Honduras Mission with Pictures Youtube added

[MartyParsons]

Hello,
I am headed to East cost of Honduras to help a community. They have a 15 hp bandmill. Any ideas what blade would be the best? What would be the most common wood we may be sawing? Sounds funny me asking the questions. If you have information that may help, I would be very thankful. I am meeting with the Mission on Thursday. We are going to discuss what the community needs. I am going to be the teacher for a week on their sawmill.
Marty

[backwoods sawyer]

When I was in Honduras back in 89 (building a school outside of Yoro) I was not paying to much attention to what types of wood they were using, but it was softwood that was used for making forms. I would think that you would want to take saws for both hardwood and softwood, but I am not fermilure with what runs best on an LT-15. I run 10* for hardwood and 13* for softwood, however, that may be a bit much for the LT-15.
Be careful you may enjoy the trip to much and not want to come home.  ;D

[Bodger]

In northeastern El Salvador, on the Hounuran border we see four different degrees of wood hardness.  There is one that resembles Bubinga, it's pretty hard and impervious to water, one that resembles our White Oak and one that remind me of Poplar.  There is really no pine to speak of unless you go further west towards Tegucigalpa.  If I were packing blades and only had limited space it would be 10°.  Now I do not know about those with a 15hp mill.  My only experience is with a 24hp WM.  But comparing what I cut here and what I see there (most of it cut with a chainsaw - freehand) I'd say 10's.   

[jdtuttle]

I don't have advice on which blades to use but I do want to thank you for helping folks in need. I would also like to thank woodmizer for sending you there, unless of course your taking vacation time & doing this on your own then you have my deepest respect. My sister does mission work & has been to several 3rd world countries. Not sure of the conditions where you're going but be careful.
Jim

[MartyParsons]

Thanks for the info. I met with the missionary today here at the shop. It sounds like there is some pine with sap and some hardwood. He said they would be sawing pine cants. They need forming material for cement, siding for buildings and framing material. Wood-Mizer is not sending me. Our church has supported this mission for some time. I was invited to a meeting not even related to the mission and started talking to the missionary. A group came over to see our operation and they were not even thinking of this for their mission. I received a call about a week later. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
Our family offered to help. I thought maybe next year. They said how about in April. I said yes let's do it.
I have 4 degree and 9 degree blades ready to ship. I might send some 10 along just in case.
The are also sending about 600 bicycles in the container. 
The missionary also picked out two orange Log Rites to add to the container.
Marty

[backwoods sawyer]

Enjoy the trip.
I know I would make the trip again if I had the opportunity.

[woodmills1]

Very nice Marty


just very nice

[John S]

Have a safe trip and God bless you, Marty.  My brother just went back to Africa yesterday.
John

[Warren]

Marty,

May God Bless you and keep you safe...  And don't forget... PICTURES ! ! !   

Look forward to your return.

-w-

[MartyParsons]

Yes I will do my best to get some pictures. My son just got a new camera so I will see if he can get some good pictures. There is no communication from where we are going. The missionary has some kind of ham radio system to call out. It sounded complicated.

Thanks for all your prayers.

Marty

[Wallys World]

Let me know the dates so I can put you on our prayer list at our church, Rustburg Baptist, Rustburg, VA. Prayer is a mighty thing.

[MartyParsons]

Hello all thanks for your prayers!
We left April 19 and returned Monday April 26th.
We had many experiences as you could guess. The mill was held up in the customs department until Saturday April 24th. We received the container about 10am Saturday morning (I think the temp was about 110 degrees). There were other items on the 20' container besides the LT15D10. Mostly bicycles about 1200. We did not have access to a forklift and we had 2 hours to unload everything.  . We did have lots of strong backs. They lifted the saw head up and we pulled the bed rails out, we then backed the small truck up to the container and lower the saw head onto one of the bed sections. Very tricky when you don't know the language, communication was lacking.
We then loaded all of the parts onto two trucks and went back to the shop. We assembled the mill and the trailer package. We needed to move the mill to the village before it got dark and get them their training. (Our flight left on Sunday at 2 pm and we were about 6 hours from the airport) We got the mill to the location but there were no logs, no chainsaw, and no tractor. We did a test cut on a 4x4 cant of some type of pine. The missionary called the man in charge of logs and he said he needed a permit to cut a tree.  ???. We saw two guys going with a machete headed to the small grove of Palms. I said it would be nice to get a log about 12". In about 15 min they had cut the tree with the machete and tractor arrived and pulled the log down to the mill. We got the training completed with a flashlight. The tree we cut was not a palm, they said it was a hardwood. It is amazing what they cut with the machete. The log was about 15" on the big end.

I will try to get some pictures posted.
There are many other stories if you want more. Don't want to bore you.

Marty

[sgschwend]

Keep the stories and picture coming, no one will be bored.

[backwoods sawyer]

Good to see you made it back with some good times under your belt, look forward to hearing more.  8)

[MartyParsons]

Well you dont need to pay to get into the country but you need to pay to get out! We arrive to Honduras on Monday Morning arount 2 pm.


Truck arrives on Saturday at 11 am, It is over 100 degrees. We are unloading in the street.



A little rough unloading the mill with a weight of 1000 lbs    But with a little help from our friends we get it off the truck



We had all the parts but seems they left the manuals out of the box. I did have my laptop and we got the manuals. Quite a blessing when we havent had any internet connection until the mill arrives.  Here you see some discussion on how it would go toghther.

[Wallys World]

Glad to hear you did well and had a safe trip!

[Ironwood]

A GOOD machete is hard to find, but when you get a GOOD one in your hands you know it.  I have a WW2 US Army machete I bartered w/ a Royal Aussie Regiment guy to get., while I was stationed in Hawaii. The US Govt must have given them a bunch of stuff at one point. It is ALWAYS under the seat of my truck. Really high quality, even the steel. Ive never seen another like it. It could chop down a tree as good as an axe.

Good of you to help them out, and it sounds like your son got some great experience as well .


       Ironwood

 

[DanG]

Marty, I'm sorry I didn't see this until after your return.  Recalling my trip to Haiti in '80, I could have warned you that this would be the best "vacation" you ever took.  As time goes on, your appreciation of it will only increase.  You never seem to accomplish everything you set out to do, but do so many things you didn't anticipate that the trip is always a success.  Just the knowledge that you have done something meaningful for someone will bless you for all of your days.

[sigidi]

Great to hear - keep the stories coming ;D 8)

[bandmiller2]

Marty,you never really know a man unless you've worked with him, that goes for a people too.It is amazing sometimes what they can do with nothing.Most americans are blind to anything but our way and don't take the time or have the intrest to learn the outher way.No doubt Marty you learned as much as they did.Frank C.

[Ironwood]

After returning from a Peruvian trip 10 years ago, watching our Peruvian friends hike for a week and a half in sandles made from tire treads (used) from 13,000-17,000' the absurdity of or American exsistence came upon our return and my (perhaps once a year trip to a Mall) . My wife and I looked for a gift at Lecthers (kitchen stuff) and saw an electric pepper grinder. Man if you cannot grind it, perhaps you shouldn't be eating! :

Ironwood

[MartyParsons]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RD8k1Etap8

Let me know what you think.

Thanks for helping me out. With the link.

[Hilltop366]

I think I can't open the link, I get a error.     ?

[vadimo]

The link is mischmasch :-) This is correct:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RD8k1Etap8

[Wallys World]

Great video! What a trip! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Magicman]

Thanks for sharing what surely must have been a very rewarding trip for you.  I hope that Orange Machine provides lumber for a very long time.

[Hilltop366]

It works now, Great vid, thanks for sharing Marty.

[WDH]

Marty, what a trip!  I bet that sawmill will get a lot of use once word gets out.

[Log2Lmbr]

Marty,

   I've made 8 trips to eastern Honduras, to smaller villages out from Puerto Lempira on medical/dental missions.   There has been a LT-30 diesel in the village of Mocoron, south of Pto Lempira.  I did an alignment on that mill about 4 years ago.

   There was/is a lot of WoodMizer milling (several mills) activity in Nicaragua after the last hurricane hit there, leveling millions of bd ft of timber.

   What I've seen in this are is Caribbean Pine, very rich in rosin.   Keeping the blade clean is a big problem

   I can put you in touch with the missionary who organized the massive effort in Nicaragua if you want. 

David   

[MartyParsons]

Caribbean Pine that must of been the first piece we sawed. They did not have any logs so I grabed a 5" cant and did the demo. The blade was packed with resin in seconds. They did say the termites would not bother it. The missionary said they still have not recieved the permits to cut Timber or even a log yet. They did get one tree down before it got dark.
Gosh the chiggers just stoped itching last week. I think they liked me.
Thanks for all of the positive comments.
Marty