Wood working – Page 2 – Beautiful Chaos

We had a big mobile sawmill in the yard

One week of heavy duty work and much to sort out and clean up afterwards

People ordered too much construction wood with us to mill it all our selves, so we organized someone with a mobile sawmill for an entire week. That where 5 days of heavy duty working, but we sawed almost all of our softwood. We only have some larch wood logs which we have to cut into boards left.

We started with 2 small stacks of logs, but right at the beginning of the week we received a lorry with more logs. We cut about 60 M^3.

We where prepared. We cleared a big space in the yard for the sawmill and made space to put all of the cut lumber. We also prepared more than enough spacers. We had a trailer from a local farmer to fill with the sawdust.

The mobile sawmill was automated and could lift the logs on the saw bed it self. Also the logs could be turned as needed. The cutting went relatively quickly and one tractor was standing by to take of the lumber and one tractor brought new logs.

Attached to the sawmill was a big bucket for collecting the sawdust. This bucket was emptied in the trailer. At the end we filled 3 trailers with sawdust, but underneath the sawmill still was enough left behind.

After we finished and where cleaning and packing the sawmill we found a big problem. The plug connection at the sawmill hat shorted out and partially melted. We where lucky we did not have a fire.

Here are some pictures of the chaos left after the sawmill left. The stack of strips on the first picture will be cut into spacers.

This was a lot of work properly stacking and sorting the lumber, but when it is almost finished it looks like this.

We have reduced all of the prepared spacers and still are not quite finished.

Although some lumber is already with the customers, because they where eager the get it. The rounded sides of the logs are happily taken by people for firewood, so from this is also gone.

We also found some artistic peaces of wood where we want to make some decoration with.

Our new composter

A quick and easy build

Our small composter is full and we needed a new one. My husband has built a new and bigger one out of leftover wood we had sitting. He made it nice and sturdy with heavy lids, so the dogs can not get in there. The composter is about 1 x 2 meters and 1 meter high and very heavy, so we put it in place with a wheel loader. When the composter is full and the compost is ready to be turned over we will just lift the composter and set it aside to access the compost. As a finishing tough we made a wood chip pad to the composter, so we do not have to walk trough the mud.

From tree to bench

Starting with an Oak log, finishing with an Oak bench

We wanted to make a beautiful rustic oak bench and share the building process with you, but at the beginning we forgot to make pictures. Therefore we start this blog post with getting the raw material and then comes the test fitting and finishing of the bench. After that we started making a second bench so we could share the complete building process with you. So the order in which the building process is presented is a bit mixed up.

As already mentioned a few times on this blog, we saw our logs ourselves. We had some nice Oak logs we have sawn to slabs. After some drying time we started making our bench.

Now we step in at test fitting the seat, feet and cross bar of the bench.

After test fitting the bench my husband started making the holes in the underside of the seat for the feet to fit in. Then the feet are glued in and made sure to be in a 90° angle.

After turning the bench the holes for dowels are drilled in to extra secure the feet. The dowels have a small slot so the air underneath can escape wile hammering in the dowel. Of course the dowel is also glued in.

After a drying time of a day the dowels are sawed of and sanded nice and smooth.

With one of the dowels there was a small cut out in the dowel which needed to be fixed. So my husband drilled a small hole at the damaged spot and hammered a small dowel in there. This also was sawed of and sanded smooth. This gives a nice detail to the bench.

Next ting is to work on the cross bar between the feet. This cross bar is to keep the feet in position and it gives the bench a beautiful rustic look. First my husband put the cross bar in position and marked the position of the feet. At the outside of the marks, holes are drilled in. The cross bar is put back in position and dowels are put trough the holes to lock in the feet.

Now this beautiful bench is finished and up for sale.

Now for the first part of building such a bench with our second bench build.

We start with cutting some boards to length for the different parts of the bench. All of the parts are planed nice and square. The feet are given a small V-shape at the bottom. This ads in a nice detail.

Then the slots for the feet at the under side of the seat are drawn in and made, this time before rounding of the edges of the different parts of the bench. This made measuring in the right spot a lot easier. For making these slots we started with drilling large holes over the entire length of the needed slot. Then we cleaned out the slot with a router and gave the slot a round over, so it is easier to slide the feet into the slot. After that we gave all of the edges of the seat a nice round over. This gives a nice finished look.

Next thing my husband started on the slot in the feet for sticking trough the cross bar, by drilling two holes. Before changing the router bit he rounded of the edges of the feet and the cross bar as well. Wile rounding of the edges at the cross bar the bit came lose and came out a bit more. This caused the round of to have a step in stead of a nice round edge. That is no big deal, but the cross bar needed to be done this way all around. Actually I find this gives the bench a more luxurious appearance.

Going on with the slot in the feet, the slot is cleaned out on both sides as deep as the router bit goes. The left over middle part is chiselled out and also rounded over.