weekend blues............

[ducknutt]

wife and I had the weekend off together.  with Fall in the air down here in mississippi, she asked me to spend it with her...(ignoring the 3 kids for a change)...I said sure....even though all I could think about was cutting logs....all was going great....had brunch, cleaned house a little, knocked a few honey-do's off my ever growing list...THEN she said the words i needed to hear...'honey, I need some shelves in my closet'....I hit the door like a bat outta h...." well you know....cause 3 days earlier I had sawed us some Beech lumber .....it was 1 inch thick, and 10 inches wide!  perfect for some shelves...
man, did i mention it to her how nice it was for us to have the sawmill, planer and such.....'see how convenient it is to have lumber at your fingertips'...well, my alligator mouth about overloaded my jaybird legs....MY HONEY DO LIST GREW EXPONENTIALLY........more shelves in closet/shoe racks/cabinets/drawers ect....oh and the real kicker....'since you can get wood for FREE why don't we go ahead and enclose the carport and make it a family room....with nice cabinets and hardwood floors...

ok I'll admit it.....i kinda got excited about the work too...

oh, almost forgot...she wants the staircase 'oaked'...

and 13 year old wants shelves upstairs in her closet too...

man have i opened a can of worms!!

and happy as a pig in slop!

[ducknutt]

oh, and I also found out the details on my woodmizer i got my hands on...it's a LT30, 1988 model.... with electric power feed and power head adjustment....briggs and stratton 16 hp engine with approx 1500 hrs...running like a champ..

[pineywoods]

Hey ducknutt, your story sounds awfully close to mine. I've already taken in the carport, built a bunch of cabinets and shelves, still have to do a bunch of finish molding (that required a planner-molder). Next you'll be wanting to upgrade that lt30 and get some kind of logging rig.  Got my hands on a 50hp Kubota witha front loader, built a hydraulic winch for it. Added hydraulics to my manual LT40 for about $600 bucks. Soon as I get around to making pictures, I'll post the details. You got the right idea, show mamma all the advantages of having a mill, just try to ignore the drawbacks.

[Captain]

My to-do list got me all of the toys tools that I have today...

Captain

[ducknutt]

thanks guys....few days ago i was helping a buddy build his house....he had LOWES delivering some supplies...truck pullep up and had one of those fork lifts that hook up to the rear of it....man, did that thing have my mouth watering....big tires for mud and such......

I just got on the woodmizer mailing list.....trying to figure out how i can convince the wife that another $572 a month payment willfit into our budget.....for the LT40 hydraulic.......might better wait til the carport is enclosed....baby steps...baby steps..

I've actually caught myself daydreaming about quitting my job and cutting logs all day....

I'm addicted.......worse than crack!

all i wanna do is look at those slabs! 

also in tha mail, I gotta a card from woodmizer saying they're putting on a show Oct 7 near me......the clark county fall festival.......I'm going to see how the big boys do it!

[pineywoods]

Just keep in mind, once the carport is enclosed, no place to park the grocery-hauling vehicle, so you will have to build an enclosed garage. Don't ask how I know!!!!! A forklift is nice to have around a mill, but they ain't worth nothin in the woods, I opted for a fair-sized tractor with a front-loader and homemade forks, plus a winch with 150 ft of cable on the back.

Where is clarke county?? didn't know woodmizer was gona be there.

[Don K]

pineywoods, Would you mind explaining a little about your winch as I couldn't quite make it out in the photos. I would love to have a rig like that.

[scgargoyle]

We're in the process of buying 7 acres of hardwood in SC- you can imagine the things that we are going to 'need'! I already told my wife that she's getting a Husky 359 for Christmas.

[scsmith42]

My to-do list got me all of the toys tools that I have today...

Captain

Ditto here.  Little did my wife know that when she asked for a home where she could keep some horses, that meant that I needed to buy a bulldozer in order to clear horse pastures!

<and the best part is, she thinks that off of these toy, uh I mean tools, are bought all for her!>

[ducknutt]

piney, clark county is in south east mississippi...on alabama line...bout 100 miles north of the coast....search 'mississippi counties' and you can see it...

paw in law has equipment we're gonna get going....he has a 4020 john deer that would work nicely....also has 3 larger JD's,  2 46??, and a 48??........2 dirtpans, and a D6 CAT...backhoe that we're gonna make forks for and use on front bucket.....man, I need more TIME!





and money

[pineywoods]

 
Don K: I assume you are referencing the pictures in my gallery.

I'll post some better pictures of the winch as soon as I can find my camera.  It's a simple rig, a 30 inch by 24 inch square frame made out of 2 inch square tubing. 2 pins and a top bracket to match up the 3-point hitch. There's a 8 inch stub sticking out the back that serves as the reciever for a standard receiver type ball hitch for towing the log trailer and attaching the log grapple. (OK it's upside down in the picture) the winch is a 6-ton ramsey (blue in the pix) originally pto driven, from a garbage truck, just bolted to the square tubing. the whole thing is chain driven with a hydraulic motor that came off an old tire changer. Chain and sprokets scrounged from a riding lawnmower. The motor runs off the tractor hydraulics. I have about $50 invested most of that for the cable. I considered powering the winch off the tractor pto, but decided against that. The U-joint angles with that short a shaft are too great.  Besides, the pto has no reverse, so you couldn't power outfeed cable. I normally don't use the winch to skid logs, I just back the tractor up to one end of the log, drop that big grapple over the log, then use the lift on the 3-point to raise the log a few inches off the ground. This puts half the weight of the log on the rear wheels. I've moved some 42 inch logs with an M series kubota. Have a friend who is building a similar setup using a 40 ton braden winch off a wrecker.
Don't be confused by all the hoses in the pix. Half of then go to a hydraulic cylinder that serves as the top link for the 3 point hitch. Another very handy gadget.

[Don K]

Thanks pineywoods. The explanation on the extra hoses cleared things up a good bit. I have been trying to figure out a way to fab a winch to go behind my tractor.It would be so handy at times when I can't get close enough to tong and toting 30' of logging chain gets old. I usually tote it in the FEL, but if I need to clear a path then there is the whole move the chain thing. If you can get clearer pics, I would be thankful. No hurry.