Whatcha Sawin' 2022 ??

Deese · May 13, 2022, 06:38:24 PM

Board & Batten out for delivery.

Then tried to tackle this bad boy. Too big.

WV Sawmiller · May 13, 2022, 09:28:47 PM

Met the customer today 27 miles away to saw this whack of logs. About 25 or so with several rejected for firewood, a couple for single 4X4 or a pair of poor quality 2X4s. Several 6X6 posts. About 840 bf of 4/4 sheeting and a few 3" battens. All 12' long. 1744 bf total. 4.7 engine hours on the mill and 5.6 gallons of gas but that includes 1.5 hours at home yesterday. Used 3 each 4* DH WM blades.

This was tomorrow's whack scattered in the weeds. A neighbor came up with a tractor and consolidated it somewhat.

Finished view. These are for building a 30'X32' garage/barn over the foundation of an old school. The customer and his hard working wife stacked all the lumber. She is not available for tomorrow but we may get rained out anyway.

Dave Shepard · May 13, 2022, 10:23:01 PM

More hemlock garden bed parts. 2"x12" 16'.

WV Sawmiller · May 13, 2022, 11:10:53 PM

I have mentioned this before but proved again today with 2 new helpers (customer husband and wife team) and see we averaged over 305 bf/hr. Part of that was because a lot was framing or posts which, while the logs were small, only required 4-6 cuts to finish.

What is working well at the start of sawing I show and give the lecture "If it is on the bed rails it is yours to process. If it is on the cant or loading arms it is my wood. If the loading arms are down, it means put a log on them." This is simple and they quickly learn and follow the work flow as desired.

Slabs, edging strips and finished boards I just barely push off the cant on to the bed and the off-bearer(s) remove them to the finished lumber pile or scrap pile as appropriate. If I push the flitches on to the loading arms I will come back to them and they leave them there until I raise the arms and they help me stand them up for edging. When I saw the cant to the rails and I want to use the last 3-4 boards to edge against I do not move them off the cant until I finish edging. This seems to be a simple set of instructions the off-bearers pick up on and it keeps the work flowing.

SawyerTed · May 14, 2022, 06:39:10 AM

"Some's got it and some ain't,". Andy Taylor

Tail gunners who "have it" sure can make a job smooth and efficient. Those who "ain't" make for a long day!

WV Sawmiller · May 14, 2022, 10:38:06 PM

It was threatening rain all day but I returned to try to finish the job 27 miles away. The customer's wife was on a previously scheduled trail ride and none of his other promised help showed up so just him and me. I'd help him on the heavy pieces and roll an occasional log on the mill if he was busy stacking or cutting stickers or such but he did pretty good keeping the work flowing.

Here is what we started with (and finished today). I kicked myself about noon when the sun came out and I realized I could just as easily told the tractor operator yesterday to stack them on the other side of the dip where we'd have been in the shade.. :

Total for the day was about 1430 bf for 5.7 hours on the mill (Same as yesterday but 252 bf/hr instead of 304 for yesterday with just the 2 of us.)

Assorted 6X6, 2X6, 2X4, 3X4 and trim cuts the customer saved for his wife's crafts and projects.

4/4 sheeting 12' long.

End view and neat stack of slabs

A few short 4/4 and battens.

We had to break for rain for 30-40 minutes and it started again as we did our tally. I had a leak in the drive side tire and aired it up but stopped at our local grocery and it was flat when I came out so I had to change it. My el-cheapo 12V electric impact wrench did not work but I had a good 4 way lug wrench, bumper jack and spare tire so no big issue. One nice guy did stop to see if I needed help and offered use of his impact wrench but not needed. I stopped by the auto store and got oil, filter and ATF for 1150 hour service which is now due. No air filter but ordered it and he said would be in tomorrow or next day so no problem there.

3188 bf in 2 days and 2 trips. Made a couple of new friends and got cash payday for my effort. Life is good.

Oh - except for these. One tree was target base and full of bullets but they sawed easily. Two other trees had nails like this and customer bought 2 replacement blades. No hassle with that as he knew in advance and I even asked ahead of time on them.

WDH · May 15, 2022, 08:25:29 AM

The sticker police are going to pay your customer a visit.

WV Sawmiller · May 15, 2022, 09:32:05 AM

I have already told him to expect a visit. He figures he'll have it in the air before they get there. :D

caveman · May 15, 2022, 10:00:02 AM

We sawed a mixed load of cedar and oak yesterday morning. We spent a little over two hours sawing this load due to the funky cut requests, small wonky logs and chainsaw time.

After pulling logs out of the pond, we unloaded the solar kiln, put live oak in the hot box (of course we had to hand stack it in there because the stack was too wide). I could read John's mind. He was thinking about Yellowhammer's advice about saving steps. The last thing we did was stack the live edged cypress slabs on the racks in my shop.

There are a couple of mantles in the stack. We don't sell a lot of them, but they do bring good money when they do sell. We try to keep a few on hand.

WDH · May 15, 2022, 10:23:29 AM

Yes, John has that look on his face.

fluidpowerpro · May 15, 2022, 09:58:20 PM

Sawed some 2" thick red oak trailer decking today. Great weather, nice day of sawing.

DWyatt · May 16, 2022, 10:56:42 AM

Quote from: Deese on May 13, 2022, 06:38:24 PMThen tried to tackle this bad boy. Too big.

This log makes your side supports look like they're 4" tall :D

Magicman · May 16, 2022, 08:16:40 PM

When your side supports are too short, add extensions:

Two foot extensions. ;D

Magicman · May 16, 2022, 08:32:43 PM

When the customer needs stickers just....

Have him bring up a nice straight 20"butt X 18" top log and...

Whack out 256 bf of stickers. ;D

And when the customer wants 2X4's....

You can make 4 cants if you offset the pith so that it will still fall within one cant. Actually this one could have made 5 cants but his 2X4 cut list was almost complete.

The entire framing lumber cut list is complete with this 6348 bf of 2X4's, 6's, 8's, 10's, & 12's.

I am now sawing 1X10's for B&B Siding with the side limber being 4's, 6's, & 8's for bats.

caveman · May 16, 2022, 08:42:50 PM

MM, those are great logs. Good looking whack of boards too.

Magicman · May 16, 2022, 08:55:41 PM

This is probably the highest quality whack of logs that I have ever sawn: LINK I originally said 40 logs but I miss counted somewhere because there were over 50. I am only half done and the rest is B&B.

The good thing is that the bark is easily slipping off and there are no sawyer holes. Perfect timing. ;D

WV Sawmiller · May 16, 2022, 09:53:56 PM

Great looking logs there. I hope that pine bark is easier to deal with than the poplar bark I had Friday and Saturday. It was nasty. Big thick sheets, long fibers wrapping around the debarker and all other moving parts.

I looked at a job 14 miles away and showed the customer where to move them so I can saw them. Beautiful RO and some WO and one whole WO tree with an intact rootball that looked to be 30" at the base. They are going to use the bottom 9' with flare for a center post.

They live in SC so asked about weekends and looks like I may be booking 4-5 weekends for them as weather permits. Beautiful view up on a ridge overlooking the Greenbrier River. I told them to make stacks of about 25 logs and I'll start at the bottom and just move to the mill to the next stack as done. Otherwise the long distance could make them hard to control with no MHE on site.

Magicman · May 16, 2022, 10:22:06 PM

Look at the first picture in Reply #738. The log is naked and there is crumbled bark covering the ground. SYP in the perfect condition is a joy to debark and handle but the log and the inside of the bark can be slippery and you can bust your butt.

Walnut Beast · May 17, 2022, 02:26:03 AM

Old dead black gold laying around for years in the woods.

hilltopper46 · May 17, 2022, 08:17:15 AM

I recently completed my largest (so far) custom milling job. The customer had a number of burr oak trees that had come down because they had begun to die out and because he wants to add a building. The logs were scatterd all over the place.

Luckily, I recently acquired a new log handling machine, shown here with the largest log of the job - 24 inches diameter (after the bark came off) and 10+ feet long, it calculates out to about 2000 pounds. The back end of the tractor was just staying on the ground at this point.

After we got that bad boy on the mill, the rest presented very little challenge.

We milled a total of 8 logs. The largest (shown above) was 210 bd ft. The smallest was around 50 bd ft. I estimate we milled a total of about 750 bd ft. The two pictures below each show about 1/3 of the total. The customer would tailgun the boards and sweep them and stack them near the mill, then when I went home for lunch or for the night, he would sticker and stack them in his shed.

I had a problem with gunk building up on the blades.

Nebraska · May 17, 2022, 09:16:44 AM

What was your blade lube?

WV Sawmiller · May 17, 2022, 09:18:09 AM

H46,

Pretty logs and I envy the log moving machine. I dragged a 16' poplar yesterday and had the front wheel raising up so I know that feeling in the pit of your stomach. Keep up the good work.

Lynn,

Yep, that bark is slick and better not step on it or you may bang up another hand. It is hard to get a grip on that first cut rough slab to push off the cant for the off-bearers to unload or flitches to edge
later. They feel ike they have been greased.