Today....

rico said:
I would certainly miss living around big trees, but working in them everyday at my age.. Maybe not so much? When a large majority of your work is way over 125 ft it brings a unique set of stressors. Like all tree work the physical stress is there, but as I have gotten older its the stress on the nervous system that I feel the most. Our brains know the difference between working at 65 ft and working at 185 ft, and no matter how comfortable you are working aloft you can’t completely override the alarm bells going off in your noggin. After 3-4 days in a row of smashing tall timber and I need to recuperate for a couple days with meditation, breathwork, gardening in the sun, tasks that don’t involve me leaving the ground, and as little human contact as possible. Thats where I am at right now. . A sunny morning in the garden doing breath work, getting a jump on next winters firewood (split and stacked 3/4’s of a cord of bone dry standing dead madrone), and milling some fir ( I got 7 beautiful 4x10's and a bunch of arrow straight 2x4's out of this log). The perfect down day!

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I’ll bet the topsoil around your place is legendary with all the sawyer’s dust you pile up. That’s awesome. I always love your tree work pictures, but the lucas milling pictures may be my favorite of yours.

I’d like to get one someday. I have a woodmizer lt15 at the moment and I can do a lot with it (when I find the bloomin’ time…) but I really want to mill bigger, easier and the lucas mill seems like a good solution. Did it break the bank buying that thing?
 
Bendroctanus said:
I’ll bet the topsoil around your place is legendary with all the sawyer’s dust you pile up. That’s awesome. I always love your tree work pictures, but the lucas milling pictures may be my favorite of yours.

I’d like to get one someday. I have a woodmizer lt15 at the moment and I can do a lot with it (when I find the bloomin’ time…) but I really want to mill bigger, easier and the lucas mill seems like a good solution. Did it break the bank buying that thing?
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I bought my Lucas 10/30 from Baileys about 10 years ago and think I payed around $18,500 with add ons like the slabber attachment, rail extensions, and the jig for beveled siding. Along with marrying my wife, buying real estate, and my 518 grapple skidder buying the Lucas was one of the best decision I have made in my life. I LOVE this thing.
 
Bendroctanus said:
Beautiful.

Thanks for sharing. I feel like I don’t need to demo it after watching you use it.

Did you build your house with the lumber you milled?
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We are actually in the middle of finalizing plans for a 900 square foot old school board and batten cabin that will be built on this property. And yes it will be built completely from trees I killed, logs I skidded, lumber i milled, and shingles I made. Fuck your plywood and OSB.

The cabin in the photos was built in 1916 and is pretty rough shape. A true old loggers cabin. We will continue to live in it until we are finished with the new cabin which will be further back in the woods. Once we are done I am going to do a major restoration on the old cabin, which will include getting it back to its original smaller size. It will become my wife’s office and yoga space, and a place for quest to stay.

We have another place further north where we built a beautiful cabin out of my homegrown lumber so hopefully we learned a thing or two and the process will go smoother and more efficient this time around?
 
rico said:
We are actually in the middle of finalizing plans for a 900 square foot old school board and batten cabin that will be built on this property. And yes it will be built completely from trees I killed, logs I skidded, lumber i milled, and shingles I made. Fuck your plywood and OSB.

The cabin in the photos was built in 1916 and is pretty rough shape. A true old loggers cabin. We will continue to live in it until we are finished with the new cabin which will be further back in the woods. Once we are done I am going to do a major restoration on the old cabin, which will include getting it back to its original smaller size. It will become my wife’s office and yoga space, and a place for quest to stay.

We have another place further north where we built a beautiful cabin out of my homegrown lumber so hopefully we learned a thing or two and the process will go smoother and more efficient this time around?
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Duuuuuuuude!!!! Man it’s like you’re in my brain! That’s awesome!! I really think there is something special about building your own house, especially if you make your own lumber. Haha you can tell everyone it’s “locally sourced!” I have my own aspirations to do that same.

Are you gonna stick frame it or timber frame it?
 
Bendroctanus said:
Duuuuuuuude!!!! Man it’s like you’re in my brain! That’s awesome!! I really think there is something special about building your own house, especially if you make your own lumber. Haha you can tell everyone it’s “locally sourced!” I have my own aspirations to do that same.

Are you gonna stick frame it or timber frame it?
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Perimeter foundation with floors and walls stick framed in full D fir. All ceilings will be vaulted open beam. Trusses will be timber framed with mortis/tenon using full D 3”x8” OG redwood and full D 1”x10” OG redwood for the ceiling boards. Just a beautiful look. Exterior siding will be redwood board/batten. No plywood will be used for sheer and instead we will use let-in bracing on the wall framing for sheer. How they have been doing it for centuries. Moisture barrier will be Jumbo Tex breathable felt and then board/batten with me nailed directly to the framing/blocking using the old school method of one nail in the center of the board and one nail in the center of the batten. This allows the wood the expand and contract with the seasons and prevents splitting.

Same for the floors. No plywood for subfloor. Full D 1.5”x 5” vertical grain T&G fir flooring will nail directly onto joists. Again like they have been doing it for centuries. Interior walls will be 1”x8” ship lap using rabbit jointed fir that will be white washed with milk paint. All interior and exterior doors will be made from redwood and all window will be restored old single pane wavy glass windows. Efficiency be damned.
 
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Today's last tree on the crane job was a bitch. It cost me my saw lanyard, @oceans. They were both big spruce trees. The second was 110-115' away from the turret. The top pick wasn't bad .... a little warning bells on the crane as he was boomed back a bit, cheating the pick. I don't recall the weight but it wasn't a lot of top. About 25' and 16'' dia at my cut. The second pick we decided to only take 6' since the top was on the heavy side. That piece weighed 5000lbs. Damn heavy brush. The last standing was 30'ish tall. We changed tactics. The plan was to drop all the brush at the tree then notch a face cut, hold the spar and lower with the crane after the back cut. Section it on the ground and pick them out with the crane in 2 pieces. After I strapped up the top, I remained tied in to the ball dropping brush on my way down. In the process the lanyard got caught in the saw and even jammed up in the rim sprocket. I couldn.t pull it out.

Time to make another.
Anyone have a good source for T-rex hollow braid? I couldn't find it at Wespur. Won't do TS or Sherrill.
 
rico said:
Perimeter foundation with floors and walls stick framed in full D fir. All ceilings will be vaulted open beam. Trusses will be timber framed with mortis/tenon using full D 3”x8” OG redwood and full D 1”x10” OG redwood for the ceiling boards. Just a beautiful look. Exterior siding will be redwood board/batten. No plywood will be used for sheer and instead we will use let-in bracing on the wall framing for sheer. How they have been doing it for centuries. Moisture barrier will be Jumbo Tex breathable felt and then board/batten with me nailed directly to the framing/blocking using the old school method of one nail in the center of the board and one nail in the center of the batten. This allows the wood the expand and contract with the seasons and prevents splitting.

Same for the floors. No plywood for subfloor. Full D 1.5”x 5” vertical grain T&G fir flooring will nail directly onto joists. Again like they have been doing it for centuries. Interior walls will be 1”x8” ship lap using rabbit jointed fir that will be white washed with milk paint. All interior and exterior doors will be made from redwood and all window will be restored old single pane wavy glass windows. Efficiency be damned.
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I canNOT wait to see pictures. That’s awesome man. Truly remarkable. I appreciate your sticking to the old ways. Newer isn’t always better.

And efficiency doesn’t necessarily have to mean fast. It may take more time, but it will mean less in the long run if you do it right.
 
Still overwhelmingly busy after getting sick last week. Trying to catch up on friends, family and the forum. Had a nice diverse work list this week: some squirrely dying madrones, doing major deadwood on around 100 trees on a 125(?) year old orchard, removing a large dead doug fir by a house, inspecting a problem cedar, looking at some 150' dead or dying grand firs to fell and so on.

Ended my Friday today by getting both trucks stuck in the mud at the same time. Thanks to the fact I do a lot of off roading and getting stuck, I had the necessary traction mats and straps to free ourselves without outside help. Still, kept me from getting done the last little bit of work the customer asked for.

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96coal449 said:
Today's last tree on the crane job was a bitch. It cost me my saw lanyard, @oceans. They were both big spruce trees. The second was 110-115' away from the turret. The top pick wasn't bad .... a little warning bells on the crane as he was boomed back a bit, cheating the pick. I don't recall the weight but it wasn't a lot of top. About 25' and 16'' dia at my cut. The second pick we decided to only take 6' since the top was on the heavy side. That piece weighed 5000lbs. Damn heavy brush. The last standing was 30'ish tall. We changed tactics. The plan was to drop all the brush at the tree then notch a face cut, hold the spar and lower with the crane after the back cut. Section it on the ground and pick them out with the crane in 2 pieces. After I strapped up the top, I remained tied in to the ball dropping brush on my way down. In the process the lanyard got caught in the saw and even jammed up in the rim sprocket. I couldn.t pull it out.

Time to make another.
Anyone have a good source for T-rex hollow braid? I couldn't find it at Wespur. Won't do TS or Sherrill.
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Try the thinner branch saver stuff. It’s a tightly woven black hollow braid.I have some 3/8” or 1/2” stuff that I use for all sorts of things.
 
27RMT0N said:
Still overwhelmingly busy after getting sick last week. Trying to catch up on friends, family and the forum. Had a nice diverse work list this week: some squirrely dying madrones, doing major deadwood on around 100 trees on a 125(?) year old orchard, removing a large dead doug fir by a house, inspecting a problem cedar, looking at some 150' dead or dying grand firs to fell and so on.

Ended my Friday today by getting both trucks stuck in the mud at the same time. Thanks to the fact I do a lot of off roading and getting stuck, I had the necessary traction mats and straps to free ourselves without outside help. Still, kept me from getting done the last little bit of work the customer asked for.

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I may have already suggested this to you but hearing you’re stuck…a friend of mine just bought a surplus LMTV and put my old chip body onto it. That thing can’t get stuck period.
 
27RMT0N said:
Still overwhelmingly busy after getting sick last week. Trying to catch up on friends, family and the forum. Had a nice diverse work list this week: some squirrely dying madrones, doing major deadwood on around 100 trees on a 125(?) year old orchard, removing a large dead doug fir by a house, inspecting a problem cedar, looking at some 150' dead or dying grand firs to fell and so on.

Ended my Friday today by getting both trucks stuck in the mud at the same time. Thanks to the fact I do a lot of off roading and getting stuck, I had the necessary traction mats and straps to free ourselves without outside help. Still, kept me from getting done the last little bit of work the customer asked for.

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How do you like the Tango StatX?
 
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