I Didn't Meet My Goal...It's HOT!

PP03 is supported by Timber King sawmills. For more information on my 1220 CRZ mill or one of many Foley hydraulic options go to TimberKing.com. You remember being a kid going to bed before Christmas and you're just so excited and you just can't wait to wake up and you have trouble falling asleep because of that and then you finally do wake up with not as much sleep as you wanted because you just can't sleep. You're so excited to start the day. It's been a while since I've had that but that's what today is. So the CNC machine is built. All I have to do is some electrical and spoil board and that's it. But the machine itself is built and rather than doing that electrical and the spoil board work I figured you know what I need to get out here and run the sawmill because they don't have any wood piled up for me to use. So I want to cut beams today. Four by fours, four by six, six by sixes, five by fives, it really doesn't matter. I just want a bunch of beams that I can use to put on the sawmill to do some small scale timber framing. And when making the beams, so I'm kind of double dipping here, when I make the beams all the pieces that are around that center pith which is what I'm going to use for the beams I can use for one by material to sell. Today we are cutting pine. Pine is fine. This is loblolly pine specifically. So southern yellow pine like you'd see a big box store. I cut these trees down and stacked the logs up a little while ago so they've been sitting for a couple months. But I am going to start probably with this larger log. Now this log is pretty decent size so I think I can get a 12 inch cant out of this and if I can that's nine, essentially four by fours, about four inches minus the kerf of the blade. So I might do that with this one and run through the pith. Some of these because I'll go through the pith unevenly if I do that. Actually if I do a 12 by 12 cant then that's a grid of nine so the center one should still be somewhat on the pith and that should be a pretty stable material. But typically the the post or the beam comes out of the center pith for stability reasons. But I may end up getting a lot out of that big one and then probably all these smaller ones. I don't know how many I can get to today but probably the smaller ones will just be one beam and one by material off the top. And I say I don't know how many I can get to today because today is going to be hot the entire eastern United States is going through a heat wave. So after 11 o'clock in the morning time to go inside. We're getting started today at, what time is it? It is 640, no it's not 645. That's my normal alarm. It's 620 in the morning. We're getting started and because it is hot and I want to get as much as I can done probably not going to talk much at all. I want to get out here and and do this these do some sawmill videos where essentially like SketchUp where I'm narrating my thoughts I guess you could say and gives you a little bit more insight on what's involved with with running the mill similar to my SketchUp videos. But I think today is going to be just a just a get it done day. So when you're turning a log into lumber you get the most stable lumber by sawing as flat as you can towards the grain. So that typically means you take a piece or two off one side rotate it take a piece or two off rotate it piece or two off rotate it and you work your way down the log and that'll give you the most stable material. But like I said I was trying to get a bunch of beams out of this first one and it didn't really work out that well. I just quit recording and just just kept cutting. So I got the nine beams out of the log that I wanted. These are not quite all symmetrical and that's okay. I knew that like I said when you don't follow the correct milling techniques all those stresses get released into one big chunk rather than being incrementally released out of all the boards. So this one's whoo buddy that's a banana and that's okay because while these irregular shaped beams are not great beams there are a lot of great components in those beams. So I wanted a stack like this that I could use to cut out some smaller sections and smaller pieces you know like knee braces some small horizontal connector pieces. So yeah that looks that looks depressing. Also there's way too many knots in this log. This log had a lot of knots and it was a little deceiving when I was in the log pile at how straight the log was because as soon as I put it on there I thought oh man this is probably going to go haywire. It did but like I said it's okay. Sometimes you can break the rules if you understand the outcome. These are not good beams but there's a lot of good components that will come from these beams. Log number two is much straighter than the first one. The pith is centered on both ends of the log so that's good. There's no bark on this. Why is there no bark on this? Well because of beetles. Beetles are killing pine trees around here and if you catch them fast enough they won't really get down deep into the wood. So this one got into the bark so the bark peels off really easily and when it does peel off it leaves behind this like it's like dirty mud stuff bug poop and I try to wipe all that off because it's essentially just dirt and mud and dirt is the enemy of all things sharp. So I try to get it removed on the intake side of my cut exit side of the cut. It's not that big of a deal but because this did have beetles this lumber and it's not going to be kiln dried this lumber can't be used for stuff that goes inside. It's still good for outdoor stuff like a chicken coop or a dog house or something like that and the guy who's getting this stuff knows that so no worries there. I'm not trying to spread these beetles all over the place. The guy who gets it understands that and knows that and he's local from where I live. So I'm getting the beam out of the middle good lumber all the way around it. Hot day indeed. Today was one of the hottest days of the year for us. Like I said the whole east United States is going through a heat wave and as a matter of fact my hometown in Michigan was actually one degree hotter today than it was here in Mississippi. So I'm feeling it for those folks up there. I grew up without air conditioning in Michigan. It's a hot one out there. I wanted to get six plus logs cut today however many we could get. I only got five. It was just hot. We ended up quitting at noon but I was able to get four six by six beams and nine four by four ish beams and all of these I'm going to keep for me to tinker around with on the CNC machine for some small scale timber framing and we also got around those beams 253 board feet of random width four quarter pine and I sell that locally for a dollar a board foot so that's 250 bucks plus some beams for the morning and I would say that that is not a bad morning's worth of work. Thanks for watching. This concludes the trip to the lumber store and I'll talk to you in the next one.