Making it through another year '21-'23

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

I'd say you understand the overall concept and have a working prototype. I'd have gone shorter and taller but that gets into personal preference I suspect. I'm thinking shorter and taller may be easier to tilt back but if that is working for you then you may have the better design. I'm thinking along the lines of 2 logs deep and 4-5 logs tall. A chain or rope in the middle and tied to the cross piece there to secure them in a consideration but I might not add it unless/until I had dumped a load or two.

If you go commercial and start marketing these along with the loginators remember where to send my commission and the one to the FF. :D

I am thinking this is a tool light enough to transport easily but handy enough to significantly reduce your workload and described in the OP.

   The big question, since you say it is no longer an issue for delivery, is will this help you get the logs from the woods to your mule/trailer?

[breederman]

Tracks! It needs tracks for mud.😄

[WV Sawmiller]

  Not if we include a high pressure propane heater/blower in front of each wheel to dry the mud ahead of the wheels. (Remember when designing for OGH to think out of the box! :D)

[breederman]

He could then also use it to light his brush piles and if he is careful heat the shop as well.😂

[Old Greenhorn]

In certain conditions, yes, it might help. But the bigger question is, will it save time/pain/effort? I don't know. Thinking on all the places I have so far cut there is only one where it MIGHT have helped.
 Now TRACKS! Yeah, that put me on another idea. Last year when I was cutting on one of Barge's jobs there was a thing sitting there called a Muck Truck. I had never seen one. 4wd nice little unit with a 5.5HP Honda engine. I should have made an offer, but by the time I had thought about it, it was taken. They sell for about $4,200. and have an optional flat bed for another $700. Still even something like that I have to think on whether it really saves me anything. I generally can get the Mule or truck pretty close and only have to carry them 50' or less. Humping something over branches and stumps can be pretty rough on the body too.
 I'll have to po0nder on that.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I guess a burro or two is out of the question then? ;) They are awful surefooted and can navigate narrow paths and mud and snow much better than you'd ever think. ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, but I am thinking they come with a lot of overhead.

[Hilltop366]

  I guess a burro or two is out of the question then?

He would be the Juan Valdez of mushroom logs.

[breederman]

They would be great business advertising when you have them march in the Memorial Day parade pulling a cart with that fancy sign in it .😁

[WV Sawmiller]

  You can rent them out as organic lawnmowers (Remember to Go Green), watchdogs, take them to kiddy parties and petting zoos and I am sure their by-products can be used somehow to enhance the mushroom industry.

They would be great business advertising when you have them march in the Memorial Day parade pulling a cart with that fancy sign in it .😁

Yeah - I can see the sign "Get off your A__ and start growing your own mushrooms."

[breederman]

You could even set on one of those cool benches you make and toss shrooms to the crowd.

[Old Greenhorn]

See, this is the issue right here. I begin to entertain and pursue some of the ideas you present and you guys take that as an open license  to just run amok. Next thing you know you'll have me in a parade with those mules dragging a small forwarding trailer (on tracks) with scantily clad dancing girls doing [something]. :D
 The 'committee' needs to maintain some kind of internal discipline. Really guys. Geez. ;D

[Nebraska]

But daydreaming and whimsy are where some of the greatest notions of all time have derived from.  

[WDH]

Necessity is the Mother of invention according to Mr. Plato.   He would have made a great addition to the Design Team if he had been born a few thousand years later.  

[WV Sawmiller]

   Aw come on Tom. You know you couldn't make it without us. :D Besides, look at the nice new mushroom log carrier you have because of us. Cheap, simple, effective. Admit it. It is going to make your life a lot easier and the work will go a lot faster. ;) 

[Old Greenhorn]

It's been over 20 years but back in the day at one point in my career I worked with a pretty good concept and design team. We would get a RFQ from a potential client as well as their design thoughts and requirements, then come up with a concept, block design, and eventually a full estimate on costs and timelines. If we got the order (and we usually did) we would do a complete design package for their approval before build and test. Usually there were revisions along the way as we saw opportunities for improvements or enhancements.
 Our initial approach to the working concept was to bring the whole team into a room surrounded by white boards. We would all spitball ideas and everything went up on the boards, dumb, crazy, or otherwise. Eventually these would be whittled down to some kind of concept and one member of the team would work out a block drawing of the system, while the other members would research the particular specialties for detailed components and feed that the the person doing the drawing. When it was roughed out, we would put it up on the wall with the same group of folks and pick it apart, make changes, add or subtract things, and look for things we had not seen before. Then we would repeat the process for those revisions and do another cycle of review. This went on until we all agreed on a working design and then each specialty person did their part, with a project leader doing the integration and final drawings of everyone's work. There was a final review and client sign-off before we released it to build out.

 That was a long process, but it worked. No ideas were stupid and sometimes the wildest things were incorporated into the final design. Often these were the things that impressed the client the most. Some of these projects were very detailed and complex. Frame builds, mechanical transfer systems, robots, software, wiring, programming, ultra high vacuum chambers, HEPA filter systems, and polished SS enclosures were all included in many of our designs (mostly cleanroom work). 

 I never discount the odd idea without some level of consideration. Way leads on to way, and you never know until you at least think it over. A closed mind produces no art. ;D

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

 For a while I was a maintenance management software implementer where we would go out and replace a customer's maintenance management/work process software. We'd get the customer team together and do a "brown paper project" similar to what you describe. We'd roll a big roll of brown paper around the way and start recording the work flow from start to finish with each department or section's actions along the way. We'd put up sticky notes, tape up flow charts, etc. till we could all see the process from start to finish.

  Typical would be who found a problem and who created a work order to get it fixed. Who reviewed, prioritized and approved the work. Who came out and planned the work and ordered the parts and identified the tools and special test equipment to do the work. Who did the work? Who inspected the work after and approved re-starting the machine or line.

 It might be some worker reporting Machine A won't start. His boss approved the fix. When the planner got there he'd find the machine was okay but the power was off so he'd modify the work order from the machine to the electric panel. An electrician would be summoned with a new breaker and replaced it after proper lock out tag out. Once done the supervisor would inspect remove the tags and restart the line. Behind the scenes the storeroom had pulled or bought the breaker and ordered an additional one. HR recorded the overtime and accounting processed and paid the invoices for the part or contract labor. Most people never realized the part these other people played.

  What we always found and identified during this phase was that different departments did not understand what happened before and after their part of the work. We would find gaps and overlaps where somebody assumed the next guy would fix the problem and nobody even knew the problem was there. We'd find 2 parties fighting over who was to do a particular step and cancelling out what each other had done.

[Old Greenhorn]

I had zero patience for that nonsense. I also hated when people would sit at the desks and send emails around the  building to find out what was going on and ask for reports. I was known for walking into a lot of offices and telling folks if they wanted to know what was going on, they could dang well get off their butts and go find out for themselves. (This did not boost my popularity.) The way I made time and got things done was to get the right people working together, which saved them all time. I hated spending time in my office when 'stuff' needed to happen and I resented other folks hiding in their offices when they needed to get involved and make it happen.
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Today was another "I have no idea what I am doing today' days. But I texted my log inoculation client and soon we settled on him stopping by late morning to help me pack the larger parts of his systems on my trailer. It gave him a chance to see the finished painted units and he was still tickled pink. He was also anxious to pay me, as he has been for over a month. He wound up paying me $150.00 more than the price I asked because he 'felt that was more fair'. He also saw those engraved business cards and asked if I could embed a card on each of his tables and loginators so folks would know who made it and where to get them. So I have a little more to do before the early Friday delivery time. 

 After he left I did some chores and because the ground was somewhat firm I took the Mule across the yard and pulled out a bunch of that ice damaged tree for firewood. The ground wasn't firm enough and I kept it to one run.
 Then I had this brain fart and was thinking on these totem logs because my client and I were talking about them and he was relating the difficulties in doing them. One point it that reassembling them with the spawn is messy and they have to be restrained in some way. I was thinking on this and figured a guy with a chainsaw and some skills could come up with a way to make these logs 'joint' back together after the spawn is added. As I had a saw in my hands, I went over and took one of the leftover totems and tried something.


 

So I did a plunge cut through and left tabs on two sides, then put side cuts on the tops of those tabs. I found (after failure) that I had to relieve the bark at the corners in order for it to fracture along the grain when I pried up with a bar to pop along the grain. I don't know why, but it worked. Perhaps this is a better view of the two parts.


 

So the spawn is spread in the fresh cut area, and the top piece is carefully fitted back in to match the fracture lines, then tapped in snug.
 Anyway, it's a concept. You would need a decent saw and some minimal skills to pull it off, meaning a hobbyist with a battery saw couldn't pull it off, but a lot of folks could. I seen these photos off to my client and am waiting for feedback. He's the expert.

 Tomorrow I have some touch up painting on the inoculation stuff, figure out the newly required labels, taking the wife to the laundromat, hitting home depot and the beer dock while she is there and not much else planned, but I am sure the day will fill up. It's just another day.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

  What always got me was when talking with and observing the work process was the disconnects. Since I knew nothing about the process I came in as a clean slate and just followed the process and I'd find gaps that anyone else asking the same basic questions should have found. The foreman says "We do it this way." When you talked to the worker bee he said "No, we do it this way." And of course the overall manager thought it was being done some other way. We probably added more value to the process just by clarifying and standardizing their process than we did by adding a new tool to process, record and collect the information.

  Okay, back to today, what would happen if you simply sawed the totem logs into quarters on your mill and shrink wrapped or otherwise reassembled them? Would a banding machine with fiberglass strapping work or be worth the effort to reassemble? Would that be too much labor, time, effort and expense for the return?  Is this process providing too much time and exposure to contamination? Just a thought.

  I'm stiff and sore from helping a widow lady a couple houses down the road. She had trees cut but the contract was to just leave them. She and a friend or relative are trimming the limbs with an electric Craftsman chainsaw and piling them in brush or firewood piles. Her biggest concern was a big maple in the creek and I cut and dragged those tops out yesterday afternoon. I've cut and/or hauled 3 - 5'X8' trailer loads piled really high with limbs and tops to burn in my pasture and a couple of 3'X4' cart loads of firewood. I'm using my 600 cc CFMOTO ATV for it. I probably have 3-4 more trailers of brush and 10-12 loads of firewood plus a few saw logs.

  Several of these would have made you a few mushroom logs. Can you use buckeye as I see several of them. I'll get 4-5 trashy maple logs for saw logs. The firewood is nice but the biggest reward is being able to help a neighbor. She just lost her husband 6 weeks ago and they have always been good neighbors.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well first, helping neighbors is important and a primary task when they really need it. Sounds to me like that lady earned it. Sorry it is beating you up, but that's part of the job. ;D At least you get some wood out of it. I am certain she appreciates it more than you know. Even if she didn't I am certain you sleep well (if not sore) knowing you did the right thing. Good on ya.
 
 Now on your questions about cutting the logs lengthwise into sections. It's funny you bring this up as I just finished an email with a client about that. He was thinking of splitting logs and trying to find somebody with more knowledge to advise him. I am not that guy, but I find the questions interesting. I believe it comes down to how the mycelium grows within the log. Does it travel along the cellular structure (grain) or can it propagate ACROSS the grain (sideways)? I can't answer this and we are both looking into the known science. I should point out that we do know the mycelium only grows in the sapwood where the sugars and nutrients are. The heartwood provides little for mushroom growth. So any spawn applied in that area will likely die off. Spawn is not cheap, so you do want to apply it where it can grow.

 We have gone beyond the limits of my knowledge here and perhaps, the known science, but I am searchig around to see if this has been tried and documented yet. The Japanese have been cultivating these Mushrooms for over a thousand years in logs. I would like to think they may have tested this idea already, but perhaps not?

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   It is good to keep yourself (and others) mentally and physically challenged so just keep digging. My thoughts were if you were going to split the totem logs as described earlier you might as well do it on the mill. Two cuts and you have 4 nice quarters that will fit right back together.

   I hauled one more cart load of firewood and a big trailer load of brush and left it on the trailer hooked to my ATV till I get back from shopping with the wife. We are supposed to have a good chance for rain tomorrow and if so I hope to burn it all as I am accumulating too much of it.

   Take care.

[Old Greenhorn]

Splitting logs is a non-starter. I know this has been tried many times. It uses huge amounts of spawn, so is quite expensive, even more than totems, which is also expensive. Also, you would have to keep retying them as the logs shirks and dries. Handling and stacking issues too.
 I'm just looking if I can find a small trick or two that helps based on my odball perspective. Somebody else suggested a tongue and groove cut and I am thinking about that but it's a lot of cuts. It's fun to play with anyway. I am easily amused.

[doc henderson]

you could grow the spawn in your lube tank, cut the logs, and other lumber and "presto bango", mushrooms. 8) 8) 8)

[aigheadish]

This is all fascinating reading, thanks guys. A large part of my job involves looking at manufacturing processes and thinking about stuff like you are talking about, so your experiences are pretty interesting. 

gspren- Man, I'd love to hear about some of the crazy ideas you've seen!

Tom and Howard- Maybe I'm missing something but why not just a shallow 'V' cut, maybe only ~5 degrees off horizontal? Does the spawn need to sit horizontally to work? I would think just about anyone, including the electric saw owner could just slice half a 'V' into either side and the log keys itself together. That shape, if kept shallow, is pretty stable, and not nearly as complex/scary as a plunge cut.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah, I nearly bit on that and got off on a rant, but those days are behind me. close to 50 years as a troubleshooter and problem solver for people who never understood what or how I did my job was enough. Done with that. ;D

Your V-cut would likely work and it's simple, but if it were simple, why would they need me? :D Anyway, I think I will give it a try and see how it sits. Stay tuned.
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Slow day today. Since my wife's van is still out of commission I have become her chauffer for all her little errands and it is cramping my style. I had to run her to the laundromat so while she was there I ran up to home despot and got some stuff I needed, then hit the beer dock, picked her back up, stopped at the bank, and home again. I did a little work in the shop touching up some details on the loginator for Friday's delivery. I added the tool clearance holes last night and today repainted the areas and holes. Then I had to run the wife over to my son's house to get the kids off the bus. 2 hours later I had to pick her back up.



  

I also added the business cards he wanted on those and the bench ends.


 

 It looks like his first workshop won't be until May, but he also has a Mushroom Retreat he does annually in May, so I have a while before I need more logs. I did have some left over from the last couple of orders and was going to look for a buyer, but I got an email last evening from a guy who had called a month or so back to buy logs and because he is so far away, I recommended another supplier closer to him. He finally hooked up with that fella and the guy was charging $0.50/log. "Yeah, well OK, then I think you should buy his logs." So he did. But he emails me yesterday and says the logs he got have very little sapwood and big hearts (not great for mushrooms). As he is going to a concert (Molly Tuttle) not far from me next week, he wondered if he could come by and get 20 logs or whatever I had. "Well it just so happens that I have about 15 logs siting here...". :D Guess I don't have to search for a buyer for these anymore. ;D

 Truth be told, given that he got logs at 50 cents a pop, I would like to sell him some prefect pristine logs to show the difference, but what I got is what I got and they are not bad logs at all. Since he managed to get 30 logs in a Subaru Outback, I am wondering how big those logs were. I don't think you could get 15 of my logs in a Subaru. That would also explain the minimal sapwood. Anyway, I find the whole thing very interesting and another opportunity to learn.

 Tomorrow I have to get the wife to one of her quilting groups, then pick her up someplace else later in the day. I also have to load the trailer and tools for Friday so I can just jump in the truck and go in the morning. Heavy rain coming tomorrow night, so I'll have to cover it all. But at least it might hit 60° tomorrow.