Woodmizer, Master, Scion, Looooong Day #3

My previously favorite sawyer, David, is doing his best to retire from milling lumber, so he suggested a mutual friend, Isak, who had just purchased a brand new Woodmizer.  I was certainly weary of someone with only 8 hours on their machine, but knew he was rather adept in many other ways and would probably be able to do a fine job.  Despite the attempts at retiring, David just couldn't help but come hang out around the mill and give some great pointers.  Wooohooo!!!

Once again it got HOT, QUICK on that early June morning.  I knew I should have picked a better place to pile tho logs, but the choice I made seemed to make sense in so many other ways.  The first log was the slowest.  I got it from a neighbor while bucking some logs for firewood.  This one had my chain dull within 5 bucks and I thought it must be a pretty darn dense wood that would be good for flooring, countertop, or cabinetry.  I also wanted it more or less quarter-sawn, which is quite a slow process.  I was immediately impressed with Isak's attentiveness and patience when he stopped after getting the log down to a rough cant and said he wanted to change the blade.  He had only made two cuts at that point, at an hour and a half into our obviously long workday, but noticed some slight bumpiness of the cant face.

After that we started zipping through logs.

Fortunately I had the trailer setup downhill from the mill and Isak was able to use the push bar to assist me in pulling off the milled lumber...CRUCIAL! 
He also got the computer dialed in so he could come back, flip a switch and start sawing the next board without any fidgeting... also crucial!

Working on sawing and flipping a curvy log to be used for who knows what.

Flipping with the hydraulics.

It didn't want to be sawn...

Snack, lunch, snack...keep going or wait til tomorrow?....Keep going, get it done.  Almost Two Thousand(double my estimations) board feet and 11 hours later we were clipping in the hitches on the mill and trailer and getting ready to head home home.  We took a little time to chill in the quiet, shady grass and handle the financial business.  Plenty of mess left for me to clean up...stickers galore, a loaded trailer of lumber, a sawdust out the wazoo, plus enough slabs to put under my electric fence so I don't have to weedeat it every week!

Tip:  If you're felling, dragging, and hiring cutting your own logs for lumber get a Woodmizer or other bandsaw miller to do the job.  It'll make all the work up to milling essentially worth double.  I estimated my board footage using the 1/4" International Log Scale and was guessing I'd get about One Thousand board feet.

Later that week I snow shoveled the sawdust around to try to get it somewhat dry so I could eventually store it somewhere to use for the composting toilet.  It should be really good stuff as I breaks down quite readily.