Alls Quiet on the Ozark Front

Alls Quiet on the Ozark Front

Well, not really. We've been sawing and building away. We got to use Oscar on Cedar for the first time last week. What beautiful wood and the sawdust wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Or maybe, just the wind was in my favor. And of course, we been sawing lots of pine off the property. We still need to get to working on the house, which is the reason we bought the sawmill in the first place. Oh well, all things in their time. Right now, we're exploring a lot of different things, including buying logs of species we don't have on the property.

We're getting lots of calls for us to saw wood, so that's keeping us busy most weekends. Plus our neighbor is constantly bringing down a log or two. Kevin's learned how to sharpen the bandsaw blades, so I don't think we'll run out for a long time, although we do plan to research and review many of the blades that are out there for bandsawmills.

I love all the changes Kevin's made to the mill so far. The DRO allows me to get within 20 thousandths of an inch. That's pretty cool - it takes a caliper to know that it's not exactly an inch thick, a tape measure won't do it. My favorite though is the cable drive, just a simple push of the button and the mill is cutting through logs. No more pushing the mill, no more saw lines in the wood. I can saw the logs like a slicer through cheese. Smooth and easy.

We've added on to the shed twice now and already see another additon on the western side in the very near future. We've been building some pretty cool furniture out of the pine we cut on the mill. For those interested go to the Lo Gap website and click on the furniture link. I've also begun carving, especially those blocks of wood that would normally be waste from building things. So far, I haven't done anything spectacular, but have spent a minor fortune on knives and chisels. I just wish I could find a basswood tree (American Linden), buying blanks from suppliers is way too expensive for my tastes.

Kevin will be back soon with new articles, as you readers already know, he's the technical brains behind this project. Me, I'm just the button pusher now.