New sawmill man here

xlogger · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:52 am

Hi all from NC, this is a great site, just wish I had more time to look it over. But I will in time. I emailed the Wood Butcher last week and he sent me here, thanks! I just got a WM LT 28 about a month ago and never saw lumber in my life. I was logging in my younger years but have been out for about 25 years now. Looking forward to retirement soon and wanted to do something I enjoyed and maybe make a little money with. I have lots to learn and one of the first things is building the correct shed for my mill. I came up with ideas and the WB's shed is close to what I want to do. He's done a great job with that. I'm learning fast what not to do with the mill, now I need to learn more of what to do. Well again hi and I'll be looking in here all I can. Ricky

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:02 am

xlogger wrote:

Hi all from NC, this is a great site, just wish I had more time to look it over. But I will in time. I emailed the Wood Butcher last week and he sent me here, thanks! I just got a WM LT 28 about a month ago and never saw lumber in my life. I was logging in my younger years but have been out for about 25 years now. Looking forward to retirement soon and wanted to do something I enjoyed and maybe make a little money with. I have lots to learn and one of the first things is building the correct shed for my mill. I came up with ideas and the WB's shed is close to what I want to do. He's done a great job with that. I'm learning fast what not to do with the mill, now I need to learn more of what to do. Well again hi and I'll be looking in here all I can. Ricky

Hello and Welcome to The LumberWorksForums Ricky. Glad you stopped by and joined us. Hope to hear alot from you in the future. You'll find all kinds of tips, tricks, and things that you'll wish you hadn't done with your mill on our forums. We try to treat everybody the same here. We were all beginners at one time, we welcome beginners and seasoned sawyers alike here. There are NO know it all's here. We all just try to help each other out the best we can. I myself have alot of fun and learn alot from our members and hope you do as well. One more thing,.... We LOVE PICTURES!!! Some even say,... "if there ain't no pix it might not be true". Again WELCOME To The LumberWorksForums and hope to see you around alot.

BTW xlogger,...maybe you can hook me up with a good log supplier I get all my logs from tree services and I'm always running out of logs???

WVUFAN · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 6:51 pm

Glad to meet you. Im sure youll find what you need here. There are plenty of people who enjoy answering questions. Alot of good advise if you spend the time to look it up or ask for help. Post pictures of your shed. I'm about to start one myself, I might just learn something.

BusyBeaver · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 8:55 pm

Welcome to the forum Ricky. A pleasure to meet you. Lots of real nice folks here and I learn something every day that I read a new post. I will be going in two weeks to pick up my new LT-10 from Indy

Fred

Trull Custom Sawing · **Posted:** Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:59 pm

hello ricky glad to have ya, not able to play on the puter that much but there is good people here,,nice to have another woodmizer fan i run a lt 40 hydraulick and love it,,did u buy your mill in n.c.? any questions ask ill try to answer bout the woodmizer aint no pro but i have learned a lot of secrets on mine through studing and talkin to wood butcher and all the other cats here they are pretty smart

xlogger · **Posted:** Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:05 am

Thanks all, glad to be part of the group. As far as pictures goes I've only cut boards now for the shed. I did get a 24 ft I Beam for my over head chain hoist. I've cut 2X8X21 ft pine to bolt two together to make 24 ft to hold my rafters up (yes they are heavy!) and 6X10 12 feet long for my I Beam and I'll set them top of my corner poles. So the total shed will be 12X24. Not sure about the corners maybe will get telephone poles or treated 6X6's. I planning on making it 10ft tall, any suggestions on that? Since my mill is a manual one I'm going to build a dead deck level with the mill to set logs on with bobcat and use the removal bars the WM gives you with the mill to take on and off the deck and mill while sawing the logs. Now you guys have been doing this lots more than me and have some great ideas. I'm all ears now for suggestions. Ricky

xlogger · **Posted:** Sun Mar 07, 2010 7:11 am

By the way Wood Butcher I really don't know any loggers your way. I've been out of the logging for 25 years now. I do have a friend near Sanford the buys timber and deals with loggers all the time but that's probably still to far from you. One day I would like to visit if I can get away from here, my job has turned in a 60 hours a week thing and I really hate it. ricky

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Sun Mar 07, 2010 9:26 am

Stop by anytime Ricky. 60hrs. a week is a bit much for me too, but we gotta do what we gotta do to maintain. My job goes from one extream to another, for three months I'll get 55 to 60 a week and then for the next month I might only get my guaranteed 32hr. However,... during that time I am at the mill. Works out great most of the time, but once it gets rolling,... then they call me and want me to go out of town for three weeks :evil:

That makes it very hard to plan things out.

Robert · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:07 am

Welcome to the forum Ricky,,
You'll enjoy, and the more you enjoy your mill the more you'll share..
RThnaks for finding us,,
Robert

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:22 am

xlogger wrote:

Thanks all, glad to be part of the group. As far as pictures goes I've only cut boards now for the shed. I did get a 24 ft I Beam for my over head chain hoist. I've cut 2X8X21 ft pine to bolt two together to make 24 ft to hold my rafters up (yes they are heavy!) and 6X10 12 feet long for my I Beam and I'll set them top of my corner poles. So the total shed will be 12X24. Not sure about the corners maybe will get telephone poles or treated 6X6's. I planning on making it 10ft tall, any suggestions on that? Since my mill is a manual one I'm going to build a dead deck level with the mill to set logs on with bobcat and use the removal bars the WM gives you with the mill to take on and off the deck and mill while sawing the logs. Now you guys have been doing this lots more than me and have some great ideas. I'm all ears now for suggestions. Ricky

Build it higher xlogger,... or you will regret it. Mine is 12' high under the trolley beam and it's just barely high enough (NO Headroom for the hoist). Also,.. the trolley beam needs to be directly over the mill and if you put your trolley beam on top of the front posts,... it won't be if it's built like mine is. Just tryin to give you a heads up not tell you how to build your building.

xlogger · **Posted:** Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:27 pm

advise is great!! I was not going to put the beam over the front posts. After I corner all 4 post I have cut two 6X10X12 to put on top from the front posts to the rear posts. Then I was planning on centering the I beam in the middle of the shed on those beams. I really might cut out about an inch of the post and bolt the 6X10 to the sides of the beam so I can have a higher beam in the back for the pitch of the roof. Later I'm going to build about 16 ft on the back so I don't have to worry about getting lumber wet till I have enough build up to store somewhere else. Now you said higher than 10 ft? My beam will be 10 ft off the ground, you think I'll need higher than that? Please give me any advise, I'd hate to do something here that does not work well. Ricky

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 9:06 am

Ricky, I have my trolley beam 12 feet above the bed of the mill itself. That way I can stand on the bunks of the mill and never have to worry about bumping my head on anything up there. If it were any lower I would have to duck under or move the chainfall/hoist everytime I wanted to go from one side of the mill to the other. In other words if you build it 10 feet high, by the time you get your mill under it you wont have room to be able to stand on the bunks without hitting your head on the beam or the hoist or the rigging hanging up there. I know your asking why will I need to stand on the bunks??? My answer to that is, you don't "HAVE to" but there are times that it's ez'r to do somethings from on the bunks and it's nice to be able to do that without having to stoop down. Also, You have to figure for rigging, from the load hook so that you don't run out of hoisting room between the loadhook and the hoist itself. This is called (two blocking) when you run out of hoisting room because the hook has been raised all the way to the hoistdrum. This is very dangerous because two blocking CAN and WILL pull the hoist line in two allowing the load to freefall to the ground/mill. I know this from my 30 years in the seat of a crane, two blocking has killed many people and it happens all the time to newbie crane operators. Be carefull my friend. The Higher the better, I wish mine was another 2' taller.

xlogger · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:03 pm

I kind of see what you are talking about and will listen to experence on this one and make it higher. Now I'll just have to figure out a way of getting my I beam up that high. I've got a stiff arm backhoe that attaches to my bobcat, maybe I can get it up there with that. I guess I'll probably use telephone poles now for my corner posts. thanks, ricky

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:48 pm

Keep in mind xlogger, the overhead is an accessory and there are many folks that don't have them and they get by fine. However I bet there mills take a beating, because with the overhead you can flip a log and keep it from slaming down on the mill, "if rigged right". Just trying to give you a heads up. Make it as EZ on your self as possible. I have my beam off set just a little bit so that when a log is hanging from the hoist, it will be held against the backstops of the mill and not just drifting around. That helps when loading by yourself, you can use the back stops to help position the log the way you want it.

xlogger · **Posted:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:45 am

Thanks, WB I am taking all this in. I do like your set up and my plans are close to what you have. I am going to leave the back open to add cover space there one day and the deck will be level with the mill, my mill is on a trailer so I can just roll the logs over with a cant hook. To be able to walk around the mill I'll remove two bars from the deck to the mill after I roll each log to the mill. Have you ever seen anyone do this or what ideas do you think that will work or not work with this? It will only take a few seconds to remove the bars. After looking at your site, you have a great idea with your trailer. I also have a 16ft tag trailer that I hardly ever use and a Ramsey winch in the shop that I have never hook up. All I would need is to weld a backet on trailer and add a ramp to rear of the trailer to go get a log here or there. I wish you where closer I'd come down soon but it looks like it's over 3 hours to your place from here. By the way it so nice today I took the day off maybe cut some logs later after I get one pasture ready to reseed.

TheWoodButcher · **Posted:** Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:46 am

Hi xlogger, I have three logs about the same size I use for my log deck, All 3 are level with the top of the mill bunks. I do the same thing,with the ramps to the mill, works fine. I don't use the hoist to load with. I use it to reposition, roll logs and sometimes I use it to swap ends of the log on the mill, like if the butt of the log is at the wrong end. I also use it to unload the mill sometimes or just move big slabs when q-sawing. I feel sorry for the guys that don't have this option built into there operation, because I know I would have already quit if not for the help of the hoist. It's just too much bull work with out one for a one man show like mine.

xlogger · **Posted:** Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:34 pm

Well I had yesterday off work and didn't get time to fire the mill up. Too much to do with reseeding pasture. But I did get a nice white oak log ready to saw about the size of WVU Fan showed on the quarter sawing. I think I'll try that with my oak. thanks for the pics WVU Fan.

WVUFAN · **Posted:** Fri Mar 12, 2010 8:18 am

No problem, dont forget to take some yourself. I love seeing other people working as hard as I do.

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