Making it through another year '21-'23

[Old Greenhorn]

Well there will be a change in color, slightly. I had to get another gallon of this pricey stuff, so I made the change to one of the accepted colors off the chart. I don't know if you will be able to see the difference, given your Mason-Dixon filters, but it will be different.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Remember camouflage is always in style and allows you to use up those small remaining amounts of odd colored paint.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, I will tell you the color I bought is called "Padre Brown" whatever that is. It has a little less red than the other color. I dunno, maybe to your eyes, this will look like pink or green. I can't predict that. I will keep you in suspense for a week or two until I get around to it.

This morning I got out, finished up the battens, fitted one more bolt to hold the doors flat when closed. I did some sanding on the top and hand chiseled in a pocket to hold one of those wooden business cards, glued it in and used some brass brads to hold it down. I will go back out after dinner and mix up some epoxy to fill in some knots and cover the card pocket. I found that if I fill any divets and knots it eliminates any air coming up later which will fracture the poly finish. Everything is an experiment on some level, lets see how this works on pine. It's been flawless on hardwood. Rain day again tomorrow, so maybe I will sand the epoxy and lay on the first coat of Poly. The client still likes it and can't wait to come by and see it, but he tested positive for COVID yesterday, so we may just wait a bit.



 

 This morning I got a couple of boards added onto an order I just finished at the mill, so I headed down and grabbed a log and milled up the rest of that order and made some 1x12's and 1x10's with the rest of the log. Got home around 5 and I'm tired. Taking a break until after dinner.
 Tomorrow is another day.  Rain is coming back tomorrow. The shop is a mess and could use some cleaning. I made a lot of sawdust in the past week.

[aigheadish]

Looks good Tom. 

I have an epoxy project to mess with... Encasing the putter head I'm working on. My buddy gave me some epoxy he's had sitting around for a while but it says it needs sustained temps of 75-90 degrees to cure. Is that normal? Do you have something that cures at lower temperatures? Is it rock hard when cured? Granted putters don't take huge abuse but I'd like something that doesn't chip up as it bangs against other clubs and I've never messed with epoxies at all...

[Old Greenhorn]

Every epoxy is different and you need to follow that manufacturers instructions to the letter. The stuff I just opened last night for instance calls for 3-5 minutes of mixing. All the others I used called for 15 minutes (I think). Temp ranges vary too, but when it is cooler it just takes longer. It's a reactive hardening process, not air drying, so keep that in mind. That 75-90° seems a bit higher than I have seen before. Frankly I never thought about the temp last night, I was focused on moving on. I'll see in a few minutes how it turned out. It's a new epoxy brand I am using, so it's like starting over.
Now on your putter, I am not a golf geek but I have seen a lot of funky designs and shapes on those. Depending on what you've got, you may have to work on one side at a time to keep the flow level even. You can't put the stuff on like paint, at least not very well, and given the cost, you don't want much of it on the floor. So you do each face in turn, then sand to blend any curves and get yourself a polishing kit along with a range of sandpapers to the finest you can get, like 3000. Rough sand with 220 or so to make all your blends, then just wet sand down through the grits and eventually use the polishing kit (per the instructions) to work down through to a high gloss sheen.
It's a lot of work, but on a small project should go fast after the epoxy pours are hardened. That table I did a while back took all the patience I had to get it right and something over 20 separate pours. But then, I am not a woodworker. ;D
Good Luck!

[doc henderson]

I think room temp (70°) is ok.  it generates its own heat as well.

[gspren]

I am also not much of a wood worker but used a number of different epoxies and adhesives at work. As a generality epoxies with longer cure times are stronger than quick cure epoxies, I'm sure there are exceptions to the rule but back then, over 10 years ago, that held pretty much true.  

[rusticretreater]

Most epoxy/hardener sets a made to be a 1:1 ratio.  If you add a bit more hardener to the mix, it will generate more heat, set faster and hopefully have more hardness.

[aigheadish]

Very interesting experiences, thanks y'all! I assume that I will, indeed, have to do multiple pours and sand down. The shape is not terribly condusive to sanding... Maybe next time. 

This is where I'm at after all the sanding I had patience for, and buffing balls. A couple spots that I'll have to figure out how to get into.



 



 



 

[Old Greenhorn]

How and where are you attaching the shaft?

[WDH]

@WDH You hit a nerve with me with bonsai, got any pictures?

aigheadish,
This is an old thread but you might find it interesting.
Bonsai Trees in General Board
I have had the little juniper now for 39 going on 40 years.  It still lives on that cypress table.  The table has held the little tree for 15 years and is still going strong, although much grayed and weathered, just like me.  Here is the latest pic of the little juniper that I have which was taken 4 years ago.  It is posing on a plant stand that I built for sale, but in the end decided to keep.  It is in my lumber room where I keep stuff on it. 


 

[Old Greenhorn]

That's a pretty little tree you have there WDH, but I don't think there is much hope to get much lumber out of it. ;D
 I love that stand and sure would like to make one. I can't tell, but it looks like you didn't get much cracking in those cookies. How did you do that? Curious how you fastened it together also. Neat, simple, and elegant idea there.

AIG, you are going to have some challenges there with epoxy filling in those corners. If you are doing an epoxy finish, you don't need a real high polish on the wood because that is all 'hidden' by the epoxy. Even rough sawcut wood will look pretty under epoxy once it's polished, you just won't see the grain as well.

 My epoxy fills from last night were hard enough to sand today, so I did that and sanded off just about all of what I covered the knots with. Where the pocket was over the business card, it smoothed off nicely. I then put on a layer of oil based polyurethane, but it's dry very slow. I think I have too much moisture in the wood yet. We will see how that turns out. I'm not in a rush. I need to let it all dry some more before I can paint the base...outside...in the sun.....WITH a sprayer this time.

 I got a call today for some sawing, A non-resident with property she just had cleared was given my name by the logger. She is not sure what she wants the wood for or how much she would get out of her logs. Maple, RO, Locust and who knows. So tomorrow I may take a ride out and see what see has and maybe scale he logs to come up with an idea of costing. I may kick the job to another sawyer, truck her logs to our mill, do it as a portable job, or just take a pass. I'll just have to figure it out.

 It's always something new.

[aigheadish]

Thanks Tom, we'll see how it goes especially for my first attempt. The shaft will get sunk into the right stick-outy part on the first picture, hopefully. I buried some weights in the bottom under the brass but wasn't smart enough to mark where they were. I think I was smart enough to leave some space but I'm not positive and I don't think I took any pictures of adding the weights, so I may run into trouble. Congrats on the potential work coming up!

Thanks WDH for the picture and the link, I'll check it out. I got very into learning about bonsai a few years back but didn't really have the yard or space for it so it's still intriguing. Now I have the yard and space but I've not done well to start growing anything. I really need to get on it, preferably 20 years ago.

[WDH]

Those pine cookies did not crack bad.  Some do and some don't.  As for attaching the top and bottom to the red cedar trunk, I used a 7/8" Forsner bit to drill a countersink into the cookie and lag bolted the cookie to the trunk.  Used the 7/8" bit so that I could add a washer to the head of the lag bolt.  Three lag bolts for the top and three for the bottom.  I then used a 7/8" plug cutter to make some walnut plugs that plugged the forsner bit holes and sanded the plugs smooth to the top.  The walnut plugs add a nice visual feature to the top.   

[Old Greenhorn]

.... I then used a 7/8" plug cutter to make some walnut plugs that plugged the forsner bit holes and sanded the plugs smooth to the top.  The walnut plugs add a nice visual feature to the top.  

Very elegant solution and I expected nothing less from you, that's why I asked. The cookies looked like they were cedar also to me. surprised they are pine. Yeah, sometimes you can get lucky with pine. The only pine cookies I have cut are for ax targets and they leave here so fast I never get to see them crack. :D

[Old Greenhorn]

 Today was an odd break. The weather was pretty so I took a 25 minute ride out to look at those logs I mentioned in yesterday's post. It was a heartbreaker.
 There were some nice logs in there, but none of them were cut for grade. A LOT of wasted value. A LOT. The logger was told that all the trees would become firewood. He has a feller-buncher and is new with it, so not as proficient as one might hope yet. Those things are tricky I have been told ;D. SO the logs were cut every which way and what was bucked had sweeps in the wrong place, rot or scar defects that could have been trimmed out, but were not and every log was a different size with little or no trim. I called most of it firewood.



 

Some of those look good on the end, then you look around the side and see a big rot hole halfway down the log. 


 

That nice RO had a falling crack that went at least 4' up the log, the other crack I could not assess. There is a nice straight Cherry log on the upper left there though at about 12'.



 

I did scale about 7 logs out of the group in the above photo which came in at just over 500 BF given the oddball lengths. All over the map.


 

But there were 4 piles of this type stuff. Maybe one good log in the bunch. The piles were 100 yards apart.

 I just didn't see enough to justify a mobile job and I sure didn't see anything worth sending a tri-axle out to pick up most of the logs. Really I didn't want the job at all. I saw it as a lose-lose proposition except one possible scenario. I thought about this on the drive home and ran into the logger and berated him in a friendly kind of way for how he cut those trees. I think I called it a 'butcher job'. ;D That's when I found out they were supposed to be firewood and the client didn't decide to get lumber until a few days ago. At least that's what he said.
 SO I thought about what to tell the client all afternoon and HOW to tell her. I sent her and email after dinner explaining the issues with the logs, the costs involved and 4 possible optionsi saw for her. The only option I would recommend was for us to go out with a picker trailer and cherry pick out the good millable logs and make lumber out of those. It would likely be between 750 and 1200 bf, but good clean nice stuff. She would avoid paying us to mess around with poor logs. Since she has no idea what she is going to do with it yet, I think just taking off what cream we can find would be the best value for her. Lets see what she says.

  While I was thinking on how to handle all that I came home and did a little sanding on the bench and layed down another coat of urethane. I know I am pushing my luck and putting finish on wood that isn't ready for it. It isn't getting hard and sanding is not pretty. It is a workbench. I am not looking for a furniture finish, I just need to seal it well, but I know even as I do it, I am moving faster than the wood is ready for it. I need to let it set up for a few days at least.

 So I turned to a diversion. I have this log laying in the driveway. It's a small cedar I assumed to be White Cedar. My son had a cleanup job he asked me to look at last year. All dead standing stuff, nothing very big, I did drop a few for him. I saw this one cedar tree and told him when he cuts it, don't hack it up, I want the whole stem. He dropped off that wood for firewood last fall and the cedar log I put to the side. Well now that I am caught up at the mill I thought I might sneak that log in one afternoon and get some 4/4 boards out of it, not much for sure, but something. I just can't get cedar. So I had a couple of minutes today and thought I would trim that log for milling. Imagine my surprise when I cut it and found this:


 

 My first. Yeah, it's small and I will only get a few 8' 4/4 boards out of it, but woo hoo! I'm excited.
 Rain day tomorrow again, but I can't wait to throw this up on the mill!

[beenthere]

The logger was told that all the trees would become firewood. He has a feller-buncher and is new with it, so not as proficient as one might hope yet.

New or not, prolly did it fast and no-harm-no-foul if expected to be firewood.

[WDH]

There will be more than a few 4/4 boards in that log.  There are several hundred dollars worth of boards in that log.  

Would sell well for some raised garden beds. 

[Old Greenhorn]

There will be more than a few 4/4 boards in that log.  There are several hundred dollars worth of boards in that log.  

Would sell well for some raised garden beds.

Well, how would you handle that log Danny? Since I can't KD the lumber I can't expect top dollar. I believe since it is a small amount I will bring it right into the shop to air dry. Beyond that I have no idea. I guess I will have plenty of time to think about it though. :D

[WDH]

One 4x4 from the middle for corners for the raised garden bed, the rest 4/4 for the sides.  Or just all 4/4 and make the legs from 4/4 like Bruno does.  ERC has low shrinkage.  For garden beds, it does not need to dry much at all.  Even a week or two is enough since a garden bed will be outside and exposed to moisture both inside and out.  You can be a loving husband by making a couple of nice raised garden beds for your wife.  Or, make a couple and sell them.  In NY with planting season just starting, I bet you will be able to move them quickly.  There should be enough for a few garden beds.  Just a quick way to turn an opportunity into a reality. 

Another thought would be to mill it out to make another work bench using it for the frame and sides and such with a more durable wood for the top.  That would certainly reduce the weight of the work bench, and it would be visually appealing.  The drawback to that is that the market opportunity is not as broad.  Not as many people need/want an outside work bench as want a raised garden bed to grow tomatoes on the back patio. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Geez, I dunno. You think somebody would pay a few hundred bucks for a 2x4 raised bed? I was thinking something nice in an interior piece or just ask for $3.50/BF for the lumber. I am gonna have to ponder this for a while.

[WDH]

I remember Bruno quoting a price of $150 for raised beds, but they were not made of the more rot resistant eastern red cedar I don't believe.  You might be better off just selling the lumber at $3.50/bf.  The rot resistance of the ERC is certainly a raised bed selling point that should command a higher price than just building them out of pine.

[doc henderson]

one coat of oil finish (cheap) and they screech their tires to stop in the middle of the road to buy one.  put one out and offer custom made sizes.  I get 100 bucks for my charcuterie boards, that are enzyme stained 18 x 24-inch boards, with an initial engraved on them, coated with mineral oil... and that is the family price.

[Nebraska]

ERC planter of similar design advertised in the latest big box store add for  $149.00 after the 11% rebate.... probably a you put it together model.

[Old Greenhorn]

Thanks guys! All great ideas to get the mind going. I am thinking mostly smalls, like boards or small planter pots, given that there is not a lot of wood there and I'd really like to make something for ME for a change. :D
 Funny thing how life goes. Around 11am my son was at a new client's doing spring cleanup and they have a tree that needs removal. He called and asked if I would go in on it with him. He sent this photo:


 

Yup, another ERC, but about 18" on the butt. I figure 4 good 8' logs plus trim. There is a bit more to get it down that meets the eye in this photo. There is a structure just out of frame to the right and the small maple this is leaning on will have to come out first or it will push the cedar to the house. Tricky, but not scary or risky. We have to contact the property and get the price approved, they are in England. Probably do the job next month. 

 So I did a light sanding on the bench and layed another coat on and it is coming along. I'm just waiting for a couple of sunny warm days to paint the base out in the driveway.


 

That little adornment is coming up too:


 

 Raining right through to Sunday, so I'll have to redirect my efforts for now.