Making it through another year '21-'23

[mudfarmer]

"So at some pint I should start writing it down" -- Freudian slip??  :D

[Old Greenhorn]

Howard, that should be 'Fungi Factory' to be technically correct. ;D
Mudfarmer, I am not sure I am following you? I must have said something funny, but missed it. I meant I should start making drawings and note on what I am doing so I can replicate it later but perhaps something came across in an unintended way?
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So for your benefit and also to help get something documented in some sort of manner, I shot a quick video. Maybe this will clear up any remaining confusion, or perhaps create some new ones? ;D
 Nothing like a Yellowhammer or a Jeff video, we are low budget here, but you get the idea.

Mushroom Loginator development progress - YouTube

 Take whatever industrial intelligence you can glean from it and run with it. 

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

Thanks for the video. That helps me envision the process better.

Depending on the raw log storage location I still think another set of runners would help move the logs to the location like a log deck on a sawmill. Stage 10-12 or more logs right off the forks then roll them to the drill station, put them in and drill.  I realize they are not that heavy but you should be able to reduce the number of steps and time involved fetching a fresh log.

Roll the staged log off the staging rack/runner down to the inoculation station, lift onto the rollers, drill then lift and toll to the next station. It looks to me like if the inoculators take longer than the plugger/waxer, you could have an extra couple of syringes and if the waxers are waiting  they can grab a syringe and inoculate a log or two instead of just waiting or they could help the labeler. Everybody can be cross trained and step in wherever there is a slow down. Or maybe even have "spare man" who rotates between the stations to keep the process flowing.

When you really get in high speed production you may have to have a loader and have someone just loading the spores in the syringes, handing a loaded syringe to the inoculator, grabbing the empties and repeating. Kind of like the women loading the rifles for the men during an Indian (or Union) attack.

I assume the spores are colored and it will be obvious when a hole has been dusted so you don't miss any. If not I'd suggest adding some flour or chalk dust or such so you have visible proof the hole was not missed. Kind of like mixing sand or old buggy grits with your turnip seeds so you can see where you missed a spot during planting.

When you really get into high speed production I foresee a set up with 5-6 drills in a rack spaced 6-8 inches apart like a multiple station drill press. Put the log in the station, flip the single switch to turn on all the drills at once, push down and drill 5-6 holes at once, raise all the drills in the rack, rotate the log and repeat till done. Depending on the size of the log, you could drill the log in about 1/4 to 1/5 the time it currently takes by drilling them all at once compared to using a single drill as you currently do.

Of course these are process changes/features we will include in our competition models. :D

[mudfarmer]

Sorry   Beer comes in Pints, sometimes. I will see myself out  :D

[Ljohnsaw]

Video looks great - pretty much what I understood you to say earlier.  My only change would be the little extra ramps you added from the drilling station to the rails would be to extend them an inch or so above the rails to prevent a log from rolling back as the inoculators shuffle the logs about.

[Old Greenhorn]

"So at some pint I should start writing it down" -- Freudian slip??  :D

OK! NOW I get it! :D :D I reread what I typed 4 times and still missed it. Yes, now it IS funny so I can't go back and correct it. I will confess that beer consumption has occurred during this construction but mostly at the end of the day when I stare it it and think of other options.
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 Speaking of thinking.. HOWARD... I have implied that you were overthinking things, but at this point I will outright accuse you of it. ;D Really, this is just for a class/workshop and production speed is not a consideration. What is the main concern is to make it easy and safe for folks who may not be accustomed to working with tools to do this work. So all these great ideas you have with productivity in mind don't apply here. The log stack is 2 feet from the drilling station, a rail feed system doesn't help, for instance. It's all about comfort and convenience for the 'students'. 
 
 Now I know that your master plan would have you take my very basic and simple design and supercharge it into a high speed system for the log inoculation competition market and pass me by. I am hereby saying, for all to read, you can have at it. :D I have no desire to go there (because there is no "there" there). I would suggest your drilling station, in addition to the 6 drill heads include feature recognition technology as well as log rotation motors to facilitate quick rolls and possibly include CNC control for kicking the logs down the line. With that I think you could get out a finish drilled log in around 12 seconds, give or take. That alone you should grab the entire competition market for you. Changing the rail system to a live deck would help keep those operators on their toes too and would tie right into the CNC control system.
 I'll just stumble along in my usual inept manner and you guys should all feel free to use what you can from my full disclosures. It's all just for fun after all.

 Ljohnsaw, yes, I has thought about either extending those little ramps (which I did on a whim and don't know if they will stay) or just add a strap or two to keep the log from rolling back. I am going to add something simple like that on the far end for the same reason. Most of this is waiting for the clients review in a day or two. I try to make what the client wants. I'm funny that way. :D ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

   I see said the blind man to the deaf wife on the telephone.

   So this is not for production but for training/teaching. 

   I gather if it was a single operator just doing 40-50 logs for his own personal use or for small time marketing he would be doing all the steps himself.

   I'm trying to design an LT70 hydraulic diesel mill with Accuset when the guy just wants to saw up a thousand BF or so to build a doghouse, toolshed and a pigpen every year or so from a bunch of 12" diameter logs he has available and an LT 10 or LT15 is all he needs.

[Nebraska]

Thanks  for the video, is there enough of a need to have a shelf suspended  between the rails to set a small electric hot plate/heat source to keep a steady supply of melted  wax  for the coating station.   The depth of the rails wouldn't allow it now  but  a couple brackets that bolt on and off to hold it would.   The live edge was a nice touch.

  I'm trying to design an LT70 hydraulic diesel mill with Accuset when the guy just wants to saw up a thousand BF or so to build a doghouse, toolshed and a pigpen every year or so from a bunch of 12" diameter logs he has available and an LT 10 or LT15 is all he needs.

Yeah but it's so cool!

[Old Greenhorn]

  I see said the blind man to the deaf wife on the telephone.

  So this is not for production but for training/teaching.

  I gather if it was a single operator just doing 40-50 logs for his own personal use or for small time marketing he would be doing all the steps himself.

  I'm trying to design an LT70 hydraulic diesel mill with Accuset when the guy just wants to saw up a thousand BF or so to build a doghouse, toolshed and a pigpen every year or so from a bunch of 12" diameter logs he has available and an LT 10 or LT15 is all he needs.

Ring-a-ling dig! Now you've got it Howard. Sure, this is easily expandable for a farm/production operation by just rail segments where needed but the reality is that most folks do this once a year for an afternoon and that's it. SO for them, they would likely just go with that roller stand and do all the work right there. Perhaps I will see one or two more of those but I don't know what the market is so it's all speculation. Last year I was hoping to sell a 'couple hundred' mushroom logs over the season and that grew it's own legs. SO I am not going to guess what might happen with these stands. It could go either way.
 Nebraska, because we do this in an outdoor classroom with no power source beyond a small generator for the drills, we heat the wax on a gas camp stove on a separate table. We talked about putting the pot on the production line but with all the banging and movement going on, the risk is high we might have a disaster and spill the whole load. Usually one of the instructors takes care of that melt pot on a separate work bench (which is also on my list to build) and we fill smaller cans from the big pot. If one gets spilled or dropped, there is little harm. As for the drills, I have suggested using battery tools and we are going to try and test that out and make sure they are up to the task. This would eliminate any need to haul that generator in and out for each class.
 The whole thing is really just a fun job to kill time in the winter and hopefully improve his infrastructure for next years teaching season. I have to build more stuff for him than I can fit in the shop right now, two of these systems, plus a real heavy bench about 3x5' for the melting pot and supplies, with an 8/4 rough milled top, probably 4x4 legs, that can stay out in the woods for it's life, and eventually some sort of storage box or shed so he can store materials out there and not have to carry everything in for each class.

[samandothers]

What about the name 'Let's roll one', or 'Be the Funguy'.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Maybe I will just leave that up to the client. His business name is "Catskill Fungi" so I don't know how well that second name would work. I kind of like "The Loginator".

[aigheadish]

Maybe a simple question but does your spore bucket have a lid or can it get contaminated if sitting under the rolling logs? Maybe something that slides off to the side when you refill, then slides back so there isn't bark or dirt falling into it? 

[WV Sawmiller]

   Okay, okay - you don't have to kick me when I'm down. I get it now. :-[

   I like the idea of keeping the system easy to disassemble and store since it is only for occasional use. Maybe the roller system should just be the board with the angles and the rollers and the user provides his own sawhorses and sets it on top of them. He can bolt or clamp it on then remove and store it when not in use. 

    The customer can buy the roller unit, put it on a pair of sawhorses he made or bought, add a couple of 2X4s as the track and another sawhorse on the other end to support them. You might make a little shelf or two that hangs between the runners to store the spores and wax and such. The shelf could actually help stabilize the runners, The roller shelf could actually have a pair of brackets to hold one end of the track so the same pair of saw horses hold that end up/in place.

   Okay, I guess I've done enough damage for one day. ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well its a good question. First, these logs are really clean. There are fresh cut mostly healthy trees (bad stuff is trimmed out)and every move is done by hand, so there is little or any dirt on them. So mostly it would be bark and as they are green, not much of that sluffs off either. If it did get in the pot it really would not matter and if by chance it wound up getting inoculated back into the log, well, it's back on the same log it came from, so no harm is done.
 AT some point I will show how this whole thing works with real people in real time and a lot of this will make more sense. That pot is getting hit up every few seconds so covering it is not practical. The video I did above was a bit misleading on that. Each hole filled requires several hits in the pot to fill the tool up. Then you only fill one hole, then do it all again for the next hole. So with 2 people hitting that pot, it is nearly constant. We will keep an eye on it, but right now we don't see it as a problem.

 Bark and other junk in the wax would be a different story. So again, we use the smaller cans and I think we will put narrow shelves with edge rails along each deck rail on the outboard side for those. Again, it's all a work in progress. I should know more in 24 hours.

 Howard, yes of course, many options are possible. (And no body would kick you when you are down, I'd wait patiently until you got back up. ;D) I build to suit the client, so whatever they want is fine. You will however note that the roller horse is much lower than the others. Originally on the first mockup I built it on my standard height sawhorse, but that proved to be way to high for a 5'4" tall person to easily position the tool and drill the holes. so we lowered it about 10". The working rails remain at 36" (for now). So mounting this on a standard sawhorse might make it too high and you would need a sawhorse with some weight to it and a fairly wide flange on top to make it stable. But I suppose it's up to the user in the end.

[WV Sawmiller]

  If its too high on a regular sawhorse they can always built a quick deck to step up on and work on or if outside dig them in a few inches.

   Thanks for letting me get up again before kicking me again even though that is poor tactics and not what we teach in USMC. I always say "If you're involved in a fair fight, your tactics suck!"  ;)

   I watch TV and am always amazed when they punch somebody and always knock him out with one punch. Do all actors have a glass jaw? Don't they have a 2X4, bottle or crowbar handy? You can break some knuckles that way. Then they say "We better hurry up and go before he comes to." That's dumb. If I've knocked him out and he is a threat to me he ain't coming to. And if he does he's gonna look like a coiled up rope or be wearing more log chain than he can stand up with. A piece of baling wire to both of his thumbs behind his back works well but ain't gonna help his circulation much. ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I have always gotten a kick out of how they can taser somebody on TV and it knocks them right out cold. I have seen many dozens of tasings of real people and never once was one of them knocked out. I will say, it is fun watching someone try to resist a good tasing. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as when I heard some of the noises that come out of folks mouths when they are getting tased and it seems the bigger and stronger they are, the funnier it gets.

[Ljohnsaw]

Is the wax ladled or poured into the holes?  I wonder if you could use one of those pancake funnel things.  You fill it up and when you pull a plunger on the top handle, it lets the liquid flow out the bottom.  It could rest in the hot wax pot on a hot plate to keep it fluid.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I can't tell them how to do their jobs, but you may have a interesting idea. The problem might come when you try to clean those containers out. Every one of these operations I have seen either uses small 1/2 brushes or the daubers like we use for PVC cement. The spawn is packed right to the top on the hle and the goal is to just coat it over and seal it with wax to get bugs and other fungi out.

[HemlockKing]

Well I have always gotten a kick out of how they can taser somebody on TV and it knocks them right out cold. I have seen many dozens of tasings of real people and never once was one of them knocked out. I will say, it is fun watching someone try to resist a good tasing. I don't think I have ever laughed as hard as when I heard some of the noises that come out of folks mouths when they are getting tased and it seems the bigger and stronger they are, the funnier it gets.

Seen many a good taze session on good ol COPS show....i miss that show. the midget that thought he could break the cuffs and also climbed a telephone pole was great

[Ljohnsaw]

Every one of these operations I have seen either uses small 1/2 brushes or the daubers like we use for PVC cement.

Ops, yeah, you mentioned that earlier.  Slipped my feeble mind.

[Old Greenhorn]

They used to invite a bunch of EMt's down to the county Police academy when they did taser training and CS spray training so that we could do rehab for them and in case anything went wrong. It  Each cadet must be tasered before they can get their endorsement to carry the weapon. Same with CS Spray, except that after they take a direct hit in the face they have to defend their weapon from an assault. The taser stuff is fun to watch and nothing every went wrong. I learned that the more muscle bound a person was, the more they suffered :D. The CS spray training evolution was not fun to watch. Lots of tears and snot and puking going on and it was very rough on the cadets, especially if they tried to duck the blast, then they got a second full load in the face directly. That was a mess to cleanup and get those cadets back in shape. As this was one of the last hurdles in their training, it put a lot of stress on them to get through it and some could barely make it. I'll take the taser any day.

No sweat Ljohn, it's a lot to keep straight and I still get confused. ;D

[Nebraska]

I do hope you get video of the set up running when it gets put to use, something I have never been around but it would be interesting to see.

[doc henderson]

where do they get, or how do they propagate spawn??  can you post more info on the process, with pics when you get them?  I am interested in trying this.  

[chet]

Having went threw both Taser and CS  training more than once I can assure you neither one is at all pleasant. Especially after the first time 'cause ya know what's coming.  :'(   I've also seen guys that when hit with CS, their only reaction was to get REALLY pithed.  

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, fellas, it won't be until the spring before we try this out with some victims Willing students and I will do my best to record it.

 Doc, making the actual spawn is a lab process that requires sterile working conditions including air filtration. Because of that, just about everybody buys their spawn from such a producer. The spawn comes mixed with sawdust in a 2.5# bag and can be kept in the refrigerator for 6 weeks or more. There are lots of suppliers out there like Field & Forest where many of my clients buy their stuff. The spawn can also be bought in preformed 'plug' you just push in the hole or pegs for inserting in the ground, grain, and thimble spawn. I don't understand the details but I believe it has to do with the inoculation methods and substrate. It's quite easy to do with just a little bit of reading, selcting the mushroom species to match the substrate species, or vice versa and although there are special tools made for the process, you really don't need them. A few simple hand tools will do just fine. You can grow 'shrooms in coffee grounds, or cardboard, or wood chip beds depending on species. Mushrooms are 'decomposers' they just need the right thing to decompose. They have even found a strain of mushrooms that can decompose petroleum and have had successful test growing those on floating oil slicks at sea to break down the oil. Amazing organicisms they are.