Hi guys, no, I'm not dead... LOL. Finally managed to mill a few boards/posts though!

[Brmorgan]

Well I know it's been a while since I contributed anything at all here... and to be honest I haven't even checked in even to read what you all have been up to in probably 4 months or more. Been way too busy; spent April and May in school doing my 1st year of Automotive Service Technician training (finished top of my class too ), and since then have either been working or doing various projects around the house. And to add to that, it looks like I'm gonna be a dad sometime in April of next year, so that adds a whole new level of projects and improvements to be done over the winter... so I have my work cut out for me! Not to mention that I have to re-do the roof on the house before snow flies this year. But I finally decided to build an addition of sorts onto my shop before winter hits - the shop has a big sliding door on the front, and then a regular "man door" on the side, but of course every winter the snow would slide off the tin roof, fall 20 feet, and pack into an impenetrable iceberg that would render that door useless until Spring and make it so I couldn't lock it up properly. So, being too lazy to chip away at the ice with a pickaxe every year, I built a lean-to over the door so that my efforts would have more permanent benefits:

It's about 8' wide and 10' deep. I realize that it looks kinda goofy with the front cross beam down much lower than the top of the man door, but it's about 6'4" off the ground and my 6'1" height can comfortably pass under it, and everything just worked out well with the outer wall set up at that height. Everything but the plywood is stock that I've milled over the years - the posts came from some 4" slabs that I'd saved from 2-3 years ago, all I had to do was set the Alaskan to 3.75" and make a couple passes to split the posts off, and then run them thru the planer to smooth them out to 3.5" square. And the rafter 2x6 and stud 2x4 boards I've mostly had stacked up for some time, but again they were rough so I had to plane them down; had to mill a couple more to fill out the lot. Since I took those pics, I've gotten the tin roofing on and have started to pile firewood against the back. I left both ends open, since I eventually plan on expanding it down the length of the shop further for additional firewood storage etc., so for now I just have a tarp nailed against the back to keep the snow at bay once it comes. I strapped it with 2x6 at 16" centers for the tin roofing - wanted it to be nice and strong to withstand anything that might fall from the main shop roof above. I've also pounded some 10" spikes into the top beam of the wall on the inside to hang all my myriad saw bars from to keep them organized - guess I should take another pic once that's all done with. I'm gradually working on moving all my saw parts etc. out of the basement shop in the house and up into the truck shop - the wife has been really good about all the crap I've accumulated over the years, but it's time to get it organized into its proper home, hehehe... She hasn't outright called me a 'hoarder' but I'm pretty sure she thinks I am! It does pay off from time to time though...

Well it's past my bedtime here, so I'll sign off for now. Cheers all!

 

[BobL]

Yo Brad,
Good to hear from you and what you have been up to.
Cheers
Bob

 

[pete_86]

Nice job, I want to make dimensional lumber along with few utilty shelves for shed.. Did you mill slabs than rip to size after drying or mill to size first. Prob dry faster that way but prob need to pay closer attention to strapping down while drying? For shed shelves prob use green.

Keep up the work and keep us posted. I'm new to milling. Been researching and learning.

 

[Brmorgan]

Most of the time I mill right down to individual boards. I rarely if ever work with green wood, so I don't really have to worry so much about the shrinkage factor involved with drying. I have my chain sharpening figured out well enough that I can *usually* mill about 1/16"-3/32" oversize, and that affords me enough to be able to plane down to finished size and get a nice smooth product - if the wood is a bit wet still, I go at least 1/8" oversize. However, when it comes to milling 4x4 posts, depending on log size I do prefer to mill 4" thick slabs and let them sit and stabilize for a year or two if possible before splitting the posts off, and I mill about 3/16" oversize to let me plane/joint any twist out after they're milled.

Today I built some shelves up on the storage mezzanine in the shop to hold most of my saws and parts units. I'd post a pic, but apparently it's friggin near impossible to do that from my phone, and I'm too tired to try to figure it out... hehe. But I finally got almost all of my saws out of the basement of the house and up to the shop.. I only left a few of the more important and valuable ones in the house where they won't be subjected to the cold and moisture of an unheated shop thru the winter.

 

[rarefish383]

Welcome back, Brad. Congrats on the baby, for some reason I always thought you were one of us Geezers, guess I was wrong. Nice work on the other addition too, Joe.

 

[hamish]

Whats the secret to milling plywood?


I finally did that to my "go to" shed last year, got tired of trying to squeeze through the crack in the door all winter...............finally.

 

[rarefish383]

I thought that was 6" strips of Knotty Pine, Joe.

 

[mtngun]

spent April and May in school doing my 1st year of Automotive Service Technician training

No more work at the stud mill ?

 

[Brmorgan]

No more work at the stud mill ?

No, I finished with them in May of last year. Got sick of working 120 hrs every two weeks on maintenance, and that was what they needed for the job, so they let me go on a technicality more or less. Sucked at the time, but it was actually the best thing that could have happened. Got me motivated to look for a more secure and reliable career. I do sometimes miss the mill, it was interesting work and I learned a lot there that I'm grateful for, but it's nice to have a steady 8-hour day, 40-hour week, and in a little over 2 more years once I'm a certified journeyman, I'll be making as much or more in 80 hrs than I did in 120 at the mill, and have a lot more time to enjoy that money too. Lots of challenges along the way but life is slowly figuring itself out!

 

[Brmorgan]

Welcome back, Brad. Congrats on the baby, for some reason I always thought you were one of us Geezers, guess I was wrong. Nice work on the other addition too, Joe.

Haha, well, I hang out with a lot of geezers, so it must have rubbed off a bit too much... I just find them so much more interesting! So much to learn from old machinists, woodworkers, mechanics, millwrights... And most of them are more than happy to have someone that's interested to share their knowledge with.