Beautiful Day for Milling

[John TenEyck]

I've been milling for cash the past couple of days. Just beautiful early fall weather. And I'm being spoiled because the guy I'm milling for has given me a young helper and a tractor with forks to load the logs onto the mill. The downside is he wants dimensional lumber, and that's a slower go than the random width I normally mill.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc_ucUUnnwZZdokQSXgQ9pVTWHv4L53P8VdUnDVq22JxC5 KE758j3sR0_xfugr6JEaHzoAlRWMxeNPJKg5V2z1fGi1LAzHVQ WhOuDFhro_cOnp0UIe0jWtZa3dxInSpBj8kt5fQVAdX8yJHAJa nlycx_gg=w1574-h885-s-no?authuser=0

Yesterday, I found the drive belt on the mill was missing big pieces. Never seen that before, but I had a spare, so I changed it. Not too bad, maybe 30 minutes. Today the starter rope on my chainsaw broke. Another repair. Now I have a shorter starter rope.

I put a new blade on at some point this morning, made about two cuts and:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc9YaiXh4DPIJwTfD74Vl-WMfgmPfH7KtXchSnz0s5eJM0lBY7vV2SDUcNYnNncIzbD3hMy2 78juIO8uH6F0sSh9bEKrHv8EC_9xSeMp5NTMz7VYCs42sNGODG vfl1QlHJI0GD9Z_zXqkF7IHl4dCvJQ_g=w498-h885-s-no?authuser=0


But when I inspected the blade I saw that the teeth weren't damaged much, but a dozen or so had bits of the nail bonded to the teeth. Some I could pick off with my fingers, others I removed with a pair of pliers. Amazingly, I cut another 200 bf or so with that blade, and it's still not done. Woodmizer Doublehard. Good stuff.

John

[John TenEyck]

I cut another 100 bf of so with that blade. As I was cutting the last log before swapping it out for a new blade:


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc9kN4SbPHSnNI_qIyRp1Kd-3ltDoi3QGih4FK0SZ8zxLu-5u-nTSX5-k--ZJeuTMtS53WUYHiiOfDQqNX8S5wpsGv-j0xKORTbGqz2rIFn1BfROiirEbpt-Vw9Q3-lE6cGlMNPbMA7Y293zaBLjTbKkbg=w1498-h843-s-no?authuser=0


That was the end of that blade, for sure. I put on a new blade, made about two cuts in the same log, after removing the screw, and:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc-fKJvKbsmTyvDjs9ohNj2O5ZF3b8mwPA6-Y4Ez9TYpYuq-2ofqH1UYEQIFOGNrRJ7jkJ9JHTxO1apDAaulg9_kONlFhMthQl 0PHTxEXOax892n-zuKFMzvU6lDWKHr-R5endwpuFfx6uu1tv6z2Zg5Zg=w1498-h843-s-no?authuser=0


Not good. Surprisingly, the blade again looked pretty good after I picked off the bits of nail stuck to the teeth. I rolled the log and made another cut. Oh no:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc_D8aP5q04H7o8GwL3ajQW_n_qGMre3xP2mwGXiVbfEZX 9nLa65m6VWJ5URdmIlG5zAlvGIGGRu9fHoxb1k8qvLfmneCyLv DEajuNwhccAlmt3C8rHNMl6qrdoKQCnnVQquQPD2lJhC-F7Z3R0Ht3chwQ=w1498-h843-s-no?authuser=0


Well this isn't going well. But again, the blade wasn't trashed. Until:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AIL4fc-itN3Od_HAWA4eIbBBN-r5LJHlDe95PcV1flUK-a1n-R5wk2brYhO40OlG-VdGBCs-SuUCQuQ4YpFTXX_PaYcoSwY86qR1YM1mFUpUJ7Y_wfnH2hP2pR ulTIs0EYpST_bw89dQ6Uhy2wq3b2auQiFkJQ=w1498-h843-s-no?authuser=0


That was the head of a pretty large nail, and it bent over a whole bunch of teeth.

I don't know where the guy got these logs, but he might decide to look elsewhere after he pays for the blades that are being ruined.

John