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Nails & Junk

Started by jdtuttle, September 11, 2008, 11:47:34 AM

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jdtuttle

I know most of you have had this problem & I am looking for the best approach. I am getting "free logs"(except for the cost of blades i'm using) from the highway dept. As you know trees along the roads have lots of junk in them. I hate to turn them away though. The guys are painting them for me where they see posted signs. I skin the bark and get most of the nails but always seem to miss a few. What's the best way to find junk? Metal detector? if that's the best way do you have any suggestions on a good inexpensive one? They bring me oak, cherry, pine etc. so i hate to turn them away.
jim
Have a great day

Dan_Shade

I use a metal detector, then make a series of shallow plunges with a chainsaw until I hit metal, then I dig it out.  a crescent nail puller works well for pulling nails with no heads.
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

GF

I always put a new blade on, it has a tendency to find metal real quick.  ;)

DR_Buck

Quote from: GF on September 11, 2008, 04:43:22 PM
I always put a new blade on, it has a tendency to find metal real quick.  ;)


What he said !    ;D
Been there, done that.   Never got caught [/b]
Retired and not doing much anymore and still not getting caught

mike_van

I use an old [20 years?] Whites Coinmaster -  It's not state of the art for sure, but it's saved me a lot of bunged up blades.
I was the smartest 16 year old I ever knew.

brdmkr

I have a bounty hunter metal detector and it works fine for me in MOST cases.  Sometimes metal is buried so deep that I don't pick it up until the blade does the detecting.
Lucas 618  Mahindra 4110, FEL and pallet forks, some cant hooks, and a dose of want-to

Tom Sawyer

I agree with the two previous contributers - my sawmill is much better at finding metal than a metal detector.  Actually, I do use a metal detector sometimes, but usually only when I am resawing reclaimed wood and the nails are easy to remove.  For logs, my opinion is that the time spent scanning and searching for metal is better spent sawing and changing the blade if I hit something.

Tom

bandmiller2

Jim,I would do several things,do get a metal detector a simple one will do.If you get alot of hits with the detector cut the butt log for firewood.Stripping the bark helps ,also watch for discoloration in the wood wile you mill,recheck with the detector.Sharpen and set your own bands,with care the wood you get is worth the risk.Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

Dan_Shade

i find it way less frustrating to use a metal detector prior to starting sawing.  it takes a while to get a band out of a cut sometimes...  If I think there is metal, I scan, even if I am charging the owner for band damage.
Woodmizer LT40HDG25 / Stihl 066 alaskan
lots of dull bands and chains

There's a fine line between turning firewood into beautiful things and beautiful things into firewood.

jdtuttle

Thanks for the replys and help. I'll start looking for a metal detector. Your right about finding metal as soon as you put a new blade on. I just finished sawing a 34" pine log and and used two blades to get through it. Pretty wood though.
jim
Have a great day

ARKANSAWYER


  You have to watch the metal detector,  It has to be set to pick up iron (Fe).  I had a log the other day and I ruined two blades and charged the guy.  He was mad because the logs had no metal in them because he scaned them.  He brought the metal detector in and ran it over the boards with nails in them and it did not pick  them up.  It has a Fe filter and had to be turned off.  Once the switch was thrown it beeped on the nails.  He paid the $40 for the blades.
  I run 0.055 blades and when I hit metal I just touch up the teeth with a chainsaw file and keep cutting as long as it will go.  But a new blade will find the nails faster then any thing.





  Some times you just luck out and get very close.  I notice the stain and knocked the bark off to see the nail.  Wished it happened more often.
ARKANSAWYER

Qweaver

A guy just brought me a walnut log to saw that had a large limb and will be OK if we cut it in two 4' pieces.  He also had what he thought was a veneer butt log, but when he took it to sale they found metal and would not buy it.  It's a really nice log and I wonder if we could saw carefully using the detector and justify the potential loss of a blade?
So Many Toys...So Little Time  WM LT28 , 15 trailers, Case 450 Dozer, John Deere 110 TLB, Peterson WPF 10",  AIM Grapple, Kubota 2501 :D

Tom Sawyer

Quote from: Qweaver on September 12, 2008, 03:14:24 PM
A guy just brought me a walnut log to saw that had a large limb and will be OK if we cut it in two 4' pieces.  He also had what he thought was a veneer butt log, but when he took it to sale they found metal and would not buy it.  It's a really nice log and I wonder if we could saw carefully using the detector and justify the potential loss of a blade?

I wouldn't think twice.  A veneer walnut butt log would be worth several ruined blades.  And, it is rare (in my experience) that any log actually completely destroys a blade anyway.

Tom

ARKANSAWYER


  OH Yes they will!   :o   I have torn up $60 worth of blades in logs before throwing them off the mill.   You hit a tooth from a cotton picker and you for sure will know what toothless is all about. (Southern sawyers will know what I mean)
  Look at the money to be made from the log.  The log I ruined two blades in produced 15 1x12x8' boards all over 1C, 3 1x4x8' clear, 9 1x6x8', 1 2x10x7', 1 1x9x6' and a 4x4x8'.  Thats about 190 bdft from a 200 bdft log.  Sawing cost was $47.5 + blade cost $40.00 = 87.50.  $87.5 / 190 = $0.46 bdft.  I think I could afford a few more blades.
ARKANSAWYER

pineywoods

Quote from: ARKANSAWYER on September 13, 2008, 10:46:06 AM

  OH Yes they will!   :o   I have torn up $60 worth of blades in logs before throwing them off the mill.   You hit a tooth from a cotton picker and you for sure will know what toothless is all about. (Southern sawyers will know what I mean)


Arky I have hit a few of them cotton picker spindles myself. Still have no idea why anybody would pound one into a tree.  I finally gave up on a 200 yr old walnut that was full of 50 cal mini-balls and railroad spikes..
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
100k bd ft club.Charter member of The Grumpy old Men

Tom Sawyer

Not too many cotton picker teeth in the walnut around here! ;D

Tom

wannabeonetoo

Not that much decent walnut either!!!!  ;D ;D (none to speak of really !!) around here.
And if so, how can you get at it ???
   Steve  :D

Chuck White

One thing that a band saw will not cut through is a "sheet rock" screw.

And....... they just round the teeth right off.   Blade lost!

~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

bandmiller2

Its kinda easy to tell which logs have the tramp metal ,its always the most beautiful perfect shaped ones.People don't hammer hardware in ugly trees.Frank C.
A man armed with common sense is packing a big piece

backwoods sawyer

I like those aluminum nails the surveyors use. They are soft enough to cut with out any damage to the blade and they do not stain the wood. Files and insulators are the worst.

Most nails that I have hit have not totaled a band, and after setting the teeth and sharpening fully most bands are back up to top performance, some take a second go around and I usually find something that I missed the first time that caused the saw to not run right.

I have hit rail road spikes with saws and after some time in the filing room been able to get them back to cutting good. Hitting metal is not the worst thing that can happen. It is however time consuming, wedging the saw out, changing the saw, extra time in the filling room.

I was called out to a mill up a 48"-56" Oak the log owner had checked it over thoroughly with a metal detector and gave it the all clear. Before I got out of the truck I had spotted heavy black stain. After quartering the log so it could be milled I showed the log owner the 3 nails that I had hit with the chainsaw and let him know that there was more then likely a lot more still in the log and since he had insisted that the tree was clear I had just brought a new box of saws. He insisted on milling the log as log as I did not use more then 10 saws.

Eight saws, two dozen nails, a lag bolt, a piece of cable later, the lumber was all stacked, the customer was happy and I did not want to see another black stain in a log. I tracked the life of those saws. Two cracked after the next use and the rest lived as long as the two that had not been damaged.
Backwoods Custom Milling Inc.
100% portable. . Oregons largest portable sawmill service, serving all of Oregon, from our Backwoods to yours..sawing since 1991

Meadows Miller

Gday

Ive Hit more than My fair share of nails and junk in logs most of it in what people call sawlogs  :D It makes Your head  :) when the truck arrives and You are looking at metal and wires hanging out of the log one Bloke I worked for in a pine mill use to LOVE getting cheap logs  :D wind break pine mainly that He paid for at about $44 to $60 per ton for delivered from parttime loggers/treeloppers then I had one run that lasted about 2 weeks sawing dunnage almost every second peice had a nail or part of one left in it  :D  then He would come over when I was sharpening the saw  >:(and say thats th 4th time Ive seen you doing it today Id just say well You brought those bloddy logs I told you the whole pile  had metal in it apart from about a dossen logs out of a hundred ton  ::) They where allmost all butt logs from a wind break along a fence line the ones that didnt have any thing in them where 3rd and head logs .

When people findout that Ive done and still do alot of recycled timber remilling the first thing they usually say that must be hard on the saws or You must hit alot of metal  :D The only thing I hit on a regular basis in about 5 to 10% of logs is wire nails that fishermen or someone has put in at some stage of the warfs or bridges life that have rusted off everything else that I could hit nails bolts and spikes are usually in a pretty pradictable pattern so Ive never used a matal detector Ive never seen the need to as the odd one I hit genaraly does neglagable damage to the arsaw super tct insert bits I run  I probly loose less than 5% as a complete loss in a heavy strike  so to lose 5 out of a hundred teeth is not that bad as I get a full life out of the rest of them.

weird stuff Ive hit overthe years are a Insulator a 14" long 1.5" dia  gal eye bolt and a 18 dia steel radial tyre  all these things I didnt find untill Id hit them  The  funny one was the tyre it was 4' up from the but on a 3'6" dia manna gum log that I found out later came from a caravan park It looked like a A grade log on the deck  :o :) ;) :D

Reguards Chris
4TH Generation Timbergetter

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