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Thread: from logging to siding

  1. #31
    To Todd Burch, The old Dutch miller would call it "gerend" and that's a word not used now that refers to something like tapered, even most Dutch people don't know, either the word or the technique, all a bit lost in time it seems. Sitting in the cathedral from the thirteenth cent. last year at a concert I looked up at the ceiling there and this was the technique used only it was oak lying side-by-side across the massive ceiling beams. Very pronounced effect from that distance. Well, I knew of it before then, I even have a floor in the house salvaged from somewhere, I forget, like that and have gone to cutting and using planks that way more and more. There is less wasted wood, and as your cherry box shows you can get more from a little wood.

    Todd, I thought I would supplement this reply with this picture just found, if you catch the kitchen peninsula, as I call it there in the lower right corner, along with the door panels beneath the sink.
    Last edited by ernest dubois; 10-20-2014 at 5:07 PM. Reason: post supplementation addition

  2. #32
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    Yes, I like it. I don't know the equivalent word to "gerend", but I like it. Thanks for the picture.

    I suppose some might call the style uneducated, or inferior, or sloppy. I see it as practical and making a bold statement. For panels, I think it is perfectly suitable.

    I also like the window in that picture. Love the shelf between the upper and lower sash.

  3. #33
    Quote Originally Posted by ernest dubois View Post
    To Marc Bolton, Here I make no claims either but am just going along with your conversation and adding my perspective. Your figuring does make a certain sense and of course it all needs to be taken measure of but I don't think it gets at the whole picture, you got the costs up there but not the opportunity costs for one, that is to say while someone is out making the buck to feed into the economy you are talking about, there are things, activities that one is giving up in that process. I never have been able to make any sense of a logic that dictates spending the bulk of my time doing something maybe not even necessarily related to my interests, to facilitate my true life.
    I also differ in the whole conceptualization. This is a way of covering or completing a wall, a means of protection from the elements, that's it, not copying a certain historical style or living a fantasy. When the choice is made that it is the way to go forward than it should be done right. To draw comparisons really is not helpful. I can imagine an argument for some kind of artificial maybe even a super cheap sheeting made up from petroleum byproducts or even better, cast composite materials based on a mineralized fiber mined from deep in the ground that would even be fire proof and cheap at the box store. Can you tell me where the comparison begins? I don't know.
    Ernest,

    I made no assertion that as opposed to fabricating ones own materials they would be arbitrarily better served going out to a job and earning the money to purchase said materials and labor. Where you came up with such delusion I have no idea. If any individual sees fit to stay on their own property and their own time and make every single item to fulfill their existence that is perfectly fine with me. The point is, when something is so consummately labor intensive, AND has financial outlays which are conveniently ignored, please do not intimate that you are "saving money". Or that it "didnt cost you anything". The sawmill cost you money, and will cost you money to maintain, repair, and replace as well as operate. The chainsaw cost you money, and will cost you money to repair, maintain, and replace and operate. Band blades, sharpening. The labor to load and unload logs, stack and re-stack material, off-bear from the mill, move, clean-up, dispose of, burn, sawdust, all has a cost. Even if that labor is only your own and you have nothing to do it has a cost. They are hours you would not give to anyone else for free. So lets say we apply $3/hour to your time. At that very point, your siding, paneling, whatever, becomes some of the most expensive material on the face of the earth. And this is at an hourly rate that would have you incarcerated for if you were paying an employee. Whether we compare this material to vinyl siding (Im guessing that was one of your riddles) or Hardie siding (another riddle) is irrelevant. The simple fact of the matter is that instantaneously it becomes comparable in price, and likely far more expensive. That said, if one is accepting of the maintenance I would agree its a far better option that either of those riddles.

    The point is not that your wasting your time. I am all for it, I own a sawmill similar to the OP. I own over 100 acres of mixed timber. That said, when I saw and dry material off my property it is precious material. I know the OP gets his logs free but even at that the cost of the end product is very very high. When I mill material off my property I am forced (in my mind) to factor in the cost of the mill, the cost of the property, the cost of the tractor and associated accessories, chains, tire wear, replacement cost, and so on, of all the equipment that goes into getting the board into the door of my shop to be made into a usable end product.

    If I werent to include these I would simply, and undoubtedly, be lying to myself.

    Now I agree fully that some of the process is romance. Some of the process is fun. Some of the process is cleansing to the spirit and soul. That however doesnt mean that I am not paying hard earned money to cleanse my soul (and willing to do so). I am losing ground to "have fun". Because if I were to go out and work hard away from my property I would earn far far more dollars per hour than I ever gain making my own flooring or siding. For me personally its why I opt to try to saw choice material. Because it is very very expensive material.

    It becomes a decision of whether your personally interested in spending hours and hours working on your property to make a product you can buy with a few hours of work per week OR go out and work those few hours and spend the remainder of the time hiking in the woods, hunting wild mushrooms, hunting, swinging in a hammock, filling your fingernails, or making love to a beautiful woman. Take your pick.

    I can buy rough sawn oak for less than $300/MBF. It would take me days to fell those trees, skid them to the mill, buck them up, load them to the skid way, saw them, sticker them, off bear the slabs, burn the slabs, move them to an air drying area, move them again to the kiln, and so on. I can easily spend a single day off my property and make more than that $300. Even if it took two days it would be a win win.

  4. #34
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    Roger, I went to high school in Missoula and lived in Kalispell after graduating in the 70's.

    I think there was an old fellow in Thompson Falls that made camper shells. He retired from Boeing and made them just like an airplane fuselage. I wore out four trucks with that thing on the back and it was still in good shape when I sold it with the last truck.
    I still have friends out there in the Lincoln area but have not made it out in 7 years. Next year I hope.

    On the board and batten siding. The way I way taught was to nail the board in the center, space about a quarter, then nail or screw the batten through that gap. The theory being that the wood can move this way in either direction and the batten allows it to move but keeps out the weather. I have done some barn repair using this method and it seems to work very well at keeping the rain on the outside of the wall with almost no cracks. Could be absolutely wrong, but that is how I was taught by a wise old man.

    Larry

  5. #35
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
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    Thompson Falls, Mt
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    Hi Larry,
    When I moved to Mt. in '85, I started out in Flathead county, and Kalispell. I spent most of my time working in Lincoln, Flathead and Sanders counties. I moved from Kila area in Flathead 10 years ago, to my current 100+ year old house in T Falls. My current job takes me to Missoula routinely, and I have worked in Lincoln (the town you refer to) this last summer.

    Thanks for some more siding tips.

  6. #36
    I agree with the way you qualify the work of getting good and workable wood from the tree to… up on the wall, in this instance, I've gone through it all myself. No disagreement here, and that's really the core point. Where, as I see it, we differ is in how you distinguish the monetary side of the activity with the rest of it, "romance," "fun," "cleansing the spirit and soul", all that, as if the one were the hard cold reality in opposition to the soft, fluffy dreamy fantasy. And so you call the one way more expensive or exorbitant. But by doing that you emphasize the point, that in choosing to go for the money return and not these others, that also involved a cost, you give up the fun the romance, maybe something learned, knowledge or insight gained… What's that worth? I guess you could put a dollar figure to it if you wanted, it seems to be the mind-set of the times. On the one hand you exchange your time for the dollar waiting for the chance to get to some of that other stuff. Someone like me for example, might see that is an awfully high price to pay, and so buying the lumber good-to-go at the box store becomes the "expensive" route.

    Even I fall into the trap of this murderous language of economy sometimes.

    You get near to the way I feel about it yourself. How closely related the one is to the other which I put this way: hunting wild mushrooms, while selecting trees to fell, hiking in the woods, after felling, limbing and bucking, swinging in a hammock, on a break from milling, making love to a beautiful woman, that afternoon in the workshop. I'll choose all of the above thanks.

    I will say that making the decision at the point where we have begun, how to source your material, is a bit of a false choice and is more difficult, maybe even unrealistic, than when the choice has been already made far before that time. Here I'm talking about the matter of life-style, and not in the sense of how that gets presented by media in any way, a considered, conscious ordering of values and what it is one wants over the long haul. It gets personal doesn't it?

  7. #37
    Quote Originally Posted by Todd Burch View Post
    Yes, I like it. I don't know the equivalent word to "gerend", but I like it. Thanks for the picture.

    I suppose some might call the style uneducated, or inferior, or sloppy. I see it as practical and making a bold statement. For panels, I think it is perfectly suitable.

    I also like the window in that picture. Love the shelf between the upper and lower sash.

    Let them call it what they want then and I'll call it something old that maybe makes a kind sense.

    The windows, and jambs I have made as well called "kloosterraam", cloister window. The top window, hinged at the stile swings outward the bottom window sliding upwards, from the outside closed off with a shutter.
    Last edited by ernest dubois; 10-21-2014 at 5:33 AM.

  8. #38
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    Todd, those look great! If nothing else, it's clear they didn't come from a chain furniture store. I can imagine it was a quite a bit of work though

  9. #39
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
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    Minneapolis, MN
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    Yes, sometimes one can pay for stuff or work done and it is easier than doing it yourself, but you need to have the money to pay for it. I work a job where I am paid a fixed salary. I can't work extra hours to make a little extra money. I often do stuff that I could pay someone to do for me because I don't have the extra money to pay someone.

  10. #40
    When it comes down to it this is the boat I'm in - seeing as how I possess no such thing as a credit card.

  11. #41
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    Feb 2003
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    Chappell Hill, Texas
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    Thanks Curt. I wish I had pictures of them with the BLO and lacquer finish I used. They were awesome. I ran out of the customer's cherry and had to use a couple pieces of scrap I had laying around for the top rim. Quite noticeable. But, that was > 12 years ago, so it's probably evened out a bit by now. I saw the lady that commissioned them about a year and a half ago. I was at a rain water symposium, and ended up sitting next to her. She looked familiar, and I looked familiar to her. We finally figured out how we knew each other over lunch. She said the chests were holding up fine, and she and her nieces loved them. When she first brought the wood to me, it had active borers in it. I advised her to go find a guy with a dry kiln, cook the bugs, and bring the wood back. I never thought she would come back, but she did!

    Ernest - can you share your plans for the window? Private message is fine. (I was not able to PM you).

    Roger - you've sparked a lot of discussion! Good thread!

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