Whatcha Sawin' 2022 ??

[firefighter ontheside]

Jungle or jingle?

[Deese]

First log of the day. Thought it was picture worthy. 12x19x16


 

[JRWoodchuck]

Sure don't seem to be very many knots in that 12x19x16!

[WV Sawmiller]

 

Well, I got a before but no after pictures. These were old barely 8' White Pine logs I mostly cut into 8/4 LE slabs for the customer to take back to Oklahoma to make benches out of. Behind are a few RO logs and behind the building were 5-6 Cedar posts about 6' long that yielded 4"-7" wide boards. The upper logs were full of worm holes but surprisingly the butt logs were pretty clear. They had been down since last Summer or Fall.

 Nothing over 8' long. 3.5 hours on the engine, 1618 bf. About 6 hours total hours on the site which was 39 miles away. 3.1 gallons of gas used in the 25 hp Kohler. 2.5 4* WM DH blades used. Started just after 7:00 am, finished by about 1:00 pm. Very happy customers. Lady there "supervised" most of the work and drove the truck to move some logs a time or two. Her husband and brother were the customers. I met them last year at one of my flea market jaunts. A long time for making an ROI but that is common. The guy in front said last year he took logs home and had them sawed there by a non-portable miller. We loaded 816 bf on his trailer for his return trip to Oklahoma. Both were very happy and good workers although not familiar with the work. The cedar were small and I just did through and through cuts at 1-1/4" (1-1/8" boards) then edged them in 1" drops till the sides were mostly clear and the customer was very happy with that process for his use.

  Oh BTW - this put me over 200K bf by the end of the job. No MM but if I live to be 176 I might catch him.

[Magicman]

Actually your sawing rate and production was very comparable to my yesterday's sawing.  Mine was only ~3 miles away.

My tomorrow's job is exceptional in every way.  ;D

[Old Greenhorn]

Well looks like you had a good day Howard, easy milling and some change in your pocket Can't get much better unless you landed on a rare log, but they don't happen often, at least not to me.

 I had a full long day at the mill today 8:30 to 6pm. Larger order for 2x8x20', a bunch of them in Hemlock. The client was there to help with off-loading and slab handling. I could not lift those by myself and navigating with them on the forks is dang near impossible in our space. So I was very happy for the help, in fact I would not have done it alone.
 Hemlock can be a fickly mistress. First log was OK, had some sweep challenges, but the second log up had issues. I nice long fairly straight log on the outside, should have been easy, but holy cow the stresses in that thing boggled the mind. I kept flipping trying to mill the stress out and even lost one board in the process. The cant ends kept lifting up or side sweep, everything but twist. The entire cant would lift up, either in the center or at both ends depending on the flip side. I used the clamp to pull it down when I could. Most came off with side sweep. This one had a little energy it released when I broke out the far end.


 

Maybe you can't see it well in that photo. The board snapped up off the cant with enough energy to bounce when it landed. It made both the tailgunner and me jump at the same time. :D Slightly better angle:


 

 There is also more then 6" of bow in that board. We cut it in half and if you stand in the center of the bow, a 200# adult can't make that bow go flat. Most boards off that log had bow or sweep. Fortunately they are being used for planting frames for a small farm, so there is a little latitude.

 Near the end of the day there was a squeaking noise we heard all day getting louder when I moved the mill head up and down. Finally when we decided to quit for the day we pulled the covers and found the noise coming from what is apparently a brake on the up/down gearbox. Seemed like it was installed with a bit of misalignment/side tension. I tweaked the alignment and the sound got a lot better. In the meantime Bill went up to the shop and called WM and came back after I tweaked it and said "Yeah it's a brake, run it until it fails, we'll pick up another one at Boonville". So after posting this I will go check the WM drawings and see if I can figure out more. It it wasn't such a pain to get those dang covers off I think I would open that brake can up and see what the real deal is inside. I won't wait until Boonville in August. ;D
 Only about 800 BF for the day, not much, but I am pooped. Tomorrow should be an easy day, just a bunch of 7' 2x8's and then a different order for live edge hemlock 1x material ( a repeat order). Think I'll be in bed before 10 tonight.

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

  Can you spell TENSION. After cutting that beast I'd look it up. :D I hate cutting them like that where the slab or flitch jumps off the cant. Was there that much obvious sweep in the log before you started cutting? Was the pith noticeably off center? Those are the first indicators I usually see.

  As to a rare log I probably had a couple of them today. They were some type of red oak but not sure exactly which species. They were about 18" diameter and rock solid with no sign of any heart checking. I see that in softwoods sometimes but seldom in hardwoods. I cut most of them into wide, LE 8/4 slabs and they were pretty pieces of wood.

[Larry]

Big waves!



Got a bunch of big tornado pin oak logs in.  I've been sawing 4/4 with a 8" X 8" post from the cob.  Started in on this one and heard a little rhythm something, like when you know the band has a crack.  Stopped and looked the band over.  No sign of cracks and didn't see any evidence of a metal strike on the teeth.  Band was sawing perfect prior to this one cut and I hadn't heard any zings.  It was getting dull on the first re-sharp.  Thought I could fix it by re-setting and sharpening....maybe....second thought was throw it in the scrap pile.  It hit the scrap pile.

[kelLOGg]

First log of the day. Thought it was picture worthy. 12x19x16




Impressive cant AND shop. I count 6 fans - are there more?  Air must be clean and breezy.

[Old Greenhorn]

Tom,

 Can you spell TENSION. After cutting that beast I'd look it up. :D I hate cutting them like that where the slab or flitch jumps off the cant. Was there that much obvious sweep in the log before you started cutting? Was the pith noticeably off center? Those are the first indicators I usually see........

Nope, not a thing. In fact the one that really popped was a nice straight log. Pith right down the middle. I did have one log in the bunch of 5 that had a wobble 2/3's of the way down the stem and for a minute I thought I set my opening cuts wrong and lost a lot of good yield, but when I got to the 3rd side realized I pretty much nailed it. Accidents happen. Most of those logs showed some crook in the boards, about 3/4" over 20'. I have had the ends come up like a banana many times before and I find the stress usually pulls toward the bark, this one was just 'a lot different'.
And yeah, you can get some nice wood from some apparently unremarkable logs sometimes.

[Old Greenhorn]

Well, we don't allow duplicate posts here on these forums, but tis one could equally fit in the "Did Something Dumb Today" thread. However I chose to put it here as we frequently have discussions started by newer sawyers regarding incinsistent board thickness and things of that sort which get traced, eventually, back to stress in the log. The path between the symptom and the solution is sometimes painful and entails a lot of looking for all kinds of problems with one's mill and rechecking a lot of the setup. I admit, I thought at first I had a mill problem, probably with the head transducer and the Accu-set, but it didn't take me long to figure out.
I was doing "one side live edge" for siding. I made a D-log and all I had to do was 'mill to bed' at 4/4. So easy even a male engineer could do it. Just a 12' log, so I was pretty much on auto-pilot going through the motions ripping away. About halfway down the cant I felt something wasn't quite right and the board thicknesses were not quite consistent. I kept looking at the accuset. It was indicating it was in the right place, but look at the end of the log:



 

 Again, just to be clear, each of these boards was cut at the correct height to yield 4/4 boards all the way down.
 This is on an LT50, running the ACCUSET is 'saw to bed' mode at 4/4 for anyone keeping track. I'll not bore you with the details, but what was happening here was the front end of the cant was lifting up and dropping down with each successive board cut as the stresses in the log changed. I had been keeping and eye on it...sort of... but apparently not close enough. The front end of the boards were all over the map from 5/8 to 1-1/4 thick for a distance of about 30" and the rest of the length was fine. 
 Now full confession: I thought, when I got down to around that 7" mark on the tape I had a serious problem with the accuset and since it was only hemlock I thought the whole log was wasted, so I just ran it out completely disgusted. It was after I shut it down and started to investigate that I realized what had actually happened. I am not really happy with this run of Hemlock I am working on, but I think it is done for now.
 After re-sawing a couple of boards and trimming a few others I managed to come up with just exactly what the order called for and only a couple of feet more.

 So hopefully this will stick in someone's head and be recalled when it proves useful to them. I feel pretty dumb for not seeing it for what it was the moment it was happening. I should know better by now.

 In other news, I finished off the 2x8 hemlock order just before the above mishap and texted the customer on my way home that they were done. About 2 hours later he picked them up with a trailer and then stopped at my place on the way out to give me a $50.00 tip which I tried hard to refuse but he explained that it wasn't from him, it was from his end client who was pleased to get the lumber so fast. The client insisted that the sawyer get a tip even though I never even met him. Nice fella, wish I knew who it was. :D

[SawyerTed]

I have to admit I scrolled through before reading.  My initial thought was, " What kind of mess is that!?!  Then I thought,  "This isn't the work of the Tom we know."  Then reading the explanation of what happened restored my faith!  

[Brad_bb]

 

 Last month I saw four pieces of elm. Two pieces were red elm, the other two were Elm, but did not have red coloring so they were some other type. I don't know the difference between Chinese elm and American elm etc. anyway I cut this board in the evening and quit for the day and came back the next morning to find this.  I guess it had some stress in it? I think it was a jacket board.

[Old Greenhorn]

Ted, my ineptitude knows no bounds at times. Don't underestimate my ability to screw things up beyond recognition.  In fact, as I went down the cant, my thoughts were similar to yours, but perhaps more strongly stated. I was sure the accuset was messed up, more to my shame and disappointment. In fact, I find the whole thing very embarrassing, but I share it here as a contribution to the collective knowledge.
 Many is the time we have all read about the pains a new sawyer goes through to acquire this knowledge. We all do it. Yet, I chose to do it a second time, albeit a 15 minute exercise and then a face palm.
 It's not polite to laugh at others unless you can first laugh at yourself. ;D
 The only thing we have more of around here than EWP is Hemlock, so I just figured the log and my time, as a loss. But it was the hottest day of the year so far and I wasn't feeling so hot in the gastro department and wanted to be done, so I did the resawing and trimming and made good wood from it. Fortunately, the order called for 8,10,or 12' lengths and I started out with a 13'6" log. ;D

 Brad, looking at that board, I think you were vandalized overnight. :D

[Magicman]

I started on this job today:  LINK  About 40 logs with the smallest probably being 16"+ top end, and the largest butt being probably 26". 


 
The totals are circled.  I will saw the framing lumber cut list first and then 1X10's for B&B siding.  I finished the 2X10's & 2X12's today and sawed about half of the 2X8's.  It's gonna be hot tomorrow with a chance of thunderstorms but I am gonna try to saw tomorrow and Saturday.  Next week is forecast even hotter.

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn,

Your cut list confuses me especially since it looks like many are the same sizes. If I got a cut list like that I'd either give it back and tell the client to just give me this sizes and total or I'd summarize them and show to him to verify. I don't care where the board is used just what size he wants and how many. When building my own project and preparing my BOM I'd have a similar list but combine the totals separately. We have also mentioned before and I tell every customer "I can saw and I can count but I can't do both at the same time" so I task him with keeping up the tally as to how many more of each board he wants.

After I sawed yesterday a repeat customer came by and wiped out my small stock of 8' 2X4s I'd cut to be ready for my next Pooh house order. He urgently wanted more so this morning I dragged down a 40' poplar log I had up in the woods in my pasture. I cut 3 8' logs off it sawed it into 2X4s and salvaged a few 2X2 strips which the customer also wiped out yesterday.


 

 I realized after he left I had mis-figured the costs and he'd paid for 2X8's and gotten 2X4s. He called late this afternoon and I immediately told him and that 18 were already paid for. He came and got the whole stack and says he'll want more. I still have one 13'+ log left but will have to cut another tree or two. When he picked them up he said his helper told him he thought he had been overcharged but he assured him I would not do that so I am glad I mentioned it first and had taken measures to correct it.

We went to a luncheon and while there a friend ordered planter box and I came home and knocked one out for him. Another repeat customer came by and wiped out my small stock of 4/4 RO lumber. It all came from my neighbor and her tree service. I'd hauled it way and cut the tops for firewood but was nice to get paid for the effort too.

Finally a new customer came by with some walnut "logs". The biggest might be 8" SED and several were 3" and 3' long. I'll catch a time when he can observe and saw some of it but I told him several were flat out firewood. To make it worse he is not a woodworker and has no idea what to do with it. He figured it was ready to build with because the "logs" had been under cover in his garage for over a year so they must be dry. :

Tomorrow I meet a neighbor's son at 8:00 am 20 miles away to saw some poplar into beams and such. We will see how that works out.

[Southside]

After all that explanation I am still wondering what took a chunk out of your tape there OG  :D

[WV Sawmiller]

Tom,

   Was that the entry or exit end of the cant we were seeing in the picture? Was the other end okay and were you able to salvage the bulk of each board as cut true?

   One thing I learned was when I make my last turn of the cant I clamp it lower than my last cut and do not release the tension till I have sawed to the rails. I don't see any indication in your post that you did anything different so that would be a shocker to me too. There wasn't a big hard knot right there at the end of the cant was there?

[Old Greenhorn]

After all that explanation I am still wondering what took a chunk out of your tape there OG  :D

Back last fall while doing a truck load of 6x6's the tailgunner borrowed my tape to measure and cut the slabs up for the OWB, He somehow caught it the tape with the saw. He offered to buy me a new tape, but this is why I buy the cheap ones. They get broken or lost all the time. It
s still hanging in there, so I keep using it.

[Old Greenhorn]

Tom,

  Was that the entry or exit end of the cant we were seeing in the picture? Was the other end okay and were you able to salvage the bulk of each board as cut true?

  One thing I learned was when I make my last turn of the cant I clamp it lower than my last cut and do not release the tension till I have sawed to the rails. I don't see any indication in your post that you did anything different so that would be a shocker to me too. There wasn't a big hard knot right there at the end of the cant was there?

For hemlock, it had a minimal number of knots and no big ones except at the far end. All the boards sawed out flat, no waves. The photo is of the entry end. Almost all of the thickness issues were contained in the first 30" of the log, so I laid the thick ones back up and brought that thickness down, the remaining 10' or so was all 4/4. The ones that were too thin I trimmed that end off. No I did not relieve the clamp once I began sawing boards, zipped right on down to bed. The issue with one live edge is you can't really flip the cant because the live edge is against the backstops and you either can't clamp it well, or it hangs over too far. You would have to flip it and spin it and I ain't gonna do that. ;D
 The 20 footers I milled on Wednesday made the stress very apparent and I used the clamp to pull them down the the bed and I flipped the cant often. We only lost one board, shown in the photo a few posts back. That one held it's bow even when we cut it in half and when the client stood on it he could not get it to lay flat. He picked up his load last evening and I am not sure he took that one or not. He sent me a photo last night of where he had gotten with the planting frames. 


 
 It's just part of the game and part of the learning process. Fortunately, if you recall that video of our log yard, I have lots of stuff to learn these harder lessons on. Honestly, I can't think of any way I could have saved that 20' banana. That stress was already in the tree for many years before I met it.

[WDH]

Confucius say, "He who does not relieve stress saws thick and thin boards."

[Old Greenhorn]

Confucius say, "He who does not relieve stress saws thick and thin boards."

Yeah, I knew that before. But maybe now I know it a bit better? :D I am wondering if all the hemlock will be like that or just these couple of logs?

[Resonator]

OG don't worry, banana boards will work just fine for plantin' taters. They got eyes but they won't complain.

[jb616]

Well, we don't allow duplicate posts here on these forums, but tis one could equally fit in the "Did Something Dumb Today" thread. However I chose to put it here as we frequently have discussions started by newer sawyers regarding incinsistent board thickness and things of that sort which get traced, eventually, back to stress in the log. The path between the symptom and the solution is sometimes painful and entails a lot of looking for all kinds of problems with one's mill and rechecking a lot of the setup. I admit, I thought at first I had a mill problem, probably with the head transducer and the Accu-set, but it didn't take me long to figure out.
I was doing "one side live edge" for siding. I made a D-log and all I had to do was 'mill to bed' at 4/4. So easy even a male engineer could do it. Just a 12' log, so I was pretty much on auto-pilot going through the motions ripping away. About halfway down the cant I felt something wasn't quite right and the board thicknesses were not quite consistent. I kept looking at the accuset. It was indicating it was in the right place, but look at the end of the log:



 

Again, just to be clear, each of these boards was cut at the correct height to yield 4/4 boards all the way down.
This is on an LT50, running the ACCUSET is 'saw to bed' mode at 4/4 for anyone keeping track. I'll not bore you with the details, but what was happening here was the front end of the cant was lifting up and dropping down with each successive board cut as the stresses in the log changed. I had been keeping and eye on it...sort of... but apparently not close enough. The front end of the boards were all over the map from 5/8 to 1-1/4 thick for a distance of about 30" and the rest of the length was fine.
Now full confession: I thought, when I got down to around that 7" mark on the tape I had a serious problem with the accuset and since it was only hemlock I thought the whole log was wasted, so I just ran it out completely disgusted. It was after I shut it down and started to investigate that I realized what had actually happened. I am not really happy with this run of Hemlock I am working on, but I think it is done for now.
After re-sawing a couple of boards and trimming a few others I managed to come up with just exactly what the order called for and only a couple of feet more.

So hopefully this will stick in someone's head and be recalled when it proves useful to them. I feel pretty dumb for not seeing it for what it was the moment it was happening. I should know better by now.

In other news, I finished off the 2x8 hemlock order just before the above mishap and texted the customer on my way home that they were done. About 2 hours later he picked them up with a trailer and then stopped at my place on the way out to give me a $50.00 tip which I tried hard to refuse but he explained that it wasn't from him, it was from his end client who was pleased to get the lumber so fast. The client insisted that the sawyer get a tip even though I never even met him. Nice fella, wish I knew who it was. :D

I had the same but opposite problem  say_what.  I had added 2x2 tubing to the bed of my '84 LT 30 so that I could get down to the last inch off the bed and when I cut long (15') cants, i was getting the end of the boards thicker than the middle.  What I later figured out was that i wasn't supporting the ends of the cant and when the cant was 2/3 cut, the cant would droop on the ends and it would saw them thick....raised the ends supports and problem solved...but not before messing up a few cants.

[Magicman]

Your cut list confuses me especially since it looks like many are the same sizes.

No need to be confused Howard.  I occasionally get them like that and I have it consolidated and ready for my use in just a few minutes.


 
In about 12 hours of sawing I have completed the customer's cut list of framing lumber.


 
4841bf, whacked, stickered, and stacked.

Starting Monday I have 33 logs that will be sawn into 1X10's and smaller for B&B siding.  If the weather holds out the the tailgunners hold up, I should finish this sawing job Wednesday.