One Step Forward, Two Steps Back at the Beach

Another so-so day weather wise, at least not raining when we started, although as I stepped out of the house my wife did admonish me to take my hat. There was a bit of blue sky to the west first thing but it did not last long.



Got down to the beach and had a couple logs set up, a cherry and a decent sized piece of box elder. The box elder had been lying around since the summer, so I was worried that it might have quite a bit of staining in it.

The bark peeled off both very quickly, and I cut the end off the BE to get past any cracks or embedded sand that might have been there. Colour looked very promising, the excitement level started to go up.



Since the BE had a lot of rot at the other end, we cut it half to try and get past the rot. Despite the one end looking good, the log was full of rot. So we decided to not slab it, but just to freehand out some bowl blanks.



Next we turned our attention to the cherry.


First pass looked promising.


In fact it went very quickly and before we knew it, we had four nice cherry slabs. The 3120 ran beautifully, the chain was sharp, the mill was tight, everything came together as it should for a change! However, the 385 we used for cutting out the bowl blanks decided to get stuck on full throttle. Rather than fiddle with it there, we switched to another saw.

We were done in record time with the cherry, so I arranged for another cherry log to be set up. This one had a lot of mud on it and the bark was a ton of work to get off. Finally got that done, set the guideboard on, and did the first cut. Started on the second cut, the saw was in need of sharpening, so we stopped the cut and I sharpened. We got nearly through the log and the chain broke. It just died in the cut, didn't whip around or anything. I think that's only the second time that has happened while I was pushing the saw. Not really sure why it happened.

So we switched chains and carried on. The second cherry had some nice pink and almost purple going on in it, we peeled three slabs out of it. It must have been a different species from the first cherry, it sure seemed a lot heavier. Two of us could barely lift the slabs.




Cherry 2 on left, cherry 1 on right. Obvious colour differences.


Right about then the skies decided to open up for about ten minutes. It had been a bit breezy and the fingers were definitely chilly. And the tide went out too.


We decided to cut up some of the slabs from the second cherry for bowl blanks. We quickly discovered that the log had some ring shake in it and that the wood was practically useless. We got a few small blanks from the outside, that was it. We wound up leaving quite a bit of junk.



So we worked on three logs, only got slabs from one, and a dozen or so bowl blanks total from the other two. A great day milling at the beach, but did not get the amount of wood I had hoped for after all the effort. Plus a wonky saw and a broken chain.

bummer about the mishaps although still some nice looking slabs!

man there's a ton of boat traffic out there. are those all shipping vessels?

mikeb1079 said:

bummer about the mishaps although still some nice looking slabs!

man there's a ton of boat traffic out there. are those all shipping vessels?

Click to expand...

We noticed that too, defintely more than usual. A few of them appeared to be container ships, the rest were bulk carriers. There was an accident at the coal port a couple months ago, maybe some of them are having to wait longer because of that? I don't really know why.

Free logs delivered by the sea...awesome!

oooh cherry, and it deosn't get much bettter than that milling by the water.
very cool

It's all good...........

Long as the camera doesn't break down !

Thanks for another episode Dan.

Old Blue
That sequester's got nothing on our taxes! In ...........
Kali-bone-ya

Nice pics - I never get tired of em!.

RE; Broken chain.
I'd say you lost a cutter head (cutters look well use?) - maybe the initial shock made a crack some time ago and it only just broke through.

Chain appears to be near the end of its life regardless. It didn't owe you much.

You guys are both right, the chain had lived a long a productive life so there are no regrets now that it is gone.

I forgot to note in my initial ramblings that I also hit a nail on that same pass, but before I stopped the cut to sharpen the chain. There were no teeth missing at that point. However I suppose the nail may have damaged the chain enough to make it let go fairly soon thereafter, although I have hit plenty of nails over the years without causing the chain to break. Examining the slabs afterwards I must have cut directly through the nail head, ie the maximum amount of metal possible, other than cutting a nail lengthwise!

Dan