Anyone heard from Bobl

[BobL]

BobL,
Sorry to hear about your misfortunes.

Thanks very much.

If you are trying to heal broken bones, vitamin D and calcium in diet helps a lot.
You can get both if you like sardines/herring, eat a can or two a day. Helped me when I broke a leg.

Unfortunately I have to be super careful with Vitamin D and calcium intake as I have Hypercalcemia which means too much Ca in my blood and if this gets too high too quickly I make have a heart attack. If my Ca gets too high the doc said I may have to have a half body blood transfusion where half the blood in my body is replaced!
I was having blood tests every 2 weeks to monitor this but now have it under control with diet so now have the blood tests once a month.

So it means restricting foods containing Ca which is really unfortunate for me as I love cheese/diary/fish and was probably eating too much. I can still have some but not too much which my waist line also appreciates. As I also have type II diabetes I already have a self imposed restricted diet so it leaves me stuff all I can eat.

 

[rarefish383]

Bob, my thoughts and prayers are with you. We got back from a 4 day mini vacation to Denver, we live on the other side of the country, not far out of Washington DC. We got back Sunday, felt great, doodled around the house Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I got up and had a pretty sharp pain in the left side of my chest, and it hurt like heck to breath. I was not short of breath, it just hurt to take a deep breath. I was just getting ready to call the Doc when my son called. His boss came to him at lunch and said for him to go straight home and pack, and be at the airport by 4. He writes programs for missile defense systems, and had to be in Boston to teach a class on one of the programs he wrote. Anyway, got home and could hardly get out of his car. My wife was staying at here 88 year old moms house, so it was just me and the dog. When I sat on the bed and tried to lay back the pain hit me so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Managed to get back in the recliner where it didn't hurt as bad. Dozed off at about 4am, dog woke me up at 7am. Called the Doc at 8am. Went to the Doc and she poked, prodded, and listened to heart, liver, and lungs, nothing wrong. EKG, nothing wrong. Asked if I had been doing any strenuous work, no. The diagnosis was inflammation of the connective tissue between my ribs. Put me on an anti inflammatory, and in hours I was feeling much better. That afternoon my buddy stopped by. Several years ago he pulled an old Stihl 08s out of a dumpster and gave it to me. I had recently got it running, and wanted him to see it go. Pulled the choke out, gave the starter a quick hard pull, and almost blacked out again. When I said I had been doodling around the house Monday and Tuesday, I had been playing with some of my 90-100 CC saws. I tend to hold the trigger with my right hand and pull with my left. My Homelite 1050's are 100CC's and Mac 550 is 99CC's and don't have comp releases. Looks like all that pulling tore, or stressed the muscles in my ribs. I used to really look forward to getting to the age I'm at now, 64. When my Dad was in his 60's-70's, he could do anything. I can't believe that snatching on a few saws could do something that hurt so bad. Now the slightest thing seems to hurt. I feel like one day some one will come in my garage and find me laying in pieces all over the floor, like a broken cookie jar.

 

[BobL]

Sounds like you're having a a rough time there Joe.

Yep its a right pain a whole lot of places getting older.
Hope you recover soon, at least well enough to fire up a saw.

Starting up a big saw without a decomposing valve is indeed a violent process, on joints, muscles and connective tissues in general, so I can fully under stand how it happened.
Longer term milling can also be hard on arms shoulders and backs, which is why often I harp on about milling ergonomics.
All my saws have decomp valves but depending on how I'm feeling I will give it a crack starting them without using decomp when I am warmed up and not too tired, say part way through a milling period.
There's a lot of satisfaction is doing it, a bit like starting a motorbike with a foot crank

Meanwhile I am getting a bit more agile with my crutches so I must be gaining a little more upper body strength. I'm also now basically hopping up and down the 5 stair set between out kitchen and family room on one foot, so my left leg is doing OK but I know when this is over I will need some time to get the strength back in my right leg.

Maybe try some warm ups before starting? - maybe a small saw in each hand and alternating between an arnold/shouder and lateral presses.
I was doing these with small 5lb dumbbells standing in front of the TV at night but that's all fallen in a hole since I can't stand ATM - maybe I should start up again and do what I can sitting down

 

[Marine5068]

Thanks Marine5068.

I'm stuck here with the broken ankle in a moon boot and my wife decides to have massive vomiting attack last friday evening. She spent half an hour laying on her side and being repeatedly sick on the floor of the bathroom. She said it was probably Vertigo as she has had this before but nowhere near as bad. Anything that went in by mouth come straight back up and I was worried she would dehydrate. I was just about to call an ambulance when I spotted our neighbour who is a doctor returning from vacation pulling into their drive so I called him and he came over and said it would be better if she went into emergency. I could of course not drive so a couple of family members that lived nearby came over and took her. After 6 hours in emergency on a drip, after running a bunch of tests she was able to come home, being sick agin in the car, and lay in a nauseated heap on the bed. The docs said it was vertigo and just rest.

For 3 days wife could do zip except crawl to the bathroom every now and then and I had to step up and prepare food for myself (wife was eating a couple of crackers or dry toast and a slice of apple as a meal,) and feed dogs. I ended up doing too much around the place so that my good foot suffered (I have flat feet) and so for a day neither of us could do squat and lay on the bed. Fortunately family kicked in, a sister brought over food and fed the dogs, my niece brought over groceries and walked the dogs.

By wearing a walking shoe with an orthotic insert I was able to start using my sore good foot and my nephew drove me to a specialist appointment and also walked dogs.

My wife is only just now able to do a few simple things like prepare meals and feed dogs but she has to keep her head upright, and she is a long way from driving. This morning a brother came over and walked the dogs, brought a couple of boxes of groceries ,and took me to see my mum at the nursing home about 10 minutes away. When we got back my wife was sitting up watching TV provided, there were not too many camera pans which made her sick, so every now and the she had to close her eyes.

We've discovered an on-line grocery store near us that does free delivery for orders over a certain amount so we will use that if we need to.
I guess this shows us what we have to look forward to s we get older.

Sorry to hear Bob.
It's a good thing you have each other and good friends and family nearby.
Take care and do what your body needs to heal.

 

[ZachAK]

Bob,

Just wanted to wish you well. I hope you're on the mend, and getting out and doing some good projects.

I've saved your posts on raker angle and filing, and have learned as much from your approach as from Malloff. I still think of the photo you posted with the mill in action, running downhill on its own, while your sipped a cold one from a chair. I haven't milled anything but downhill since then! I usually take a griphoist into the woods and will spend a little extra time to pull a big log to a slope. I owe you one!

I hadn't milled for almost a year until yesterday, but even with a hammered old chain and a raker angle of roughly 7 degrees, we made fast work of a huge by Northern standards cherry, all of 14" diameter. I have several 36" Alaska yellow cedar trees to mill soon. Yellow cedar is a cypress (not a cedar at all), closely related to hinoki, the fabled Japanese wood revered for temples. It's all salvaged old growth up here, softwoods, 3-500 years old on average. So much different than your hardwoods, but the principals are the same. You replied to a post of couple years back when I was planning to mill a huge imported S American purpleheart timber for a fishingboat keel. I dropped the raker angle, and it worked like a champ. My friend/customer was thrilled on that one because we saved so much wood. We milled right to the line, and the finish barely took a handheld planer, thanks to your advice.

I see you're no longer addicted to the Arborsite! Hope we see you here from time to time.

Thanks from Alaska. You've enriched so many of our milling experiences.

Cheers!
Zach

 

[csmillingnoob]

If I had a bound copy of BobL's posts on this board, it would be on the book shelf righ beside Will Mallow.

A master

 

[Ancient One]

Hey Bob I have noticed your absence also. Heal up Partner, I am 73 and have numerous health issues but I still manage to play with the saws.
Finally got into some serious milling. I have printed much of your posts concerning chain preparation for milling and find myself referring often to your words of wisdom. And I often go back to your old posts for additional info.

Bought some ripping chain from Baileys last week and will give it a try on the Stihl 075 tomorrow. Carlton, 404x.063, factory ground 10-10-60.

Many thanks to you, get well and back to the log milling!

Umm, not enough saw, Mac Pro Mac 800 (80 cc) with a 32 bar.

I will be using these tomorrow:

 

[CR888]

That's a really nice 090av you have their Ancient One. I too hope Bob is on the mend, and gets better or hopefully by now has gotten better & on his feet.

 

[Ancient One]

That's a really nice 090av you have their Ancient One. I too hope Bob is on the mend, and gets better or hopefully by now has gotten better & on his feet.

Yes it was a prize. Got it from a wood boat builder that used it with the 56 inch Alaska Mill and 66 inch bar that came with it. He only made a few cuts in milling planks for use in making band sawn boat frames.

The 56 mill is bit cumbersome on smaller logs, I ordered a 36 from Baileys and it should arrive today.

 

[Coralillo Lo Pro]

Yes it was a prize. Got it from a wood boat builder that used it with the 56 inch Alaska Mill and 66 inch bar that came with it. He only made a few cuts in milling planks for use in making band sawn boat frames.
The 56 mill is bit cumbersome on smaller logs, I ordered a 36 from Baileys and it should arrive today.

Yea, the 56" would be cumbersome. I have a 36" mill which I use for everything with a 42" bar. I have a 72" bar as well, and rails to make my mill a 56" but haven't found a tree yet to use them on. I seem to end up defaulting to my MS880 all the time because I bought it new and it works flawlessly with monster power. The .404 chain can handle occasional nails in urban trees I salvage without terrible things happening, though it wastes a lot more wood per cut than 3/8" chain does on my old 87cc 045 Super. When my Super is working right and the chain is good, it's probably a better hardwood setup, but I've had to rebuild the saw about three times and something always seems to go wrong sooner or later. Gotten most of my milling knowledge here from Bob. I dream sometimes of some kind of normal logs to mill like you have there, I get a lot of crooked mesquite and logs cut too short by tree service companies that give me trees. Hoisting the MS880 rig over and over for short cuts is kinda exhausting.

 

[Ancient One]

We had the trees dropped last year by a pro faller and a darn good climber. Dropped them as they were over 140 feet high and a hazard in a wind storm if one fell, nearest was about 40 feet from the house. A real tight area to work in with no big machine access. Decided to do some milling instead of cutting everything into firewood.

Like you most of my milling knowledge comes from this site, especially from Bob. I have been around saws and big timber here in the Pacific NW since about 1978, I worked for two of the largest timber companies in the area: Crown Zellerbach and ITT Rayonier.

I will start another thread and cease the hijacking of this one.

Thanks guys!