Anybody figure out what I did wrong the other day?

 

Everything else seems to dissolve or be thinned with mineral spirits…why not shellac flakes?? Got some turning over there at right you were planning on sharing?

 

still hoping to fix that Craftsman planer...

When we last left off 116 days ago, my planer had a blown bearing. It was an effort of monumental proportions to disassemble the thing to get to it, taking several days spread over weeks or months - whenever I had time and motivation to figure out how to get deeper into it. Removing the bearing showed the shaft had been peened to fit the bearing, and several people suggested that that was what caused the failure. Peened shafts are likely not concentrically aligned with the bearing, and at the high speeds and vibrations at which planers operate, it probably just shook the bearing apart.

I've been unemployed for over 5 months now, money steadily draining away, so I've not been able to get a new planer, nor order about $90 in parts for this thing. I did order the $4 replacement bearing, however. Then I tried to rig up something with holes drilled in large blocks of wood and several Bessey K-Body clamps. That didn't work at all. You really need a hydraulic press for this, especially with the rough, peened shaft. I tried tapping it on with a hammer, but soon it was wedged tightly enough that I had to break out the gear puller again to get it free, and it looked like I bent the side up a bit, so that was over. I shelved it all in frustration again for months.

Recently I got it in me again to give it a go. I walked to the hardware store, which didn't have any bearings of that shape, as figured. I took a look at the replacement bearing - the side was a little bent, but that was only the cap. The bearing still rolled smoothly and in-plane. Maybe I could try it once more. I did, and it failed again. I repeat, it's not possible to put a very tight bearing on a shaft without proper press equipment.

I decided to call Craftsman and relate my troubles. Their improper build likely caused the trouble. The planer is years old now, but has only been used less than 10 hours in all that time. I haven't planed much at all, mostly because it's the loudest tool I own by far, and I live in a tiny neighborhood and seem to only find free time late at night. I told the customer support lady that any help she could offer would be appreciated, as I've been out of work almost half a year, and can't afford a new planer, and even getting the parts replaced is rough. I asked if there was a way to get the cutterhead with the bearings already in place. There wasn't. She basically had no alternatives for me, and there was a lot of silence on her end of the phone, as she had no idea what to do for me. She kept trying to push me to buy the 3 parts - bearings and cutterhead - 'just so I'd have them' if I figured out a way to get the bearings pressed on.

In the end I told her I'd have to think about it, as this was a big purchase now with how little money I have remaining, and she said "I understand, and I wanted to let you know that we have a really good offer today on new siding for your home. Would you be interested in that?" There was a really long pause as I tried to comprehend what had just happened. I just told her I'm flat broke and needed some help getting this jalopy of a tool back in order, and she offered nothing but "Oh well, nothing I can do," and then rubbed it in by trying to sell me something very expensive and completely unrelated. I finally broke the silence and said "I'm completely broke, remember?" She still didn't give up. "So… does that mean your not interested in the siding?"

Sigh…

Customer support ain't what it used to be. I might get the parts and find a local machine shop to press them together for me, because $95 is a lot less than $400-$500, which is what this and the newer models cost new, but I'm done with Craftsman. I've had other problems with them in the past. It's funny how badly one customer support rep can tarnish a company, but she sure did it. I'm even too angered to consider shopping at Sears again, and I won't be recommending either to anyone.

 

You sound a little like Alice in Wonderland Gary. I always say that the larger an enterprise is the dumber they are.

 

several near misses

I have not been lucking out timing-wise these last few days. I used a $50 gift card to Rockler from my aunt from Christmas last week, but I guess I ordered too late in the week, so I haven't yet gotten the stuff that would have helped this weekend.

Taking some advice commented to my last post (and wanting to try the heat/freeze and light sanding method combination), I actually tracked down a local bearing shop not too far away. I had looked before and found nothing but wholesalers and other places that couldn't help. This guy had a few of the bearings with the exact measurements I needed, all 'motor grade,' and used in cars, so he said to come by and take a look. He said he closes at 5 to 1, which I at first thought meant he was open from 5AM to 1PM, but then realized he meant he closes sharp at 12:55PM. Curious. I'd already been working for hours in the garage, and so planned things out so I could accomplish a few more things out there while still stinky, then shower up and have a half hour to get to his place. It wasn't that far away.

I completely neglected to factor in LA traffic, however, and hit light after light, got stuck behind 5MPH trucks, trapped for minutes in a few separate construction areas (one erecting a massive metal street light with a crane reaching over the lanes of traffic!), and even had to weave back and forth into parking spaces 5 times to let other cars by in just the final 3 blocks to his building on his street, because it was one of those narrow roads with cars parked on both sides in an industrial area with lots of business traffic. So frustrating. Long story short, I got there at 12:50PM, about 20 minutes later than I expected. He had locked up and was loading his car. He remembered me, but said "I can't let you in. The alarm sets itself at 1PM." Ah ha! Mystery solved. Still weird, though. As he looked at me, a loud bell went off over his building. "See? That's the alarm. I can't go back in." I wondered what he did if a customer lingered too long. Sleep over in the store with them until morning? I told him I'd see him Monday, when he's again open 8AM-12:50ishPM. Another 35 minutes to go 10 miles home again with no prize.

And finally, craigslist. I scour for things like lumber, logs, trees, wood, and so on often enough. Most things are way too far away to be worth the round trip, as here on the west side there isn't much tree-felling. Once in awhile I've found some halfway decent things to play with, like a pile of like-new pine 1x lumber, and those enormous eucalyptus logs (largest 234lbs!). One thing I've really been wanting to get my hands on is California pepper (Schinus molle). I've seen some turnings online, and they're very pretty. I recently ID'd them in my neighborhood, and now that I know them I see them everywhere.

The trunks are large, warm brown and beautiful, often full of burls. The long, hanging, opposite compound leaves smell like pepper when crushed up, and they create the pink variety of peppercorns, which are edible and used in cooking, either by themselves or mixed with regular peppercorns. I've been thinking it would be cool to strike when the scores of peppercorns appear, collecting and drying them out, then get myself a small branch from the same tree and turn a peppermill, fill it with its own pink peppercorns, and present it as a gift to someone (probably my gourmet parents).

Anyway, the other night, while trawling craigslist again before going to bed, I found a full, slabbed tree, all planks 5" thick, and in the 2'x10' area. That's 100BF, and he was just giving it away! He was also in S. Pasadena, not too far away at all - 20 minute drive, maybe. I called early the next morning, and he said someone was already hauling it away. Siiiigh… Oh, the things I could've made. I've never seen anyone giving away slabs in the year I've been looking, and especially not a wood I particularly wanted to try. I just hope it was a woodworker who grabbed it, and not one of the horde of people always scrounging for firewood. I'd prefer to give them a truckload of my crappy ficus logs as trade for pretty, 5" thick slabs.

Oh well. At least I'm getting good things done in the garage, and Monday I'll be picking up a couple of bearings, and probably getting the light-sanding (to knock down the peening and remove nicks) + heat/freeze method to work (crossing my fingers). I remain hopeful. The Rockler box will probably show up on Monday, too, and then I'll have WAY too much to do all at once

 

A day late huh well better hunting what you want than being hunted

 

I got the new bearing in place!

I lamented last week that I just missed the closing time at the local bearing shop. I got there yesterday nice and early and they not only had the right bearings, but bearings with the exact same set of numbers stamped on the side. That gave me some confidence, even though the race covers looked a bit different. The man told me they were from their higher quality line of bearings, and here's hoping. They were $10/ea., whereas Sears' version were $4/ea., but I was happy to just get them now, sans-shipping and waiting. I really want the planer back ASAP.

I put the whole shaft in the freezer for about 15 minutes, and dropped the bearing on a cast iron skillet on my gas stove. It lives there, and is always very warm from the pilot. I ended up with a cast aluminum cutterhead so cold I could barely hold it, and slippery from all the condensation from the warm spring air. The guy at the bearing place had recommended using a socket to tap it on. I thought it was a great idea. I had a box of various long sizes to fit over the long shaft and way down to the center part of the bearing. The problem last time was that the hole I drilled in the wood was too large, and was putting its force on the race cover and outer part of the bearing, bending it up as I hammered on it.

It was sliding on well, then stopped. The bore had narrowed in the socket, and now that was wedged on the shaft. I had to grip the socket in a vise, then pick up the shaft while tapping on the socket for awhile until the vise and socket fell away. The next size up worked, but stopped about 1/16" from fully on. I had bottomed out. The shaft was flush with the socket top. I just added another socket on top of that, and tapped it home.

The bearing feels a bit sluggish. The other one rolls quite freely, but this one feels like the oil is thick inside. I'm just going to have to go with it. Here's hoping! I began to reassemble the planer yesterday. It took hours, and I'm still not done. There are so many pieces, so much grease, and so many parts I didn't really understand when disassembling it a full 120 days prior. I labored over installing the two rollers that grip and pull material through, using a stick as a wedge to push them up and hold springs in place above them while carefully installing the metal covers to hold them in place with 2 screws each, only to find I'd gotten them switched. It was a lot easier the second time, but still a lot of work. I'm definitely not built to be an auto mechanic, and that's exactly what this felt like.

The highlight of the day was getting the 4 lift mechanisms screwed back into the top so I can now crank it up and down again. I was worried about that step, but it turned out to be one of the easier bits to get back together. There's slop in the 8 screws that mount the head to the mechanisms on their threaded rods, and getting one corner in didn't mean I could get another corner in without raising or lowering the mechanism a few turns, so I'm concerned I'll have perhaps up to 0.01" difference from one side to the other, but I think after testing, if I find that, it'll be easy enough to pop the cover, unscrew the offending corner, crank the handle one way or the other, and retighten, then test and repeat until it's perfect. I'm far more concerned about the new bearing holding up.

Craftsman added absolutely no ability to easily remove belts, and they're the super rigid v-grooved timing belts that absolutely do not stretch. There are no loosen-able bits that allow tipping something one way or another, and no take-up wheels. You just have to roll the wheels while forcing the belts on, one groove at a time, hearing it click into place after each groove-hop. I pinched my fingers pretty well a few times.

I'm now down to more fiddly bits, like the pulley and belt for the fan, adjustment knobs, the slotted wheel for the digital readout's optical measuring of heights, the battery and LCD compartment, and unfortunately, at least a handful of screws, washers, and bushings that don't remind me of anything. Hopefully I find a home for all of them, but if my history with everything I've ever taken apart and reassembled holds true, I'll finish up with a small assortment of screws I can't place, but that don't seem to affect the function of the device.

I'll keep you posted, and wish me luck! Oh, and thanks for the support, everyone. If this thing is actually fixed, I think I might decide to go out dancing for the first time ever. Here's where I left off last night:

 

Like you said- Where there's a will, there's a way!!

Good Luck, Gary!!

Lew

 

I just planed a board

It all sounded pretty normal. The first attempt was met with a lot of knocking. Perhaps I had it too low. Hitting stop, raising it, and trying again worked fine, though there were a few slightly raised lines, about 1/4+ wide. I must have chipped the blades slightly. No matter - I can flip them around to the new edges, and I have another pack waiting if I need them.

It does look like there's a slight difference between left and right sides, but I'm talking something like 1/64" or less. The board I ran was only a 1×4, and it came out 9/16" on 3 corners, and less than a paper's width under that on the last corner, which could just be snipe-related.

I'm pretty excited, though it's tempered by a bit of exhaustion, both mental and physical. This was stressful. Turning it on for the first time was a heart-stopping moment. I wasn't sure if it would work it all, and I wasn't sure if it would shoot gears at me. In the end, I had only a washer left over unaccounted for. Most of the screws and washers were evident either by quantity, or by the scratches left over on things where they'd bin. Match up the scratch diameter, and you have the screw, or washer. Match up the number of like places that need a screw with the number of like screws that match the scratches, and it's obvious what goes where. I had to consult my manual - in the filing cabinet under "shop manuals" (at least one thing is organized) to figure out where a spring-loaded catch went, but that was easy to fit. One part I actually figured out again by the red filings under its flange. It had been screwed through the thing with the red enamel coat

A lot of things fit together so snugly they required the heat/cool method, light sanding with high-grit sandpaper, and using things like clamps and wedges to urge into their holes. It was quite an undertaking, and one of the more involved things I've ever done in my shop. Now I only hope the bearing holds up for some length of time, unlike the last one.

Thanks again, all, for your support through these troubled times. Now let's all make something!

 

Ahh, success- what a great feeling.

Finding/remembering where all of these screws/fasteners go after tearing something apart has begun to elude my as I get older. I was subbing in Computer Tech one day and mentioned how I had trouble remembering where all the lap top screws went. A student said- "why don't you just take a picture of it with your digital camera". Out of the mouths of babes…..

Lew

 

the back yard fence saga

It sure feels like everything is falling apart this year. There was the planer and its bearings. Too, more than ever I'm wearing out shoes and clothes. I've gotten wood glue or finishes on and holes in so many shirts now, and had 3 pairs of jeans become for lack of a better word 'dry rotten,' each ending up with tears more than a foot long. The dryer broke… again (washer broke last year - the bottom rusted out and after filling, it popped and dumped water all over the floor). My office chair back has broken, so I can't lean back anymore. The bathtub faucet has begun to drip all the time. My outdoor/working sneakers have large holes in them, and the insides are all torn up. Granted I've been wearing them all day every day for years now, and I do hard things like loading my truck full of 150lbs+ logs often enough, so that's expected of simple running shoes, but it's just the timing.

Everything is breaking this year. My miter saw is making a terrible grinding noise and I can't use it anymore until I figure out what's going on inside it. I'm pretty sure it just needs to be replaced. It's just a cheap Ryobi and it's taken some really bad hits, like when it pulled that round log sideways and pushed its own protective cover into the blade, chewing itself up badly and jamming to a halt. I had to disassemble a lot of it to fix it that time. No idea what's making the noise now, and the motor brushes seem fine. Several of my hand saws have slipped and hit metal things, knocking off teeth, and at least one of them isn't usable anymore. I don't recall this many things falling apart in so short a time before. There's a general, overall degradation of things, too. Things just seem to be deteriorating. I've noticed that the siding all around the house and garage is starting to fall apart, especially around the bottom. There's a 1' hole in the wooden slats with insulation spilling out near the garage door. I think it's been hit too many times by the gardener's weed-whacker. I've been in there several times when he's hit it, and it always makes me jump. Because of the digging up of the front yard for the sewer line install, the front yard looks like a war zone, and the grass is taking its time bothering to cover back over any of it (the weeds are having fun, though). It goes like this everywhere. The whole place is just aging rapidly. We have had a lot more rain and high winds than usual this year. Perhaps that's part of it.

Anyway, on to the fence saga - another thing that fell apart.

Before I knew what was going on, the morning glories in the back yard had moved from the trellis to the small back yard gate's fence and pulled the trellis over. Too, they went in the back window (my bedroom), and somehow managed to sneakily invade the bedroom without me noticing for a month. I tend to just go in and fall into bed, wake up and leave. That room is only for sleeping. Still, it shocked me when I found the vines had come in behind the thick, floor-length curtains, crossed the floor, and wrapped themselves 3 times around a piece of rolling luggage before going into my closet (one I never use), and up through all of my old clothes I don't wear, through the sleeves, wrapping around the hangers and hanger rod. I finally noticed one day when I happened to look up when going into my room and saw a wide spray of vines coming over the top of the curtain rod and heading toward the bed across the ceiling, literally hanging out over the room about 2' from the wall. It scared the life out of me. Here's a shot of the back yard, with the vines clearly having infiltrated my bedroom:



Not only did they do that, but they kept trying to go around the fence to the right there and head toward my wood racks, and they did go all the way around the other way, across the cement patio, and to my back door. I swear they weren't there one week, and then I opened the door one day and they were 3' from the door. They were at least 15', maybe 20' from their base. They also went along the wall, behind outdoor plastic storage closets, then through cracks and all up through those. I opened one of them one day to get something after weeks of not looking in only to find the whole thing full of vines that spilled out at me. They also passed by those and went up into my water heater's metal enclosure. They had surrounded all of the pipes and hoses and fittings in there. I had to carefully clip them all out. Most recently they decided to push up under the siding on the back of the house, and there was no pulling them out. I just had to cut them right where they entered. They really anchor themselves. I'd have to tear off the siding to get the parts that made it inside. I'd had enough, and went to work one day last week:



I admit I may once or twice have screamed "Die, you foul monster!" while hacking away for an hour with a hatchet. I had to be careful pulling them free from the electrical box. They were extra tightly wrapped all around that. I suppose they liked that sweet electrical juice. I still at that point had to clean out the bedroom itself, so leaves remain in the windows. I also learned I'm a bit allergic to morning glory dust. The flowers and vines keep covering over themselves, building up a huge pile of debris that basically flakes away into dust. Hacking into that released mighty plumes that blew all around the area, covering me and making my eyes burn and my skin itch mightily.

Here's the mass that had made it over the small fence:



It took 2 weeks to get rid of it, as only half would fit in the green waste bin at a time:



The cat definitely approved of the new, clean area, but note the poor condition of the fence:





From the other side - the fence was previously covered in more than a foot of vines piled on top of each other:



The fence had become really wobbly. The vines had been holding it up rather securely. Today I was in and out to the garage all day, and then at one point I headed back out to find this:





It really underscored for me the whole "everything is falling apart" feeling I've been having lately. The bottom of the posts had rotted away:



I had just earlier in the day picked up this Stanley 55 - 040 nail claw / chisel for helping with reclaimed lumber:



It helped me make pretty short work of the whole thing:





I was going to keep them, plane them, and make something out of them, but these things are toast. Just trying to pry them loose caused them to crack along their lengths far too easily. Much of the wood could be scraped away easily with a fingernail. They were all completely dry rotted, with no real structure left to them, so I dumped them out by the road. It's trash day. Someone will come along and use them for firewood.

I swept up, and now if I'm to be honest, I rather like this a lot better. I've always been one for closed-in spaces, low ceilings, small rooms, lots of fences. I'm kind of a natural mole. However, I love being able to see my 'xylarium' (wood racks) easily from the back yard. I'll love not banging into the fence all the time with a shoulder, planks, green waste bin, or furniture dolly dragging logs around.



Too, I've long wanted to tear out this ratty old fence and build one that can be easily lifted out so one day I could get my expensive wood shed rolled out whenever I move. I think once the log racks are out of there (hopefully not in the too near future), it will fit. I should one day mock up a 1×2 frame and see if my friends and I can snake it out of there between the house and garage without getting wedged.



I guess that's the secret - look for the positives. My shoes aren't falling apart. They're finally falling apart after a very good run through probably 2 or 3 years of hard labor. My chair broke, but clearly I have a lot of weight to lose. It's just trying to urge me back the treadmill The dryer, though a pain, was actually kind of fun to fix. There are positives to most of it.

 

Feel your pain and joy Gary. My house is a fixer upper and have had to deal with the breaks. I posted a roofing project on homerefurbishers that a buddy and I completed last summer. Big mess and nearly made me cry when it was finally completed.

As far as jeans go, if you have a Tractor Supply Company store where you live, pick up some of the CE Schmidt jeans they have there. They are economical and tough as nails. I was ripping out so many jeans around here I refused to buy new ones. I picked up two pair a few months ago and haven't torn a hole yet, which is like a guiness record for me.

Good luck with the projects, looking great so far.

David

 

fixing my dryer's tensioner

I mentioned my broken dryer in my last post. It's not woodworking, but it's 'making,' and I thought it might be of mild interest here.

So a few months ago I heard a loud bang while doing laundry and soon realized the dryer was no longer spinning. The motor was running, but the belt had popped. Not knowing how to access anything, I must have spent an hour fighting it away from the wall and digging through internals, unscrewing panel after panel, hitting dead ends, before realizing you can just forcefully pull away the bottom front panel to get to where I needed to be. The tensioner was something of a tavern puzzle to me, and must have taken 15 minutes that first time to comprehend and get refitted.

Flash forward to this week, another bang revealed the tensioner had popped again. It had been riding rough ever since the previous fix, and this time, finding the pieces sprinkled around the inside, I was unable to get them all back together. I decided the brass bushing in the plastic tensioner wheel had ground away on one side, creating a conical through-hole that no longer fit the axle, the pegs on each side of which too no longer well fit the bracket holes. I'd have to build something.

I used a gear puller to press out the worn central brass bushing from the plastic tensioner wheel. I found some aluminum rod in my collection that was slightly wider and turned it down to fit very snugly. I drilled a small through hole and eventually found some thin brass rod to fit through that to act as an axle. Brass wears nicely, so I figured that would do it. The pin was just wider than the bracket holes, so I hammered on them to 'smoosh' the brass into the holes, which worked, but also bent up the rod inside the new aluminum bushing, making it spin terribly on the brass pin. It also peened out the brass on each end, locking the whole thing together with the bracket pressed tightly against the wheel sides, so it didn't spin well at all. I fit it and the wheel wouldn't spin. I drilled out the brass pin and hammered it free of the aluminum bushing. I fit another length and had it working great, then one tap to lock the brass made it all seize up again. I sort of had it working, but the central hole hadn't been drilled concentrically from one end to the other, so the wheel was bouncing back and forth on one side so loudly I had to immediately turn the machine off in disgust. It would tear itself apart. I gave up for the day.

Today, renewed by sleep, I went at it again with a new idea. I had peened the aluminum bushing I'd made so it would stay in place in the plastic wheel when hammered in - something I learned from the peening on my planer's cutterhead shaft. I had to use the gear puller to get that back out, as even a hammer and rod wouldn't budge it. That's actually good, as I wanted that part locked to the plastic wheel. I decided today to walk to the hardware store and pick up some nesting tubes and just build up the bushing in the middle. I got a handful of nesting brass tube, as well as a small stainless steel tube, and stainless pin that would fit in that and seemed about the right size to work as an axle through the bracket's holes.

At home I found several brass tubes in a bin that were the same as what I'd bought, and realized I hadn't gotten tubes up to the size of the plastic wheel's through-hole. No matter. I chucked the aluminum bushing in the lathe, used a Sorby micro tool holder and largish drill bit to manually drill a hole through the middle, large enough to get the lathe's internal turning tool in there, then turned it up to the OD of one of the nesting brass tubes. I cut that tube to length, then another brass tube for inside of that. Now I was down to the stainless steel tube size and used a pipe cutter to cut that - harder than brass, but it worked pretty fast. Then it wast the stainless pin's turn. I marked it a bit wider so I could trim down the sides' ODs to fit the bracket holes, and gave up when the pipe cutter wouldn't get through it. I cut it with a Dremel with cutoff disc, cleaned up the cut in the lathe, then turned the ends down a bit to fit the bracket holes. It all went together well, and because of all of the nesting tubes, and slippery brass, it spun beautifully. Fitting it all back together, the dryer made very little noise - back on par with how it was when I first moved in a few years ago. I did 3 loads of laundry.

Here's a shot of the mess following the making of the whole thing this morning:



Here are the nesting pieces, and note the aluminum bushing I made that's pressed tightly into the plastic wheel:



Closeup - the shoulder of the little dovetailed end is normally flush with the rest of the nested tubing ends, but is being pushed up by the surface upon which the wheel rests:



Everything fitted together, ready for reinstallation in the dryer:



Back in the (old, internally filthy) dryer, it works!!!

 

niice saved
and I´m with you
this year everything´s
seems to fall apart
even my own body
had said stop for a while :-(
but at least I can enjoy
being on L J

 

Chinese elm logs and the forces of nature

After picking up the Chinese elm logs the other day, I noticed hours later they were rapidly beginning to check. I headed out a few hours after that to seal them up, and of course, a few hours later it was raining. The not-yet-dry Anchorseal began to wash away:



http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4023/4493339551_7775c9954e.jpg" title="Anchorseal running off logs in
rain" alt="Anchorseal running off logs in
rain

My truck bed ran white with wax:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2741/4493989854_d4c41b35ee.jpg" title="Anchorseal running off logs in
rain" alt="Anchorseal running off logs in
rain

And so did my driveway:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4004/4493981966_322eafac34.jpg" title="Anchorseal runoff from logs in
rain" alt="Anchorseal runoff from logs in
rain

The following day I moved the pieces to the back yard, shortly before it began to rain again. I put them under the Hollywood junipers, where the thick foliage from the trees had left dry spots:



Here's my foot for some scale:



Then it began to rain really hard, causing me to run all around the front and back yard trying to move recently collected wood to dry places in the garage and under the house's rather large eaves. There are no gutters, so of course by the end of this effort, especially in the uncharacteristically (for LA) hard rain, I was completely soaked with dirty, LA smog-infused (and roof grime runoff-injected) water:



That's actually the moment right there that I decided I no longer love the rain. I used to kick off my shoes and socks and go out and run around in it. I even once had a similarly rainstruck girlfriend, and some of our most fun moments were when we were frolicking in the daily torrential downpours of Sarasota, FL. I've loved rain more than any other weather my whole life, especially powerful thunderstorms and mild hurricanes. I think that's over now, though. As I'm aging, and as I'm needing dry conditions outside more and more, I'm really losing that old magic. I finally understand what all the rain-haters out there have been feeling. I guess I still like the rain itself, but it really clashes with a less hippyish and more productive lifestyle

Speaking of, today I headed out early - 8AM - to see about ripping these short, fat logs into turning blanks, or at least something I could get onto my band saw. Here's the mess after quartering the largest log, and halving one of the smaller ones:





Here's a peek inside one of the small logs:



Then halfway through the next of the 2 small, round logs, my cheap Homelite 16" electric chainsaw started revving without spinning the chain anymore. I checked inside and played with the chain and gear wheel, reassembled it, and it worked again for a short while. It happened again, and I figured it was just a safety mechanism to prevent injury to the machine or the user. I was making a hard cut, after all. I looked for some kind of tripped switch, found none, and eventually felt like I'd figured out I could just push the chain to reengage it. It kept working, but it also kept tripping more and more, after shorter and shorter useful periods. Not long after that, unfortunately, I lost all ability to spin the chain anymore.

Here's a video of the first cut through the largest of the logs - 5 minutes of fighting over a few separate takes. I removed the end guard at some point for extra space. Included in the video is the trouble beginning while cutting the second of the small logs, with several attempted restarts, followed by the end of the chainsaw's life:

It turned out that I'd stripped the plastic 3" internal gear, part of the planetary gear system that drives the chain:



The gear box is full of shredded black plastic:



Look at the teeth inside the 3" internal gear here, and note that their front halves are entirely gone, shredded to nearly their base



It's quite clear to me now that I need a decent quality gas-powered chainsaw with at least a 20" bar for the things I do. 16" is just too short, and electric is such a hassle. I thought gas would be the pain, but having to look for a plug, having to watch that I don't cut the cord, and the overall shoddy, plastic makeup of these things makes it ridiculous. I had to ask one guy if he had a plug anywhere near the logs in a craigslist ad that I ultimately gave up on, and he said if I had a 200' cord, I could run it from his house. It's not worth it.

Well, at least I got these pieces cut and sealed. They were all sized to about the limit of my lathe, and will definitely push it to its limit with how heavy they are:



Here's my hand on one of the smaller pieces for some scale:



I really slathered on the Anchorseal. In an hour or so they were dry, and I flipped them and did the other sides. I want these pieces to work, and not end up checked terribly like so many other logs I've brought home. That was why I wanted to cut these up soon. The smaller chunks of trees are much less prone to check than short logs left in the round. There are so many more forces acting on every cubic inch in an entire log, both radial and concentric.

These are all pith free, or the pith is on the edge, ready to be turned away. That should aid in keeping them from splitting. I'd also like to not leave these for months and months, but get to them in the coming weeks. I might buck some into shorter pieces for bowls or plates. Oh, and if anyone was curious, I counted the rings of the largest remaining log tonight. It was a little hard to follow them in some places - they're not super pronounced in the wax-covered end, and they wiggle all over from fat to thin as they trace their way around the pith - but the number puts this tree somewhere between 45 and 50 years old.

 

It looks like you have some beautiful wood in those logs.

I'm eager to see some turnings from it.

 

Oh the humanitrees!

No throwing your wrapping lines while under the power lines!

http://docs.google.com/View?id=df8s28k6_8cjcsb7fn

 

One word sums it up OUCH

boy did he screw up and we worry about typos and small errors on our job!!!!
what possesed him to try that did his load start to shift?
just glad he did not get hurt to bad