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.