built this 8 years ago, he didn't own the property on the other side of the road, and now he does which changes the options. quite a bit. Certainly not the best and improvements could and will be made, but he (I think) wants me to spearhead them and I am not sure if I am ready to jump in.

[Nebraska]

Take your time make the changes as you can, remember  all of them can be changed again down the road.  Sounds like a great excuse for you to be proficient with a skid steer and a mini excavator, you won't  break stuff by abusing it (stuff breaks anyway).  You also have a clue and resources  to ask.

[beenthere]

Hook up to the mill, pull it out of there. Clean up the sawdust pile and put the mill back. 
Then put a sawdust removal plan in place.  Half-hour job. 

[terrifictimbersllc]

Careful when you do decide to move the mill. Packing up/setting up many established ways to break something you won't have to invent new ones.

Ps follow preparing mill for travel  and setting up instruction sequences in manual as well as your common sense. Being surprised by unexpected head movement and its weight consequences are the big things.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah well I know he wants to get me into his 'adopt a sawmill program' in the worst way. He only has a couple of guys he can send on other work and know they will get it done. None of them have any skills on the mill/lumber/woodworking side and even though I consider my skills low on that score, they are more than he has seen in anyone else. Plus he trusts me, having known me since he was 12. I just think it's a slippery slope and I have to be cautious. I don't mind picking up some new skills though. ;D

 But today is not for that, its a party day so I hope it doesn't come up. This morning I went fishing with my son and just one grandson (the others are off on a different adventure). We tried out the boat he just bought and put in the reservoir while we were at the pig roast. Not a lot of luck, but my son got one nice 16" small mouth, so there was some activity. I had one good hit but lost him early on, never saw him. Overcast but hot, about 80° with almost no wind.


 

Technology sure has changed. My son pulled this depth finder out of his backpack. Tiny thing, throw the transponder in the water and Bob's your uncle. Geez, my portable is a mini-suitcase.


 

Anyway, we had a good time, I think.




 
We (I) lost track of time and we quit around 2. I shot home, grabbed a shower (felt really good!) and made a sammich. Just getting ready to head down to the party in another half hour or so.

[WV Sawmiller]

TT is right - Yeah I think you're going to have to do a lot of digging or vacuuming just to get to the landing gear to raise them to move the mill and be sure the hydraulics are collapsed and clear of the ground - especially the moveable clamp which is the lowest one on my mill I have to watch for. That much sawdust can't be good on the mill with the chain and the hydraulics buried in it. 

   Good looking shots on the lake. You don't have to catch a lot of big fish to have a good time making memories with the kids and grandkids.

[Old Greenhorn]

Just a short update because I am pooped out, need to get cleaned up and into bed. I am getting better at learning the details of running this mill except for the breakers that pop for seemingly no reason at all, I am learning my way around. Considering I have less that a week on the mill I think I am doing OK. (I ain't boke nuttin' yet.) I do wish that Wood-mizer would put blinking strobes on the machine to let you know when the toe boards are up because I am making too many mistakes with them, forget about that debarker light put an alert on the dang toe boards!. Mostly I wind up shaving off a very long shim to correct my mistake, but I did mess up one cant and that has me pretty ticked at myself. Too many things are too easy on this machine (I know, that's the idea, but...) and there is a lot to keep track of that I am used to doing with my hands. It's my problem, not the mills, I know that. I broke my first blade today, EVER on any mill, so that was interesting. It was shot, but still, BAMMM!
I also had my first tail gunner today, which was very nice. He handled all the sideboards and slabs, and fed the log loader, but I gave him a hand with the 6x6's and he learned a little about how a mill works and what is going on. I tried to get him to remind me when a toe board was up, but it was hit and miss, he did save my butt once. Baby steps. A complete newbie, but he knows his safety and he never moved on something until I gave him a nod, then he was right there. Can't ask for better than that. He has to learn how the mill runs too and what I am doing. So I took a little time to explain some of it.
I am getting comfortable with the accuset II and trust it (a bit) now. (See Lynn, that wasn't so bad ;D). It did take 3 days of operation before I trusted it because it wasn't working when I thought it should until I figured out exactly how and WHEN it worked (when to engage and disengage). Programs, menus, and all that are still a little confusing, but it's just a PLC with ladder logic and I can figure that out and am getting better, its just a few more button pushes to find it. Fortunately I am so used to running the numbers in my head, that when it went sideways I could revert to my head math fairly easily.
My only remaining hurdle (in my head) is cutting speed (feedrate). I am still thinking in manual push speeds. The owner runs this thing twice as fast as I do and that's probably where I am lagging. I just want flat cuts and don't want to blow up a blade. I haven't yet got the trust the lube system, sometimes the blade gets loaded and I have to do a flushing cut to clean it.
At the end of today we talked it through and it became clear the customer has a really hard date on Friday for his 1300 linear feet. We (I) am at about 300 feet, mostly because of my learning curve and slower feed rates, I think, plus small logs that I only get one 6x6 out of and a bunch of 4/4 x 6. I am focused on using all of the log instead of just the 'order'. I don't want to throw a lot into firewood slabs, you can only use so much campfire wood. I don't think we can make the order by Friday unless he starts feeding me logs bigger than 14". A LOT of them. I spend a lot of time on a single 6x6 taking jacket boards and carrying them along to finish up 1 x 6's along with the 6x6. Yeah, I get a lot of his 4/4 lumber done for his shop roof sheathing, but that's not the order lumber.
I have to take the wife on the monthly food shopping in the morning, then down to the mill by noon. The 'boss' plans on using that time to clear up the mill area and do a reset for easier production as well as loading us up some better producing logs. I see some long days ahead, but we will put  a dent in this. Actually today was a long day, but ZI lost half of it to getting the dang mill running. I got home at 6:30 and the wife was wondering if we quit early and were sitting around drinking beer. No, not hardly. >:(
Time for bed, tomorrow is another day.

OH and Happy Birthday Howard!

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   Thanks. 

   What did you do about the sawdust pile?

[Tacotodd]

Howard, OGH used it for one of your composting toilets ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Tom,

  Thanks.

  What did you do about the sawdust pile?

I did a lot of scraping and digging this morning whilst I was contemplating the aforementioned stoppage of productive  work. ;D There is more to do, and we are now agreed we need a more better working solution going forward, but we have to get through this job first. So grunt work is the order of the day. Keep it moving.

[samandothers]

Good progress!  As you know, it takes time to learn a new machine and process.  You will get faster, keep chugging! 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well yesterday I lost half a day to the food shopping with the wife, but I hit it hard when I arrived before noon determined to make better time. I was doing 'fair' and around 3 the tailgunner showed up and we really started moving at a good pace. Best production day so far but still far behind the goal of 1300 linear feet. I need bigger logs. I only worked about 6.5 hours but the humidity never dropped below 90% and my t-shirt weighed about 2 pounds. I quit at nearly 6pm only because I was just shot and my thinking skills were going out the window. Some of those logs were water soaked and weighed a ton just as 6x6 cants. I am getting much better at handling the jacket boards and milling them against the cant as I go, so there was a very neat pile of 1x6's ready to nail on a roof when I was done.
 I am told the customer is getting vocal about his deadline and will push it until Monday, but he has to have it all then. We have just under 500 linear feet down so far. I am headed back in a few minutes to get an early jump and see if I can do a long day. I am not sure how we are going to make this, but I sure will try.

[Nebraska]

It would seem to me that 500 linear feet would be a good start to any project, unless you have an army of minions at your disposal, you would struggle to use  that much in a day.   The only reason to be ouchy about a deadline like that may be linked to transportation  of the product to the point of use.  Good luck hope you have a productive day!

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, just a quick update, had a pretty good day, nothing broke (OK, I blew up one blade with a bunch of miles on it because I got the handles mixed up for a micro second and that was all it took). I am starting to get in a groove of sorts and getting my feedrates up, also getting a little better at planning logs so there are almost no extra flips involved. Lastly, I got some bigger logs today. So we got over 250 linear feet done which brings us to around 725 total. Loaded on the truck for delivery tomorrow morning.


 

 I had a tailgunner all day and 'the boss' was very attentive with the skidsteer bringing logs before we ran out, pulling slabs out, and removing the product and loading the truck. That also helped a lot. Here is a partial of todays work before it got loaded, also a bunch of 1x6's that I am making from the jacket boards as I go along, these will go on the shop roof for sheathing. The guys went up and nailed some more down after we quit tonight and invited me to 'play' too, but I was shot and 2 story work (actually 3) is no longer my bag. ;D ;D


 

So half the order is done, but I don't have much more time available. I have to teach "an instructor' how to teach the class I had taught for 3 years, because he doesn't understand the material or know how to teach the information. But he is 'qualified' to teach an accredited course and I am not. So they are paying me to teach him the material. Not sure what planet this makes sense on, but that's what I am doing Sunday, and Saturday I need the afternoon to pull all my tools out and set up to teach this 'fella'. So I will start early again tomorrow and work until early afternoon, then come home and set up the shop.
 When I stop milling the boss will take over and he pushes things a lot faster than I dare, and will make very good time. I am getting used to this LT50 and the accuset2. The 'board down' and the 'mill to bed' features or whatever they are properly called are really neat and you can save a lot of time with them. Blades changes are not fun, but I have yet to see a mill where they were. All in all, I have yet to come up on something (so far) that the mill can't handle or slows me down to figure it out. I am also getting more confident with the controls and that saves time too.
 Tomorrow is another today. I am pooped.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

  I think most of us have bumped the up or down lever and done the same thing to a blade or two. Some of us will even admit it so don't feel alone. Payin' your dues man, payin' your dues! Let us know when you forget and roll a log completely across the mill because you forgot to raise a side support. :D

  If you ever see an LT35 (and I understand an LT70 has the same feature) you will be a happy blade changer. They have hinged blade guards and you just swing them open to access the blade then close them when done. A piece of cake! I am sure there is a good engineering explanation why the others don't offer that feature but I don't know what it is. 

   Your teach the teacher reminds me years ago they opened a new HS here. They had a photo lab but were not going to offer photography classes. My wife is an experienced free lance photographer and she saw a friend of ours who was a school board member at the time and she told him "They have a photo lab and I offered to teach the class but they won't let me and the kids want it." A week or so later the school superintendent told her to get her lesson plans together as they were going to offer photography and let her teach it. She and the kids loved it but after 2 years they took the class from her and gave it to the art teacher so they could offer it as a "Fine arts" elective instead of as a general elective as when she taught it. The art teacher did not know how to use a camera so she'd get with my wife every week and try to learn enough to teach the next week's class and she would bring her any questions the kids asked that she could not answer. 

  Stay safe and keep squaring up them logs.

[Old Greenhorn]

'Them what can, do. Then what can't, teach" your wife's story, and mine, tell me where that phrase comes from. It's BS and why our school systems are producing what they are producing. That's all I got to say about that.

 As far as the mill goes, yeah, I know these are rou8tine issues for me. I have been reading about these for years here, so when I do it, I know I am not alone, those much better than I have proceeded me. ;D ;D
 In fact what I learned here form reading about mills I never thought I would have my hands on played a large part in cutting my learning curve down by a significant amount. I can't pin down any particulars but there were many little things that happened where I would think "Oh yeah, don't do it that way, bad idea, do it this way". Had I not been reading all the stuff here I would have really been lost.
 As I explained to my young tail gunner today, the only difference between a manual mill and a hydraulic mill is that you can make a lot more scrap faster if you don't know what you are doing, plus you can make some really spectacular mistakes in an instant, but on a manual that is hard to do.

[Cedarman]

OG, you left out the "those that can't teach, teach teachers."

[WV Sawmiller]

   And those that can't do any of the above go into politics and tell everybody else what to do. : :( :-\