Making it through another year '21-'23

[Old Greenhorn]

Yoga....

Naw, that just ain't right. No sir.

[thecfarm]

Now that's a OWB!! 
Looks homemade? 
I could use one that size. Cuts down on the chainsaw and splitting wood part.  ;)

[WV Sawmiller]

   It may be homemade. Maybe he went down to the local railroad tracks and measured the pulpwood falling off on the side and sized it accordingly. :D

[Old Greenhorn]

'Level the pith" they said, "It's easy, and gives you better lumber' they said. OK guys, here's a question:
WHICH PITH?



 

I count 5. Pick one ;D

Lot's of interest in that OWB and today I had a little help at the end of the day, so I could take some photos.
 This may help with size or scale.  We had a pretty full load in there already, but we wanted to top it off for the coming cold tonight. so rather than just dump, Bill got up on top to hand feed 5" pieces in to pack it well.



 


Maybe this is a better perspective?



 

And this is the lid detail and one of the two cylinders that support it.



 

No, it's not a home made unit. I forgot to check the maker. I will say this is like having another kid to watch and comes with a fair amount of care and maintenance. The system uses, I believe, over 600 gallons of fluid.

 In other news, we got a delivery today, new toys.



 

 This will go on that Kubota Skid Steer and makes the third grapple in the 'fleet'. Maybe now I get to keep one down by the mill, which would make life easier for me anyway. ;D It's a real heavy duty unit and has a really nice top mounted winch. These guys make good stuff.



 

That's Bill on the Right, and my tailgunner Bailey (I am sure his mother named him after the Logger's supply company) on the left checking it out.
--------------------------------------

 Had a fairly good day at the mill today thinking I might be shut out for 3 or more days coming between very low temps and snow on Monday. Got an order for 2x4's the other day and that is just perfect for some of the junk logs I am trying to clear out. As it happens, I also need 2x4's for the Mushroom gizmo, so the junky ones wind up in my truck. 2x4's are SO much easier than the other stuff I have been humping over the ice.
 Anyway, I knocked off a couple of good logs and decided I had a good day. Then I turned around and my tailgunner just showed up. Well, I was quitting for the day, but I am not one to look a helper in the eye and quit, so I grabbed a couple more logs and we whacked out some more  2x4's and he helped me with a bunch of other 2 man tasks and we got cleaned up, so even better. And we ran a load up to the OWB (see above in case you forgot). But I am tripping over lumber and we need to get some cleared out. I brought a few more 2x4's home to thaw and see if they wind up usable. A new discovery for me is that frozen logs that are pithy and make questionable lumber which looks great when frozen, is not so great when it thaws and the pithy junk starts falling off. As this is my first year milling softwoods in the deep cold, I am adding to my list of 'things I didn't know and never really wanted to learn'.

 All in all not a bad day that I began with the attitude that if I didn't get it done today, I wouldn't be able to do it for 3 days, so better get some hustle going. Now I can hopefully get some work done in the shop an on the mushroom gizmo. Howard, how are you and your 'crew' making out with your designs and prototyping? Any questions or things I might help you along with? :D ;D

 SO I stayed out of trouble for another day (so far), but I am bushed. Tomorrow is likely another one but colder. I think 2° is the call for tonight. ;D

[mudfarmer]

That's just a log bucked at a branch whorl, right? RIGHT? NOT a 5 pith tree?? ??? :D

Stay warm OGH, they are calling for -17F low here tonight with wind chills to -30 or -45 -15F low tomorrow night and then a buncha snow

...WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 7 PM THIS EVENING TO
4 PM EST SATURDAY...
...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH
LATE MONDAY NIGHT...

* WHAT...For the Wind Chill Warning, dangerously cold wind chills
expected. Wind chills as low as 30 to 45 below zero. For the
Winter Storm Watch, heavy snow possible. Total snow
accumulations of 8 to 12 inches possible across northern New
York and portions of south-central Vermont, while 5 to 8 inches
across the Champlain Valley and northern Vermont. Winds could
gust as high as 35 mph.

* WHERE...All of northern New York and Vermont.

[Old Greenhorn]

I ain't looking at the Weather service warnings, they just depress me. :D

[Old Greenhorn]

OK Howard, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. :D ;D

 Given the cool temps today I opted for a shop day and I thought I had brought home enough lumber to get it done (barely). This morning I got an email from a guy I know who is retired now and starting to do hobby woodworking. I know his wife better than he, they were both long time scouters and I knew them through that. Good folks and he was looking for hobby wood, which I have some of. We have been emailing off and on for a month or so, but today he was ready for a visit. He's a good guy and my generation and I always enjoy a visit form an old scouter. So we set an appointment and I got the heat up in the shop and started working on the mushroom log production setup. First I built the 20" Sawhorse which put the log top height at around 36". This seemed VERY low to me when I was building it, but worked out to be just about right for a good drilling height. This 36" height was the clients spec.



 

Then I built my standard height sawhorse which fits the client requirements and made the 'I-beam' rails he wanted. I used one one my existing sawhorses to finish the mockup.



 

 Its looks like the concept we laid out a week or so ago and is a platform for adjustments and changes. We just need something to mess with and 'figure it out' as we go along. It's rough milled EWP, nothing is sacred here at all.



 

I shouldn't share this, lest Howard and his crack crew capitalize on it, but the concept is that the log gets drilled at the station on the left end (in the last photo), then the log is rolled up on the rails down to the next two people in line (one on each side) where they insert the spawn, they then roll it off to the next pair of folks who wax those holes over and roll it to the end where the log gets a metal tag with the date, log species, and spawn variety then gets stacked. Simple operation.

 My client wants two of these setups, but I wanted to prototype one, work out the bugs, then make the second one. I already have some simple changes in mind to make it work easier. But I'll wait for the client to come and mess with it. He's a sharp guy and has good ideas.

__________________
Sometime in the middle of this the Scouter showed up and we talked about a lot of stuff, retirement, keeping busy, wood, hobbies, etc. Eventually we got out to my limited wood stacks and he found some stuff he liked. He bought 2 RO curved slabs which I had never sold before. He's a good guy, but not really selling his stuff, just having some fun learning and I just didn't want to charge him much for his pleasure. Still 25 bucks is 25 bucks. I gotta eat too. ;D I enjoyed our visit and I hope he comes back. I told him about the FF here because I think he would fit in really well. We never spent a lot of time together in Scouting, he was busy earning a living, as was I, but I knew his wife well and and she was my son's boss when he worked on staff at the Cub Camp. The are both great folks. I hope he shows up here on the FF..
 Anyway, it was a full and productive workday even if I burned a lot of firewood getting through it.  ;D Anytime I am busy from morning till dinner is good. Tonight they are calling for zero temps, oh well. I still have one more saw horse to build tomorrow and then wait until the client can come by.
 Tomorrow is just another day.

[Ljohnsaw]

the concept is that the log gets drilled at the station on the left end (in the last photo), then the log is rolled up on the rails down to the next two people in line (one on each side) where they insert the spawn, they then roll it off to the next pair of folks who wax those holes over

Are hole drilled all around the logs?  Won't the spawn fall out when you roll it to the waxing station?

[WV Sawmiller]

   Our attorney refuses to take our case fearing you have already documented too much of the process as proprietary so I guess we'll have to drop back to our consultant role. Its either that or find a more crooked lawyer and they are all tied up while congress is in session. :

   I saw this as a "Log deck" and first thought the log in the picture was being sent to the station for drilling instead of being on the exit side. Looks to me like you need one of those on both sides - one to roll the logs to the station then after drilled roll off for the waxing team.

[thecfarm]

Thanks for the OWB pictures.

[Old Greenhorn]

@ljohnsaw Yes, you would think it would fall out, but actually no. The logs are drilled with rows of holes about 4-6" apart and on a 4-5" diameter log the will be about 4 rows around the log. But the spawn is actually packed in the holes with the special inoculation tool they use and it holds in tight until it is waxed over to keep the bugs out. So we can do a rolling production line and just keep the logs moving down to the next operation.

 @WV Sawmiller I am sorry to hear your attorneys have abandoned you. (I think you were using Dewey, Cheetum & Howe?) But it's understandable they went for the easy money in Washington, who wouldn't? The pickings are ripe there. At any rate, what I have reveled is not in any way proprietary and is commonly accepted as standard process. Our patentable claims reside within technology that is not revealed in the forgoing disclosures. Such is our genius that even after seeing what we have, it is not apparent what groundbreaking revelations we will afford to the Mushroom growing industry.

I confess I didn't understand your last comment/question. Drilling is the first step, then inoculation, then waxing, then labeling. Can you clarify? It's a development in progress, so the field is wide open for ideas, if your legal team (assuming you've found a new one) allows sharing.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

 Now I am really suspicious of both you and our lawyers since you knew who they were which makes it it seem likely you and they have been talking. Besides they can't take on new clients until they finish this sessions term then they have to rush home and campaign for re-election.

 What I was saying with another row was I was thinking of a log deck on both sides of the inoculation station. Multiple logs would be staged here awaiting processing. At the start the logs would be unloaded from the cart or truck directly on to the pair of runners then rolled one by one to the inoculation station, the holes were drilled and spores implanted then the log would be rolled out on the next set as shown and get waxed then rolled off on to another trailer, truck or waiting forks of a skid steer or tractor.

  If there are other stations involved you could set them up with another set of runners on the other side till finished. You could turn the runners 45-90 degrees based on the the amount of work space you had available.

  New raw logs would roll in from one side and finished, inoculated and waxed, labeled, etc. logs would roll off the other side.

[Hilltop366]

Well I have never heard from the rest of the crew so I've have abandoned my shares and ditched the linear production line idea and have gone with a rotary held log system with drill, inculcation and wax at a single station, that will increase production by 40% by my calculations and reduce operating cost by 30% by reducing skilled labour to 1 person per station and the rest can be done by unskilled minimum wage earners or trained monkeys.

You guys may as well give up because of my superior system I will be taking over the mushroom log industry on my own.

Best of luck on your future endeavours.  ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

HT366,

  That's because you haven't seen my new vertical set up with a cable, winches, pulleys, and a couple of small sets of log grabs/tongs. We run a cable through a couple of eyebolts, attach a couple of sets of pulleys to run on the cable, set up a small electric winch to lift the logs, hook the tongs in the end, lift with the winch, roll it down to the drill station and bore the holes,  inoculate, roll it down to the wax station, dip the log down in a barrel of hot wax, lift with a hefty fan blowing from above to return the excess wax to the tank leaving the plugs in the holes, let it drip while we process the next log then roll it down the cable and lower it into a waiting box. The logs can either be stored vertically or horizontally based on the customers request. ;) ;D :D

[beenthere]

You guys may as well give up because of my superior system I will be taking over the mushroom log industry on my own.

All three of them?   :D 8) ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

I feel as though I am sensing some dissention from within the ranks of the opposing team, could that be? Don't be discouraged guys, you can do this. Hilltop, good luck in your solo venture, I bet you rake in tens of dollars! Howard I didn't know who your legal team was until you just told me. I assumed it was likely them because of their cost structure and level of ethics I figured would fit in with your business plan. Lucky guess.

Seeing as there is a total lack of any photographic evidence of your progress (and we all know what the means), I will throw you guys another bone. Today I built the 3rd sawhorse to complete the first setup and did some refinements, by moving two of the legs on the drilling station outboard enough that it can overlap the first sawhorse on the deck rails and get closer. 



 

I also put in some mockup rails to transition the log from the first station onto the deck. 



 

Howard, I am not sure I 'splained the way this works clearly enough the first time around. The log gets drilled in the roller fixture, then gets pushed up on the deck where 2 people are facing each other across the rail and each one populates the holes with spawn and their 'half' of the log, they then roll it down to 2 more people standing the same way further down the rail who each do their 'half' of the log with wax, The it gets queued at the end to be picked up, labeled and stacked. I may add a small holding rack at that far end just for a couple of logs. So everything is done on this one setup. I will build a duplicate so we can run two rigs side by side once we have the bugs worked out. I still need to add some shelves underneath to hold the spawn pot and hot wax pots. The idea is not to do it 'really fast, it is to do it with the least lifting of logs possible.

 We are planning a test run Wednesday or Thursday depending on weather. I gotta go make more 2x4's before I can build the next one and that may take a while depending on how much snow we get tomorrow. At any rate, that will give you guys a chance to catch up.

[Ljohnsaw]

Not knowing what the consistency of the spawn is or even the wax to plug the holes, I'm going to make a suggestion on your shelves.  You mentioned putting them underneath.  To minimize bending, stooping, reaching, what if the shelf is just low enough down the middle of the rails so the spawn & wax pots are just below the rails?  Then one pot can be used by the opposing workers and they are not reaching under the logs on the rails - just right next to it.  Just a thought.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   What I was suggesting earlier then would be another set of rails as a log deck to roll the new logs to the roller station. Just like a log deck bring in logs to be sawed then another on the other side to finish the processing and remove them. Just a series of log decks with station en route to drill, inoculate and wax the logs then remove them. 

[Old Greenhorn]

ljohnsaw, yeah, that's exactly what I had in mind for my first pass. The spawn pot is 6 inches high and should clear. I will have to rig the bottom to keep it very rigid. The tool is pounded into the pot to fill and pack the spawn in it, then a plunger pushes that packed spawn plug into the log hole. That means the operator is constantly banging that tool into the pot which will case a bounce. If I have another person just down the line with smaller cans of melted wax, that bouncing will not be 'appreciated' by them. ;D I also need to have side rails on the shelves so the stuff cant spill out on the ground. I will dummy up one shelf quick and see what the client says. We are going to 'run it' ansd see how everything feels for the folks working on it, then make adjustments as we see fit. The original concept called for some shelves outboard of the rails, but I am not liking that except for a narrow one to lay tools on, again with edge rails.

 Howard, I think you may be over thinking it. These logs have to be picked up at some point so when we do, it's just as easy to lay them right in the drilling rig. This is designed for a workshop class that only does about 40 logs in an hour or so. Yes, of course, it this were at a farm doing production work, those infeed and outfeed decks would work great.

[Nebraska]

Gee all I suggested was a fancy live edge.

[Old Greenhorn]

Gee all I suggested was a fancy live edge.

Which in fact I did include! :D As I am building this with poor 2x4's that we can't sell for framing some of these have some wane and in one case, the edge brace under the long rail is nearly entirely waned out making it more live edge than wane. So I had to put the wane edge down leaving a good flat to screw the top plate to. I'll try to sneak a pic for you so that you can see your input was not wasted.
 Looks like we got about 10" of white junk overnight so when I take breaks from plowing I will mess around with a couple of shelf ideas to give the client choices to pick from. I also have to remember to put an end stop at the far end to keep logs from rolling off by themselves.

[Nebraska]

White stuff.....yuck you and Magicman can keep it. 

(Yes I know we are past due)

[Old Greenhorn]

Indeed you are, and you'll get yours! :D :D Actually I only measure 8" when I used a tape, but it rained lightly for the last hour or two of the event and got really heavy to push. None of that sinking fluffy stuff for us! It took me a bit over two hours to get it mostly cleared up, but I didn't do the trim work or back by the mill or the wood stacks and I see one of my better tarps got ripped off in the high winds. I saw it twice today, but it kept putting it out of mind with other stuff to do and frankly I am pooped. I should look at that tomorrow before the colder weather sets in and locks it all up.
 I did do a little more work on the rig this afternoon, just messing around and sent some photos to the client, but for some reason I cannot find them on my phone after they went into the text messages? So I'd have to reshoot those. I haven't really documented any of this yet. Seat of the pants construction (good company name there if you want it Howard, for the new endeavor). So at some pint I should start writing it down, probably after we change it all around with the clients input.
 If I get a minute, maybe it's easier if I just do a short video.

[Hilltop366]

I'm going with " The Inoculator " 

[WV Sawmiller]

   "Fungus Factory". Catchy initials - FF - that way. :D