Getting ready for family thanksgiving at the farmhouse

First - some fixing

I had broken a weld on the chipper feed lever so I hooked up my arc-welder and gave it a shot.  I wasn't sure what settings to use (or even which type of rod) so I took a wild geuss.  I think I guessed a bit high on the current settings since I burned a hole in the pipe!  It looks like crap and isn't as strong as before, but its good enough for now.  This fix let me continue chipping the slabs left over from milling.

oops!

More saw-milling

Trying to get the old rotting wood done first.  Just a little bit left (that I can mill - some will go to firewood).

I keep moving the new boards onto the pile.  Of course I have to sticker as I got and the sizes are all out of order.  I will have to restack at some point.

I had to change the blade again this weekend.  It was just too dull.  I think this dirty old wood dulls the blades faster.

More chipping

Of course, lots of the old wood just goes straight from the mill into the chipper.  The pile on the right here is all from this weekend.  The chipper worked OK considering how dull the blades are.  I just don't want to change them out too soon since they are still able to do a fairly good job (also, they aren't cheap and it's a pain in the a$$)

The boards on the right side of this picture are too wide to put through the chipper.  I have pretty much given up on edging the boards in the mill as its too dangerous and frequently the boards shift and crimp the blade. I have a couple of new  resaw bandsaw blades on order for the upright bandsaw.   One of the new ones is carbide tipped!

New project: Sawmill-lathe!

I really liked the idea of a sawmill based lathe (for making perfectly cylindrical posts, etc) but I am not quite willing to pay $4,000+ for the "lathe-mizer"!  So I decided to try to design and make my own.  I will build two uprights that will sit on the mill bed.  One at the head of the mill and one at the other end.  These uprights will be made of wood  and hold the bearing and spindle for the lathe.  I need a wider board than I currently have for the base of the uprights, so I plan on doing a glue up panel.  I started gathering some boards together and prepping them for gluing.

First step (after cleaning nails out!) was thickness planing the boards.  Here is a bunch shaving left over after the planeing operation

Planing makes so much dust!  

I cut the boards into approximately 3 inch widths as per recommendations for panel glue-ups that I found on the internet.

Some of these were pretty bowed - instead of removing all the bow with the jointer (it would have taken forever!) i put the bowed boards own next to a straight board and passed them both through the table saw.  After that I put them through the planner again to be sure.

These boards are essentially ready for glue up.  I need one more though.  One more 3 nich board should do it.  Some of these boards are bowed a bit along the wide dimension.  Not much I can do about that except get another boards.  However, the glue up advice suggested that a small amount of bow wouldn't hurt.  I will find out if I have a small amount or not when I go to take off the glue-clamps.

Here is the hardware I picked up at TSC.  The two wheels will be the bearings/pillow blocks.  I plan to just try to screw a faceplate on the log to be turned instead of using the ram-chuck type of lathe hookup.

I scavenged the motor off of the old lathe I had at the city house.

Miscellaneous stuff

I had called Chestnut's septic service last week to arrange for them to pump out the tank.  It was very full and I didn't want to host thanksgiving with a full tank!  I checked when we got there and the tank was indeed empty and I found the invoice in the door as promised.

Also, I dehydrated more pumpkins!  I gave a lot away this year (since I have so much pumpkin powder left over from last year).  I am taking 3 of the musque de provence back with me for making stuff or maybe just eating.

Cold weather is here!

Beautiful sunrises this time of year!

A brief "scare" regarding my tractor

I went out to the garage late Friday and decided to get the tractor ready for work on Saturday.  I started the tractor and moved it out of the way so that I could get to the forks that where sitting under the front loader bucket.  I removed the lumber I had stacked on the forks and went back to start the tractor so that I could install the forks.  Well, the tractor wouldn't start!!  It cranked, but no start!  I mean I was flabbergasted.  I had just run the thing no longer than 10 mins prior, what the hell!?

At first I thought maybe it was out of fuel and that I had introduced air into the lines.  Running a diesel dry is a big no-no - it can really be hard to start after that and you may even have to bleed the air out of the injector lines (each line!)  I went through this with the backhoe and it took me almost half a day to get it running again!  So anyway, Friday evening we went to the local gas station/local store and I filled up all my fuel tanks (10 gal deisel and 15 gal gasoline).  Got home and fueled up the tractor.  Still no-go!  Well, I ran down the battery good so I placed a battery charger on the tractor and called it a night.

The next morning I still couldn't start it!  At this point I am convinced that air was in the lines and proceeded to go through the fuel lines and try to bleed it out.  Every step of the way though I found that the lines had no air!  Solid fuel right into the injectors! At this point I decide to read the owners/service manual to get some ideas as to what I should do (I had pulled it out earlier to see where the fuel line was).   As I looked through the manual I stumbled onto some of the electrical system schematics at which point a thought occurred to me - maybe the wires to the seat-safety switch were damaged?  I went out and found and examined the wires to the switch and sure enough they were severed!  I bypassed the switch, shorted the wires together and tried to start the tractor - VROOM!  It works!  Whew!  I was back in business and I hadn't wasted too much time on it.

More sawmill work

With the tractor working again I was able to put the forks on and move some tree trunks from my stock pile over to the mill.  First I loaded up a junk piece of oak. Low-and-behold I was able to get a decent length of 5x5 post out of it (and some chip-wood)!  Then I loaded a much junkier piece of oak which did indeed turn entirely into chip-wood.  Then a very long piece of oak from which I got about a 17 foot 4x4 (and a bunch of chip-wood).

My trusty woodmizer LT15 still running strong!  I literally have done nothing in the way of maintenance so far (besides keeping the fuel and water filled and changing out the blades when dull)

Its hard to see clearly - but there is a LONG 4x4 laying on top of that pile!

Can see one end of it here...  I don't know what I need this for, but I NEED it!

Here is the end from a different perspective.  You can see the new 5x5 (hmm - maybe its a 6x6?) to its left.

I also milled up some maple this weekend too.  I think just 2 logs.  I got a good amount of lumber out of them, considering there shape (both were not really good lumber logs).  They weren't figure wood though.  Just plain maple.  I figure it might be useful to make a workbench surface?  

Most of the boards are about 8 inches wide by 5/4.  I am not sure of length.  10 feet maybe?  Maybe longer.

I stickered the big boards but didn't do the little ones on top.  The little ones on top are from a different log and are thinner)

Different perspective on the maple.  The pile on the far right is also maple.  The pile in the distant right is walnut.

Maple pile stickered.  Walnut "ends" in the dirt there.

These walnut end pieces actually look better than I originally thought.

Lots of sawdust!  i might put some of this on the blackberries?  Or maybe on the strawberries? Blueberries?

This is the chip pile at the end of the weekend.  I put 8 loader scoops full on the sour cherry trees.  I want to put this on the "new" sour cherries and the hazelnuts as well.  Lots of wood to chip yet...

These slab boards are too wide to put through the chipper.  I have a carbide bandsaw blade on order that I will try to use to cut these into smaller widths for chipping.

Still quite a few logs here to mill!  The pile near the house is almost gone though!  Lots of fire wood near the house though - thinking of making a lathe attachment for the sawmill so I can maybe make posts out of the smaller logs.

Here is where I put the woods chips this time.  These are the older sour cherry trees.  I want to place some chips around the dwarf cherry and the new sour cherry trees as well.  

I am not putting chips on the sweet cherry trees (4 of them on the left of the sour cherry trees).  Currently I plan on moving the sweet cherry trees out of fear that their roots are growing into the septic drain field.

Last of the garden

It got very cold (24F) overnight and I think it finished off the plants in the garden.  Even the Kale and Brussel sprouts have a limit to how cold they can take.   Although they might survive this cold, they are not going to be producing anything soon!

Kale is all sad now. :(

I harvested what I thought looked good.

I also grabbed the last of the red sprouts.  They are real small.  I don't know if I can use them or not.

I figure its worth a try!

A heap of kale!  I blanched them and then braised with onion and sweet italian sausage and even used some of my homemade canned chicken broth from last year.   Very tasty!

Here is a better picture from just before I cooked them.  blanched them and then roasted them - delicious!