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#$&*?! grade stakes

Started by Engineer, November 02, 2004, 12:21:52 PM

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Engineer

So I took a 50 mile round trip with the guy who works for me, trying to get myself a bundle of grade stakes (I usually get 500-1000 per year) at a large sawmill I always go to.

I should never assume that just because they have made and have been selling pointed grade stakes by the tens of thousands for the past several decades, that they would still be making them and have some in stock.   >:(

So, aside from wasting four solid man-hours and five gallons of gas, I still have no stinkin' grade stakes.  They apparently sold their stake pointer in an auction, and now they just make pallet boards and firewood bundles.   I only went there 'cause I have no time to make 'em myself on my mill, and it's a pain to point them by hand with a table saw or miter saw.

But I guess I'm a'gonna have to.   Next time I'll call ahead.

Buzz-sawyer

Kevin H. makes em .....(from here on the forum) I know cause he showed me his shop :)
    HEAR THAT BLADE SING!

Murf

I saw one of those 'pointing mills' at a lumber yard near here recently.

It was a 1/2 hp electric motor running a $200 steel tenoning head the local machine shop made him, it was designed to run blades for a Makita power plane by a V-belt. The whole operation was then bolted to a small steel plate with a piece of angle iron for a fence.
If you're going to break a law..... make sure it's Murphy's Law.

sprucebunny

Well... someone better get busy making them cause I went to Paris Farmers Union, our local supply place and they had no 6 footers and had been out for awhile. Only got 4 &5 foot which is too short.
Guess I'll try making some with saplings and the beveled end cutter I got for making rustic furniture ( but ain't done it yet). The biggest challange will be finding saplings straight enough to pound in.  ;D
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

Engineer

I was buying the stakes at 45 cents each for random lengths between three and four feet.  Full four-footers were 50 cents each.  The past five years I've bought four thousand of them.  

The local lumberyard has four-footers for a dollar-twenty-nine EACH.  I HAD to get some last week, and casually asked the sales guy if they were running a three-for-one special, since that's what I'd expect for the price.   He was not amused.  I figure that the stake was thirty cents and the little annoying plastic bar-code tag stapled to EACH STAKE was the extra 99 cents.   :(

For two grand I can sure as heck make a stake pointer pay for itself over the next decade or so.

jimbo

  around here tobbacco sticks make some pretty good ones for next to nothing  4,1/2 ft  sharped on both ends  , thay dont need them buch anymore so thay are easley to comeby


                                                  jimbo

DanG

Looks like it's becoming more feasable to make'em yourself, don't it Jon? I got a idea how you could do it quick on yer Woodmizer, if yer interested. A fella could probably knock out several hundred in a couple of hours.

My thought is, cut a bunch of planks to a thickness you want your stake width to be. Fix up a simple jig so you could lay them horizontally, on an angle, to put a bevel on one end, then flip them over and bevel the other side to complete the point. Then just stack a half dozen or so on edge and slice off your stakes.

I hope that's at least as clear as mud. ??? ::)
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

Gilman

Dang has an idea there.  If I did it this way, I'd probably want to add a bigger band wiper.  I hate cutting little things like limb nubs.  You watch them dance for a moment on the band before they decide to go dancing with your drive wheel, or fall to the ground.  
WM LT70, WM 40 Super, WM  '89 40HD
Cat throwing champion 1996, 1997, 1999. (retired)

WH_Conley

DanG has the right idea, we made several thousand tobacco sticks that way before the market dried up. Our procedure was as tobacco sticks were short, to cut the log double or triple length, saw the lumber to thickness, stand it up on the mizer, cut again, take all the little squares and put them in a rack of 2x4's that was built just for that purpose, mark for length and cut with chain saw. My wife took the table saw and set the rip fence where wanted, takes some trial and error, stand behind it, put stick against fence and pull, done.Had some cross bucks made up to drop finished sticks in for tying.
    It seems that a woman is better at the manual dexterity stuff than a man, at least this man. She always got a laugh when I tried it, get in a hurry and forget some. She would put her walkman on to drown out the table saw and sharpen a couple of thousand a day.
    Well shoot, should have sold Engineer some instead of giving away the secret, oh well too far to haul em anyhow.
Bill

Larry

I think DanG has been peeking over my shoulder at my survey stake jig.  Works exactly as he described to put the points on.  Never cut any grade stakes as it seems like they want them with pencil points.  I'm gonna dig it out of the barn maybe in a month or so to cut some survey stakes so I can take a picture if anybody is interested.

Gilman your right about a wiper on a WM or maybe a guard.  On my Kasco the band turns away from me so not much body danger but those little points zing away sometimes at the speed of light.

WH,
Sawed bout a zillion tobacco sticks years ago.  Had an antique hand powered pointer that I put a electric motor on.  Betcha didn't know we got a tobacco market over this way at Weston MO.  It's all barn cured.
Larry, making useful and beautiful things out of the most environmental friendly material on the planet.

We need to insure our customers understand the importance of our craft.

WH_Conley

Larry, yur right, didn't know, we barn cured burley then started putting it on scaffolds due to labor. Oh well won't have to worry about it after the buyout. It used to pay the insurance on the farm and property taxes, now it won't do either. Goverment wants farmers to diversify, do to our small fields the only crop a person could make any money on the farm anymore would get you in jail. I just wish so much of my hillside farm had not of been cleaned up years ago, worth more to grow timber on than anything else.
Bill

Gilman

Larry,
Yes, we'd like to see a picture of your setup.  It'd save you a couple thousand words.

Thanks in advance,

Gilman
WM LT70, WM 40 Super, WM  '89 40HD
Cat throwing champion 1996, 1997, 1999. (retired)

Jim_Rogers

I've been making and selling grade stakes since I got my mill in "94.

They were the reason I got my mill.
I've tried just about every method to create them that you can imagine.
Currently I'm taking lumber 1 1/8" thick as this is the standard thickness in my area. This lumber is left overs from milling up other lumber such as 2x stock for backhoe trailer planks. This lumber has been cut on one edge at least so that you have one square edge to work with.
As I was milling the 2x stock, I'd stack all the 1x stock on a set of 4x4 blocks and place some stickers in the pile to help it to stay straight and not either freeze together or stain or mold, in cold or hot weather.
Then when I get an order for some stakes, I'd transport a bundle of these leftovers over to near my shop and place each board one at a time on a set of saw horses and layout the cuts in order to determine the best total use of the boards.
I would cut 3' and 4' stake blanks from the same board if the area available would work out to do that.
What I mean is on a 10' board I'd lay out two 3' and one 4' stake blank. Then I'd cut them to length using a skil saw.
As I'd cut these blanks to length I'd stack them on pallets to be transported over to the mill for cutting into squares.
I created a bin on top of a pallet for the squares.
I have a table near the sawmill that I set the pallet of 3' blanks onto and that way I don't have to bend over to reach the blanks. These blanks are sometimes placed on the pallets with stickers between them to allow for not freezing or growing mold between them in hot weather, during storage times.
I place a set of six blanks on the mill setting them on the two center bed rails with the square edge down, of course. And I place the bin right next to the mill, with in tossing distance.
Then I clamp the six blanks with the mill clamp and cut them into squares.
As the blade passes threw the stack of blanks it creates 6 stakes. I gather these six stakes up between my two hands with three in each and toss them into the bin nearby.

When the bin is full or the pallet is empty, I transport the bin over to my pointing station.
At this station I have another set of blocks to set the bin on, again so I don't have to bend over to pick up the bottom layer as I work the pile down.
Previously I used a chop saw and a jig to cut two opposite side of each square to a point. I did this for many years.
I'd reach into the bin grab one stake and point it setting it down into a bundling frame. Once the frame was full of 25 stakes I'd bundle them with a plastic strap and a metal buckle.
And stack the finished bundles onto a trailer for delivery.
A few years ago, I saw a pointer for sale at a Logging Equipment show and it seemed like a good model and price.
After I got a new customer who wanted 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"x 8' tree stakes, which made my second tree stake customer, I bought the pointing machine. Tree stakes have to be pointed on a chop saw with four cuts.
With the pencil pointer the tree stakes go much faster.
I've been using the pointer for several years and it's very fast.
You grab a stake from the bin, inspect it for knots, splits or other bad defects, reject if necessary, and or point and then place it into the bundling frame.
I do about 8 bundles an hour. That is pointing and bundling.
I get $10 a bundle wholesale for 3' stakes, which is 40 cents each and I just found out my closest competitor is getting 49 cents each. So in the spring I'll be going up on my price.
You can buy pointing heads from the company and make your own machine or you can buy the whole machine all done.
I got the one with a gas motor so that I can use it anywhere, in my yard.
I hope this story has helped you.
Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

Engineer

Nice post, Jim, and thanks.

The place I used to get mine from, never bothered to go through them for rejects.  There's always three to five stakes in a bundle of 25 that were either already broken or had a big knot.  One whack with the hammer and SNAP.

What's the name of the company that makes the pointer?

karl

Say Jim
How much you sell those tree stakes for? If you don't mind giving out that info.

Local snowmobile club  was looking for full 2x2x 60" stakes- another mill and I both quoted $1.60 ea, bundled and delivered.  I was quoting all white ash, assume he was too.
Through negotiation he dropped his price to $1.20. What would you think the fair price would be?
"I ask for wisdom and strength, Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself"  - from Ojibwa Prayer.

Kevin_H.

Hey Jim, nice post, It's very interesting to hear how different people do there stakes.

We are doing mostly lathes stakes, 3 and 4 footers and turn out about 1000 per day.

We saw boards on the WM 1/2" thick and 3 1/2" wide by log length, the boards get cut to length as either a 36", 48" for stakes or 40" for pallet deck boards. the boards destined for the stakes get ripped in two on a old edger turned gang and then pointed on a chop saw.

sawing the 1/2" boards on the WM takes a little extra time, but we end up with better use of the boards.

Engineer I can set you up with some stakes but the shipping might be a little much ;D
Got my WM lt40g24, Setworks and debarker in oct. '97, been sawing part time ever since, Moving logs with a bobcat.

Cedarman

I have never pointed more that 4 or 500 stakes or sometimes saplings at a time so I never worried about how fast it was.
I used my WM to do the pointing.  I placed a 10 to 12 inch board on the bed of the mill. Then I placed a 5x5 cant on the board and next to the backing stakes. I sawed into the cant a couple of inches with the blade about a 1/2 plus above the board. The actual height is determined by trial and error. Then I would rake the end of the stake over the blade pulling the stake toward me at a 20 degree angle, again determined by trial and error. I would pull rotate pull rotate pull etc until 4 cuts gave me a good point. With a little practice we made good points and it seemed quick with no investment.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

Jim_Rogers

Engineer:
The company in is upstate New York- Hud-Son. I don't seem to have a link right hand to their web site, but I can find it if you like me to, just let me know.

Karl:
The 11/2"x 1 1/2" x 8' tree stake go for $2 each which figures out to $1.33 per board foot.
You have to figure your board foot price for the wood, and then add any extra for cutting it to 2" wide. Then add for pointing, by the hour.
You could do a time study on how long it takes you to point say ten and then divide the total time by ten to get an average time per unit. Then if bundled you need to add bundling time and materials.
I might sell rough sawn ash planks, mill run, that is not graded with all defects, for say 60 cents a board foot. Then add 5 cents for cutting to 2" wide as it is an extra cut, to 65 cents (2"x2"x5' / 12= 1.67 x .65 = 1.0855) material costs. So add labor for pointing and bundling and you could sell them for any where from $1.20 up to 1.60. If you deliver then you should consider that also.

Cedarman:
Years ago, I created a jig to hold 3' and 4' grade stake blanks on my sawmill at an angle. Like a row of dominoes laying down. and passed the blade threw the ends of the blanks cutting them on one side to create half of the point. Then I'd un-clamp them and flip them over and re-clamp and cut the other side of the blank. Pointing all stakes in the blank at one time. Then stack on edge and cut into squares, toss into bin and then select, inspect, and bundle finished stake from bin. It worked for a while but tied up the mill for a long time. When I had helpers it seemed to make sense that they pointed them and I made squares. Two people working on the same order in two locations using two different machines seemed to make it go faster.
Whatever method you use should be quick and easy.
Jim Rogers
Whatever you do, have fun doing it!
Woodmizer 1994 LT30HDG24 with 6' Bed Extension

karl

Thanks Jim
You explain your thoughts very well.
Good posts.

www.hud-son.com
1.5" sharpener gas or elec $1300. Head only $800.I think

karl
"I ask for wisdom and strength, Not to be superior to my brothers, but to be able to fight my greatest enemy, myself"  - from Ojibwa Prayer.

Engineer

Thanks guys for the help.

I think I may invest in the Hud-Son sharpener.  For the number of stakes I go through, and that nobody around here makes them, I bet I can make a pretty decent side business.  At least enough to pay for the sharpener over the next five to eight years.

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