headleyj
ArboristSite Guru
Drove 5 hours 1 way to get a Norwood Mark IV about 3 months ago and it's been sitting ever since. 13HP Honda, will take 12' lengths and throat is about 18-20 inches wide. I FINALLY got time and an opportunity to try it out!
Neighbor fella is an older guy ...~ 80 or so, retired and just a great guy. Always jackin around in his barn making stuff, cutting wood, tinkering-that sorta thing. My little boy loves to go up there and visit him too. We chat every now and then around his woodstove in his barn, he always has great stories.
He stopped by about a week after I got the mill to ask about it and see it...come to find out he's had 2 sawmills in his lifetime.... he was pretty excited I could tell.
Then about a month later he started taking out a few trees to thin some areas and bucked them into 12' lengths which just happens to be the max length my mill can take
So I called him one Saturday and asked if he wanted help dragging all those logs up to his barn since I've got forks, a boompole and 2 sets of tongs....he said "sure we can drag one up and see how your mill cuts if ya want to".....I had to smile....I agreed and the next day at 9 he was ready for me.
Long story short mill cut real good....leveling it up wasn't bad, but keeping it that way was kinda hard. It wanted to shift/ fall off the jackstands a few times.
What I learned:
- Sawdust exits directly on the lefthand track which then builds up on the LF roller and slowly changes the angle of the carraige (rollers have grooves in them that match the track width/ thickness). We'll fab up a brush of some kind to keep the track/ roller clean.
- Blade was semi-sharp, but it cut the entire log pretty good.
- It was tougher to push than what I anticipated - maybe cause of the blade and newbie here
- Locking my elbows helped to keep a consistent speed, although I underestimated how hard it would be to keep a consistent speed too.
- Numerical scale on the side of carriage was placed incorrectly. It was velcro'd on so we fixed that to cut spot on.
- Axle with wheels is a pain to walk over when pushing.
All in all it was a great day, I learned alot about the mill just from running it AND from him. He never ceases to amaze me about all he's done, what he knows and just how great of a guy he truly is.
He's got about 8-10 more logs back there, maybe we can swing a deal if I cut them up he can make my boy a toybox or something
Anyways- thought I'd share.
Neighbor fella is an older guy ...~ 80 or so, retired and just a great guy. Always jackin around in his barn making stuff, cutting wood, tinkering-that sorta thing. My little boy loves to go up there and visit him too. We chat every now and then around his woodstove in his barn, he always has great stories.
He stopped by about a week after I got the mill to ask about it and see it...come to find out he's had 2 sawmills in his lifetime.... he was pretty excited I could tell.
Then about a month later he started taking out a few trees to thin some areas and bucked them into 12' lengths which just happens to be the max length my mill can take
So I called him one Saturday and asked if he wanted help dragging all those logs up to his barn since I've got forks, a boompole and 2 sets of tongs....he said "sure we can drag one up and see how your mill cuts if ya want to".....I had to smile....I agreed and the next day at 9 he was ready for me.Long story short mill cut real good....leveling it up wasn't bad, but keeping it that way was kinda hard. It wanted to shift/ fall off the jackstands a few times.
What I learned:
- Sawdust exits directly on the lefthand track which then builds up on the LF roller and slowly changes the angle of the carraige (rollers have grooves in them that match the track width/ thickness). We'll fab up a brush of some kind to keep the track/ roller clean.
- Blade was semi-sharp, but it cut the entire log pretty good.
- It was tougher to push than what I anticipated - maybe cause of the blade and newbie here
- Locking my elbows helped to keep a consistent speed, although I underestimated how hard it would be to keep a consistent speed too.
- Numerical scale on the side of carriage was placed incorrectly. It was velcro'd on so we fixed that to cut spot on.
- Axle with wheels is a pain to walk over when pushing.
All in all it was a great day, I learned alot about the mill just from running it AND from him. He never ceases to amaze me about all he's done, what he knows and just how great of a guy he truly is.
He's got about 8-10 more logs back there, maybe we can swing a deal if I cut them up he can make my boy a toybox or something
Anyways- thought I'd share.
