What did you do in your shop today?

[rocky1]

Nice back yard!

That is but a mere drop in the bucket of back yard Lou! Mowing grass around here is an all day affair. Have a Kubota BX 2350, w/60 inch deck and hard as you can ride it, it takes about 8 hours to mow. If I get on the tractor 5105 John Deere w/ 72" Bush Hog, and the wife gets on the mower, we can knock it out in about 4 1/2 hours.

Don't try to tempt me into a box or two!

(Have 4 gallons of Cactus Juice on the way to me right now and about three 30 gallon totes worth of stuff already on hand that needs to be stabilized, though about 25% of that is stuff other people are paying me to stabilize.)

Pen Blanks I presume? Or, would you prefer bigger chunks?? I'll put your name at the top of the list when I start sawing!!

Unstabilized ---



Stabilized ---

That last pic with the log laying on the ground all trimmed up nice and neet with nothing around it is just screaming to me that it wants to be chainsaw milled. Can't move a log? perfect log for a csm. I'd mill it right on the spot.

Contemplated that but I'd have to buy a bigger chainsaw to go with it. My little Stihl cut 'er off, sawing down both sides, but it was really close! Wasn't real sure I was gonna make it.

Compounding that problem I have one slightly larger than that, that has died in the last year that needs to be dropped and sawed up as well. Every time I find someone with a portable bandsaw mill, it isn't big enough, or it would have been sawed up already.

Mill Mark posted last night caught my eye, but a little out of my price range at the moment, and after I got those two trees sawed up I have no damn clue what I'd do with it.

 

[deltatango]

When I first got my Homelite and Granberg mill, the first log I cut was a big oak, when the guy who sold me the saw was demo-ing it for me. He let me use his mill to cut, and he let me have the slab I cut. I took that thing home and immediately put it on a big lathe base/legs I had found at a flea market. I've used that bench for over 40 years and it is damn near indestructible. I was sold and hooked. Ordered the Biggest mill I could get and the biggest saw head to go with it the next day. The guy tried to talk me out of it. Bought it and never looked back - never regretted it. Learned a lot about milling and made a lot of money milling slabs for furniture makers. That mill has been through a lot of walnut and elm burl in PA, and Maple and Birch in NH. A whole lot of oak and pecan in FL. Pecan is awesome, and the trees sure do get big enough for it down here. Having a four foot slab capacity is sooooo nice when it comes to sawing crotches where the good wood is. Only problem now is at 67 and poor health, or now, I should say, having had health issues, Docs say no no to more of it.
There's always a big fallen tree to be cut it seems. When you have all the material moving equipment that you do, it makes it all so much easier working with a big mill like that.

No brainer actually.... :-)

 

[rocky1]

Is definitely tempting, but I'm not too far behind you in that old age game, and starting to feel every day of my age!!! Material moving equipment or not there's still a lot of work involved in sawing up BIG Trees!

 

[woodtickgreg]

Mark brings up good points about the mill paying for itself in short time if you sell some of the wood. And yes believe me I get the age thing. But I am not ready to hang up my mill for good yet! Yes it is physical, but I so enjoy milling! And I have learned that physical limitations and ageing can be reversed to a certain degree, but it takes dedication, commitment, discipline, and hard work, but the rewards are life and the ability to live it and enjoy it.
Nope.........not ready to hang up my mill yet.
And if I had the money I would buy Mark's mill and show it who is boss and make it work for me on those monster logs!

 

[Schroedc]

Mark brings up good points about the mill paying for itself in short time if you sell some of the wood. And yes believe me I get the age thing. But I am not ready to hang up my mill for good yet! Yes it is physical, but I so enjoy milling! And I have learned that physical limitations and ageing can be reversed to a certain degree, but it takes dedication, commitment, discipline, and hard work, but the rewards are life and the ability to live it and enjoy it.
Nope.........not ready to hang up my mill yet.
And if I had the money I would buy Mark's mill and show it who is boss and make it work for me on those monster logs!

I keep looking a that mill and trying to figure out a way to pay for it without my wife using it on me....

 

[deltatango]

Actually, the key to using a mill this size is material handling equipment if you are older. Just having a forklift can make such a difference. The saw is no big deal really - it's a two-man saw, so two guys can easily tote it around, no problem. Use the forklift to position the log higher at one end and the saw will practically walk itself through the log using gravity as a helper. When the slab is cut, it will be easier to slide down and off as well.
Since you use several wood wedges during cutting, just tap them in more after it's cut and voila, forks go right in and pick up the slab. A four foot wide 12 foot long slab 2-1/2" thick weighs a lot no matter the species.
Move the log with fork lift, position the log with fork lift, pickup and move the slabs and sticker and stack with fork lift. Piece of cake. Especially for an old man, LOL. A young man? Fuhgedaboudit.

 

[Schroedc]

Actually, the key to using a mill this size is material handling equipment if you are older. Just having a forklift can make such a difference. The saw is no big deal really - it's a two-man saw, so two guys can easily tote it around, no problem. Use the forklift to position the log higher at one end and the saw will practically walk itself through the log using gravity as a helper. When the slab is cut, it will be easier to slide down and off as well.
Since you use several wood wedges during cutting, just tap them in more after it's cut and voila, forks go right in and pick up the slab. A four foot wide 12 foot long slab 2-1/2" thick weighs a lot no matter the species.
Move the log with fork lift, position the log with fork lift, pickup and move the slabs and sticker and stack with fork lift. Piece of cake. Especially for an old man, LOL. A young man? Fuhgedaboudit.

The rest of it isn't the issue for me, Pretty used to moving logs around with the bandsaw mill, it's just trying to justify the investment. I've had to pass up so many logs that were too big for the mill I have.

 

[Sprung]

Pen Blanks I presume? Or, would you prefer bigger chunks?? I'll put your name at the top of the list when I start sawing!!

Bigger pieces - large enough to get call blanks (slightly oversized, about 1 5/8" square, to allow for sanding excess resin off after stabilizing) - but certainly some pen blanks too (also slightly oversized - probably 7/8" square.)

 

[rocky1]

Oh I do understand Greg... Maybe in a few months, but right now, simply out of reach financially on my end as well. Health-wise I could probably manage it, aside from this insidious clicking and nasty pain in my right shoulder that's been developing the last year or so, that keeps telling me, "YOU'RE GETTIN OLD AND WEARING OUT!"

40+ years of tossing thousands of pounds of bee boxes around on an all too frequent basis will do that to a guy. Summer months in ND, it's not at all uncommon for 3-4 of us to pull 30,000+ pounds of honey in a day, several days a week. 5 of us with an extra man in the last 2 yards pulled 2 loads like the one below in a day on the orange groves just 3-4 years ago... If the scale house hadn't been closed, I'd have been hunting back roads home that trip, air gauge said I was several thousand pounds over on my tandems, and I was way heavy on the front end. And, that was driving 3+ hours down there, pulling all of that, and driving 3+ hours home; left at 5 am got home around midnight! While they were set on the truck with a forklift, every box had to be pried off the bees, and set on the pallet, at 50 - 70 lbs. apiece. 650 - 700 boxes per load, even with 6 people on the ground equates to about 10,000 lbs. of material handled per person in a day, and that's broken apart, picked up, and carried to the pallet and stacked. Most of it at a pretty good pace. Last spring, 3 of us loaded that truck and the one ton in a day, 3 hours from home, although we weren't loaded quite as heavy, because the scale wasn't closed, and we were home well before midnight. It'll make an old man out of you, believe me!

 

[rocky1]

Bigger pieces - large enough to get call blanks (slightly oversized, about 1 5/8" square, to allow for sanding excess resin off after stabilizing) - but certainly some pen blanks too (also slightly oversized - probably 7/8" square.)

How big a box Matt? How many boxes? Shoot me a PM and we'll work it all out. Checking may be an issue, it is oak, although I didn't see that in the 2 - 3 logs I sawed the other day. Once I got into it, it was in pretty decent shape. Found nothing that was punky. Lighter grain was softer than the darker grain, but not so far advanced that it's problematic. Stabilizing, it'll certainly be good.

 

[deltatango]

The rest of it isn't the issue for me, Pretty used to moving logs around with the bandsaw mill, it's just trying to justify the investment. I've had to pass up so many logs that were too big for the mill I have.

The Alaskan mill works so well with a portable bandsaw mill. A few cuts with the Alaskan mill to cut the big log down to sizes that can be run on the the band mill, and badda-boom, a system that is practically unbeatable. Nice thing is that once you split the log with the chainsaw mill, you have pre-established flats to work with. I got pretty quick setting up my mill for the first cut using an aluminum ladder and a good sheet of 3/4 plywood and wedges. I often cut 2' thick slabs, used a chalk line and hand cut down into the slab so it could go on a woodmizer. Worked really well and fast too. Couple of cuts, a freehand cut and it was ready to go. Consider the cost of a bandsaw mill and the the cost of this mill. The increased productivity ratio is exceptional.

 

[woodtickgreg]

I try and use gravity when I mill too! Yup them big slabs are heavy.
Yup Rocky my shoulders have taken a beating over the years too. I am aging just like everyone else, I can still do most of the things I did when I was younger just at a slower pace, and with a lot of snap crackle pop.
Mark your spot on about the equipment doing the work for you, I call it work smarter not harder. and I also agree that the csm can break down the really big logs for the band mill.

 

[Sprung]

How big a box Matt? How many boxes? Shoot me a PM and we'll work it all out. Checking may be an issue, it is oak, although I didn't see that in the 2 - 3 logs I sawed the other day. Once I got into it, it was in pretty decent shape. Found nothing that was punky. Lighter grain was softer than the darker grain, but not so far advanced that it's problematic. Stabilizing, it'll certainly be good.

Depending on what you'd be looking to get for it, probably a MFRB or a LFRB. Yeah, oak does like to check a bit - leaving the pieces a little long, sealing them up, and then me putting them in a cool corner of our basement would probably help drying. (And, hey, my wife has no problem with me drying small amounts of wood in the pantry in the basement - nice and cool in there too!)

Some nice looking stuff! I'm in no hurry and have plenty enough irons in the fire to keep me busy as it is, so this would probably be a whenever you get bored and feel like running saws and cutting up stuff kinda day. (I need to do one of those cutting up stuff days soon. My pile is getting too big...)

 

[Sprung]

Ultimately I'd like to get some sort of chainsaw mill setup - and have also thought about a Logosol M8 as a platform for cutting smaller stuff up since it breaks down and would be easy to transport to and from Illinois where I potentially have all the logs I'd ever want or need to cut. Shoot, I'd love to get Mark's setup - the price seems good and it would be a good setup, but it's probably not the right setup for someone who has virtually no chainsaw experience thus far. And my wife would kill me if I went spending any money right now, especially on something like that.

 

[rocky1]

I'll see what I can do Matt, shouldn't be too tough. Takes resin really good if you let it to soak awhile. And, it definitely has variation in density, as you can see back there in the rounds, so it should work for dying to.

Got a preference on lengths for each? Long as I'm sawing to order, I might as well make them what you want.

Stuff I sawed into blanks awhile back, I really haven't had any trouble checking, although they all went into pen blanks. Stuff I turned round back when I first discovered this, and was trying to figure out my lathe and tools, all of that checked big time, BUT... moisture content was still fairly high on it at that time.

 

[Sprung]

I'll see what I can do Matt, shouldn't be too tough. Takes resin really good if you let it to soak awhile. And, it definitely has variation in density, as you can see back there in the rounds, so it should work for dying to.

Got a preference on lengths for each? Long as I'm sawing to order, I might as well make them what you want.

Stuff I sawed into blanks awhile back, I really haven't had any trouble checking, although they all went into pen blanks. Stuff I turned round back when I first discovered this, and was trying to figure out my lathe and tools, all of that checked big time, BUT... moisture content was still fairly high on it at that time.

Rocky, might as well just cut pieces the length of whatever box you'd be filling up - I can always dry them then cut them down to length. And maybe skip the sealer, now that I think about it - that stuff's a pain to remove before stabilizing. Maybe I'd have you wrap the whole bundle up in plastic wrap before sending it, then I can deal with whatever I'd want on my end for drying it or considering sealing it.

 

[rocky1]

Rocky, might as well just cut pieces the length of whatever box you'd be filling up - I can always dry them then cut them down to length. And maybe skip the sealer, now that I think about it - that stuff's a pain to remove before stabilizing. Maybe I'd have you wrap the whole bundle up in plastic wrap before sending it, then I can deal with whatever I'd want on my end for drying it or considering sealing it.

You got it!! I can handle that easy enough.

 

[Schroedc]

I took down all the fall decorations in the showroom and got most of the Christmas ones up. I'll let my wife and kids do the rest tomorrow as they'll be running the shop while I make a lumber run and go pick up a tool. Hopefully between Black Friday and Small Business Saturday I can get some sales.

 

[rocky1]

Nice showroom.. if you'd put a cushion on that bench up front, the old farts around town would stay longer and keep you company!!

 

[Schroedc]

Today was working on stuff for displays at the local grocery store, cut 6 inches in height off of two produce carts (They want to create a tiered display using carts at a couple heights) and then built some simple risers to go in the middle of the produce trays to create higher focal points. Sometimes it's fun to so some slice and screw work they wanted it all to match a lot of the stuff they already have and that is how most of it was built. After that got all my cherry unloaded from the car and into the shop. I'll sort it and stack it against a wall somewhere tomorrow. I really need to see if they have maple like that and do a bunch of cutting boards or something.....