Hemlock Headaches
Just to get to this point of saw milling sometimes a lot of little things have to get done.
Today for us it starts with moving some product around. Finding space for three skids of spruce lumber, a skid of ash, moving machinery and dealing with cranky machinery which in turn makes Jim a cranky person. Sometimes 🙂
Once everything is working (more or less) its time to make up time. Grab a few hemlock logs from the pile and get them on the crib next to the saw mill.
Roll on the log, assess how to cut the log and then let’s open up the log to reveal its secrets.
Unfortunately we’re seeing a lot of low grade hemlock. That means a lot of wastage. Of 6 logs we milled this day, 3 were literally thrown into the scrap pile. (see pallet forks below).
What we are finding are soft spots within the logs, and some of the logs are suffering from wind shake (ring shake), which compounds the problems.
Of the six logs we milled, averaging 12- 16 inches in diameter, we could only manage to get twenty seven hemlock 1×4, what I would consider C grade.
At the end of it all, there’s the saw dust to clean up. As fine as the sands you see at a beach.